and seclusion, those married to active Tabligh
members are often encouraged to engage in da≠wa
activities as long as they do not mix with unrelated
men. In Norway, women’s jama≠àtgather in small
preaching groups (two to four women), addressing
themselves to Muslim women in their neighbor-
hood. Wives of active members of the Tabligh may
travel with their husbands, organizing parallel
gatherings for women. As the Tabligh movement
mainly focuses on devotional practice, “an arena
where women and men are, fundamentally, on the
same ground” (Metcalf 2003, 56), the Tablighis
remain open, at least to a certain degree, to organ-
ized women’s activities.
Several associations are linked to one particular
ethnic or linguistic community. The Pakistani
Idara Minhaj ul-Qur±àn, founded in the 1980s
with headquarters in Lahore, Pakistan, has estab-
lished branches in several European countries; the
founder and leader runs a political-religious party
in Pakistan. Idara has succeeded in recruiting a
number of followers from the Pakistani com-
munities, particularly in Denmark and Norway.
The mosque-related activities of Idara’s women’s
groups are centered on devotional activities as well
as on regular gatherings where social, legal, or
medical instruction is given by educated female
members of the movement (medical doctors, teach-
ers, and so forth). The Turkish Milli Görüs, as well
as the Süleymanlis, have women’s branches that
organize both religious education and devotional
activities; they also provide, at least to some extent,
social aid to Turkish women and to families in
need. The Milli Görüs federation has around 791
local branches in Western Europe and of these, 445
have an active women’s section. The Süleymanlis
offer an interesting example of a traditional, hier-
archical, and Sufi-oriented organization with an
active female branch, led by a hierarchy of women
linked to gender-segregated teaching activities. Their
teaching program also includes more advanced reli-
gious studies (in Turkey) for those who aspire to the
title hoca hanum, “madam imam” (a parallel to
hoca efendi). At their headquarters in Cologne,
Germany, the women’s house is spacious and well
kept, receiving girls for religious instruction from
the Turkish community at weekends. The girls also
participate in devotional activities, mainly dhikr
meetings twice a day, and receive spiritual guidance
from their female teachers. These women’s centers
are now established in numerous cities and smaller
towns in Western Europe. The female teachers also
function as preachers; the most talented are sent on
preaching tours during Ramadan. In 1999, the
western europe 717young woman (24 years of age) who was preach-
ing in two of the Süleymanli mosques in Norway
(that is, the mosques permanently reserved for
women in Oslo and Drammen) had the previous
year been on a preaching tour to Sydney and
Melbourne. This second category also includes Sufi
networks where women organize dhikrgatherings
or participate in the men’s dhikr. Of a different
character are the relatively small number of male-
dominated religio-political associations or parties
that also recruit women for their female sec-
tions, like Hizb ut-Tahrir. This militant party,
which in Western Europe is mainly active in Great
Britain and Denmark, runs a women’s section in
Denmark, and recent numbers indicate around 100
female recruits (Grøndahl et al. 2003, 35); no
woman, however, is accepted in the leadership of
the party.
A small number of associations anchored in the
Muslim world are controlled or strongly influenced
by Muslim governments; the most explicit example
is the Turkish Diyanet (Diyanet ÷çerli Türk ÷slam
Birli(i). In these mosques women’s groups are
encouraged to take care of basic religious and ritual
activities for women and children and of certain
social events, such as national day celebrations.
Associations based in the Muslim world – how-
ever greatly they might differ among themselves –
are founded on an ideology of segregation, and
women have little or nothing to say in the leader-
ship. This state of affairs is repeated by most of the
new and influential, European based, male-domi-
nated associations.
Since the 1980s, a number of new associations
have been established, some of them with a female
branch or a parallel organization taking care of
women’s concerns. For example, women have
been, at least to some extent, included in the two
large French organizations, the influential Union
des organisations islamiques de France (UIOF),
founded in 1983, and the Féderation nationale des
musulmans de France (FNMF), established in- Parallel women’s associations also exist, like
the nationwide Ligue française de la femme musul-
mane (LFFM); this association was created in 1995
to encourage social contacts between Muslim
women and “to coordinate local women’s associa-
tions and to support and help female initiatives per-
taining to social questions” (LFFM web page).
LFFM, linked to UOIF, is responsible for gatherings
and colloquia, for example, on themes such as vio-
lence in the home or violence against women in
society (two examples from 2003).
A new trend among the recent male initiated