Gender And Islam In Africa

Gender and Islam in Africa examines ways in which women in Africa are interpreting traditional Islamic concepts in order to empower themselves and their societies. African women, it argues, have promoted the ideals and practices of equality, human rights, and democracy within the framework of Islamic thought, challenging conventional conceptualizations of the religion as gender-constricted and patriarchal. The contributors come from the fields of history, anthropology, linguistics, gender studies, religious studies, and law. Their depictions of African women's interpreting and reinterpreting of Islam go back into the nineteenth century and up to today, including analyses of how cultural media such as popular song and film can communicate new gender roles in terms of sexuality and direct examinations of religious and religiously based family law and efforts to reform them.

Islam in Africa South of the Sahara: Essays in Gender Relations and Political Reform draws together contributions from scholars that focus on changes taking place in the practice of the religion and their effects on the political terrain and civil society. Contributors explore the dramatic changes in gender relations within Islam on the continent, occasioned in part by the events of 9/11 and the response of various Islamic states to growing negative media coverage. These explorations of the dynamics of religious change, reconfigured gender relations, and political reform consider not only the role of state authorities but the impact of ordinary Muslim women who have taken to challenging the surbodinate role assigned to them in Islam. Essays are far-ranging in their scope as the future of Islam in sub-Saharan Africa falls under the microscope, with contributing addressing such topics as the Islamic view of the historic Arab enslavement of Africans and colonialist ventures; studies of gender politics in Gambia, northern Nigeria, and Ghana; surveys of the impact of Sharia law in Nigeria and Sudan; the political role of Islam in Somalia, South Africa, and African diaspora communities. Islam in Africa South of the Sahara is an ideal reader for students and scholars of international politics, comparative theology, race and ethnicity, comparative sociology, African and Islamic studies.

In Islam and Gender in Colonial Northeast Africa, Silvia Bruzzi provides a social history of the colonial encounter across the Red Sea and the Mediterranean region during the life and times of Sittī ‘Alawiyya (1892-1940), the ‘Uncrowned Queen’ of Eritrea.

Are women in North Africa and the Middle East 'feminist'? Or is being a Muslim incompatible with feminism? Is there such a thing as 'Islamic feminism'? Through interviews with Moroccan activists and jurists - both male and female - and by situating these interviews within their socio-political and economic contexts, Doris Gray addresses these questions. By doing so, she attempts to move beyond the simple bifurcation of 'feminist' and 'Islamist' to look at the many facets of internal gender discourse within one Muslim country, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the discussion on women's rights in the Muslim world in general. By marking out a 'third way' that looks beyond 'feminism' and 'Islamism', Gray presents religion and faith not as blocking gender equality but as a source of inspiration to explore new ways of conceiving modernity. While Western models are taken into consideration, within Morocco the men and women involved in this 'third way' of understanding gender and equality inevitably negotiate internal tensions between what has been dubbed 'tradition' and 'modernity', thus incorporating national and cultural identity, post-colonialism and religious principles into their gender discourse. Examining issues such as gender equality, gender justice, abortion and gay rights, Gray explores the nexus of gender, religion and democracy in modern Morocco, and the ways in which different groups understand these ideas. Many of the world's pressing twenty-first century problems are embodied within Morocco's borders:tensions between the West and the Muslim world, minority rights, migration, the role of religion in a modern society and the issue this book is chiefly concerned with - women's rights. The status and the role of women is one of the most hotly debated topics throughout the Middle East and North Africa, and this is particularly visible through this discussion of what it means to engage with and promote feminist thought and actions in the region.

In the small town of Dogondoutchi, Niger, Malam Awal, a charismatic Sufi preacher, was recruited by local Muslim leaders to denounce the practices of reformist Muslims. Malam Awal's message has been viewed as a mixed blessing by Muslim women who have seen new definitions of Islam and Muslim practice impact their place and role in society. This study follows the career of Malam Awal and documents the engagement of women in the religious debates that are refashioning their everyday lives. Adeline Masquelier reveals how these women have had to define Islam on their own terms, especially as a practice that governs education, participation in prayer, domestic activities, wedding customs, and who wears the veil and how. Masquelier's richly detailed narrative presents new understandings of what it means to be a Muslim woman in Africa today.

Bringing together cutting-edge research from a range of disciplines, this handbook argues that despite often being overlooked or treated as marginal, the study of Islam from an African context is integral to the broader Muslim world. Challenging the portrayal of African Muslims as passive recipients of religious impetuses arriving from the outside, this book shows how the continent has been a site for the development of rich Islamic scholarship and religious discourses. Over the course of the book, the contributors reflect on: The history and infrastructure of Islam in Africa Politics and Islamic reform Gender, youth, and everyday life for African Muslims New technologies, media, and popular culture. Written by leading scholars in the field, the contributions examine the connections between Islam and broader sociopolitical developments across the continent, demonstrating the important role of religion in the everyday lives of Africans. This book is an important and timely contribution to a subject that is often diffusely studied, and will be of interest to researchers across religious studies, African studies, politics, and sociology.

Does religion shape society less or more than society shapes it? Less, according to this solidly researched study of the comparative status of Muslim women in northern Nigeria and Senegal. Historically and geographically less exposed to Western influences than Senegal, northern Nigeria today secludes women and bars them from public life, whereas Senegalese social and religious norms are less discriminatory. In Senegal, Muslim women have achieved at least a toehold in the modern sector, and a feminist agenda is supported by a nascent women's movement. By contrast, in northern Nigeria (where women were denied the vote until 1976 and today less than one percent attend universities today), patriarchy and social conservatism are so pervasive that women's only hope of advancement, the authors argue, lies in promoting gender equality as a matter of reform within Islamic law, or sharia. Muslim fundamentalists, who use different interpretations of sharia to justify their opposition to equality, are striving in both countries to roll back even the minor gains of Muslim women; But here again, the authors predict, the greater openness of Senegal to modern economic and social influences (as well as the buffer against fundamentalism provided by Muslim brotherhoods) make Senegal less likely than northern Nigeria to be swept by fundamentalist reaction. -- Reviewed by By Gail M. Gerhart (July/August 1995) from http://www.foreignaffairs.com (Nov. 16, 2011).

The Politics of Gender and the Culture of Sexuality outlines theories of gender within the intellectual paradigm of the triple heritage: Islam, Africanity, and the West. This book describes the impact of individual contexts and politics on meanings attributed to the human body. The Politics of Gender and the Culture of Sexuality explores how men and women relate to each other in monogamous and polygamous marriage, race rivalries, slavery, miscegenation, cultures of procreation, family planning, and the Islamic view of women’s dignity vis-à-vis the Western view of women’s liberty. In doing so, the author and editor present a multifaceted and dynamic theoretical discourse of gender.