Women & Islamic Cultures Family, Law and Politics

maintains a chronicle of violence against Pakistani
women, is secular and is not used by her as a vehi-
cle for her feminist liberation theology.
The issue may not be how to convince ordinary
Pakistani women that they deserve respect and fair
treatment. They may already be convinced of it
without any reference to either the Qur±àn or a
United Nations document. The issue may be the
question of how they empower themselves vis-à-vis
the state and society.

Bibliography

Primary sources
K. Bhasin, R. Menon, and N. S. Khan (eds.), Against all
odds. Essays on women, religion, and development
from India and Pakistan, New Delhi 1994.
Z. Hasan, Forging identities. Community, state and Mus-
lim women, Karachi 1996.
R. Hassan, Woman and the Qur±an, Utrecht, The Nether-
lands, 2001.
——, Islam and human rights in Pakistan. A critical ana-
lysis of the positions of three contemporary women, in
Canadian Foreign Policy9:2 (Winter 2002), 131–56,
reprinted in Dawn Review Magazine(Karachi), 7 and
14 November 2002.
A. Jehangir and H. Jilani, The Hudood Ordinances. A
divine sanction? A research study of the Hudood
Ordinances and their effect on the disadvantaged sec-
tions of Pakistan society, Lahore 1990.
M. K. Masud, H. D. Shakeel, and H. Jaffery (eds.), Inter-
national conference on Islamic laws and women in the
modern world, Islamabad 1996.
K. Mumtaz and Y. Mitha, Pakistan, tradition and change,
Oxford 1996.
A. Samiuddin and R. Khanam (eds.), Muslim feminism
and feminist Movement. South Asia, ii, Pakistan, Delhi
2002

Secondary sources
K. Abou El Fadl, Speaking in God’s name. Islamic law,
authority and women, Oxford 2001.
Ibn Warraq (ed.), What the Koran really says. Language,
text, and commentary, New York 2002.
——,The quest for the historical Muhammad, New
York 2000.
H. Moghissi, Feminism and Islamic fundamentalism. The
limits of post-modern analysis, London 1999.
L. Ziring, Pakistan at the crosscurrent of history, Oxford
2003

Ghazala Anwar

Sub-Saharan Africa

Islamism appeals to millions of women worldwide.
The same is true in Sub-Saharan Africa, although
expressions and content as well as reasons for
adherence vary considerably. Islamist discourse in
general finds itself in opposition to aspects of what
is perceived and denounced as “Western” moder-
nity. This modernity is characterized by social ills
such as loose morality, materialism, substance

sub-saharan africa 611

abuse, alienation, and crime. Islamist discourse and

action are directed against these ills: Islamists want

to replace the corrupt modern order with an

Islamic one, based on the revelation of God. The

resistance to Western modernity is but one aspect of

Islamism. In Sub-Saharan Africa in particular,

Islamist reaction against “traditional” Islam makes

for a second religious-ideological pillar. Sufi mys-

ticism – the Islam of the majority of African

Muslims – and the practice of saint worship, a

widespread “traditional” Islamic practice, are con-

sidered as illegitimate innovations and in principle

are heavily condemned by Islamists. The Islamist

actions and discourse, however, must be contextu-

alized in their particular local settings. Islamist

leaders, groups, and individuals – men and women –

operate in a given sociopolitical context that

informs their actions. These are not everywhere the

same. For example, African Islamists do not all

hold the same position on the issue of women going

out in public. Women will not necessarily join

Islamist movements for the same reasons, nor do

they always give their membership the same mean-

ing or content. Women and men develop various

strategies for negotiating space and power within a

given society. Islam and Islamism are, like other

institutions or ideologies, instrumental in this

process of constant renegotiation.

Islamism has been credited for widening the

scope of the participation of women in public life,

religiously as well as intellectually. Mosque atten-

dance, not common for women in Sub-Saharan

Africa, is not an exclusively male practice any

more. This is beginning to become noticeable in the

architectural set-up of Islamist mosques through-

out Africa, which explicitly provide space for

women to pray. Old, traditional mosques only had

a small space for elderly women; younger women

stayed at home and prayed there (Cantone 2002).

Islamist movements have been very active in the

field of modern Islamic education, aimed at men

and women. The Senegalese Islamist association,

Jamaatu Ibadu Rahmane, successfully runs a num-

ber of primary and secondary schools in various

parts of the country. These schools provide an inno-

vative kind of Islamic education: they teach Islamic

sciences, but also recognize the importance of

“marketable skills,” such as mathematics, com-

puter science, and language education. About half

of the pupils in the primary schools are girls.

Through this Islamic education, acceptable even to

more “traditional” Muslims who have not been

particularly concerned with female education, girls

are given independent Islamic knowledge as well as

worldly skills they can usefully employ in later life