It was launched in February 2009 at a global meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and initiated by the Malaysian Muslim feminist group Sisters in Islam. The movement was a transnational response to the equally transnational problem of the use of Islam to resist women's demands for equality. Musawah comprises NGOs, activists, scholars, legal practitioners and policymakers across the globe and approaches gender equality in the Muslim family along three axes: knowledge-building, capacity-building and international advocacy. Musawah starts from the premise that equality is a founding principle of Islam, and gender equality is therefore in line with Islam, rather than opposed to it.