This was at a meeting in Batu Pahat when seven Umno founders from Johor Bahru met Datuk Onn Jaafar to call for a unification of all the disparate Malay nationalist groups at the time.

One day, she discovered on a chance visit to the school staff room that, against her name, a frowning teacher had scribbled: "Too high spirited, too playful, too talkative, too naughty."

She was responsible for building the NGO from a small organisation to a global one and is invited to give talks all over the world.

Eventually, Sisters in Islam's areas of work expanded to encompass larger issues of democracy, human rights and constitutionalism.

Islam is just.Aghast at what was being taught in the ceramahs, the founding sisters turned to the Quran to find out for themselves what the verses say, as opposed to various interpretations.

Through its forums and education programmes, Sisters in Islam has shown that the concerns of Muslim women are "not the monopoly of religious scholars.

The organisation has exposed the diversity of interpretations of Islam, and through its research and discussions with local and international authorities, sifted through these to determine "which opinions we want to follow and codify".

On the plus side, some of the more liberal mufti (chief clergy in respective states) have addressed Sisters in Islam seminars.

Purdah-clad women from Iran who listened incredulously to Malaysian Muslim officialdom defend polygamy, found common ground with Sisters in Islam on this issue.

She concurrently serves as project director for the global movement for justice and equality in the Muslim family that was started by Sisters in Islam.

Anwar was also questioned by the legal prosecution division of the Criminal Investigations Department on Sisters in Islam's stand on the issue.

She has delivered the keynote address on Islam, Human Rights, and Activism at Harvard University on 8 April 2008.