devotion, of women’s pivotal role in the home and
their active presence in the society. Although taking
good care of the husband is presented as the holy
task of women, equivalent to jihad in the path of
Allah, booklets promote equal worth of male and
female offspring and the need to treat children
justly. When, contrary to pro-birth traditions of
Islam, the Islamic Republic re-established the fam-
ily planning program in 1989 to lower the birth
rate, committed women took active part in educat-
ing rural and lower class women, promoting the
idea that they can be better mothers with fewer
children. This political and ideological jihad how-
ever, has had unintended social, cultural, and polit-
ical consequences for the power elite. Iranian
women, who are now better educated than before
(51 percent of women aged 15 and over are now
literate against 30 percent in 1976), have a much
lower number of children (2.1 in 2001 against 7 in
1976), and play a more active role in the society,
challenging patriarchal order and male domination.
In Iran as in Afghanistan women also increasingly
reject divine justifications for segregation policies.Bibliography
Fatemeh Amini, personal interview, Tehran 1994.
H. Hoodfar, Reforming from within. Islamist women
activists in Iran, in Women Living Under Muslim Laws,
Reconstructing fundamentalism and feminism. The
dynamics of change in Iran, Grabels, France 1995,
12–38.
G. Kepel, Jihad, in Pouvoirs104 (2003), 135–42.
R. Khumaynì(Ayatollah Khomeini), Íahìfa-yi nùr, Teh-
ran 1989, ix, 242.
A. Kian-Thiébaut, Women’s religious seminaries in Iran,
in ISIM Newletter6 (2000), 23.
——,Les femmes iraniennes entre islam, état et famille,
Paris 2002.
G. Mehran, Lifelong learning. New opportunities for
women in a Muslim country (Iran), in Comparative
Education2 (1999), 201–15.
V. Moghadam, Revolution, the state, Islam, and women.
Gender politics in Iran and Afghanistan, Women Living
Under Muslim Laws, Dossier 7:8 (1991), 32–41.
Women living Under Muslim Laws,Women’s situation in
Afghanistan, Grabels, France 1998.Azadeh Kian-ThiébautSouth AsiaIn South Asia, the dominant feature of women’s
way of life is known as purdah (Papanek and
Minault 1982). This tradition is respected by both
Muslim and Hindu women. Strictly observed, pur-
dah can lead to the complete seclusion of women.
Despite this, Muslim women, like their male coun-
terparts, recognize two different kinds of jihad: the
physical jihàd-e asgharand the spiritual jihàd-e326 jihad
akbar. As early as the eleventh century, Muslim
mystics distinguished the two jihads.Jihàd-e asghar
The jihàd-e asgharor “lesser” jihad is the battle
enjoined as a religious duty when Islam and the
Muslims are threatened by infidels. In the history of
Muslim South Asia, there are a few instances of
women taking up arms, or even ruling the country,
for example Raziyya Sultàna (d. 1240), who ruled
the Delhi sultanate for three-and-a-half years. In
the modern Indian subcontinent, Shàh Walì Allàh
and his son and successor Shàh ≠Abd al-≠Azìz issued
fatwas in which they officially declared as dàr al-
harbthe part of India that was under British rule.
During the colonial period, it seems that the differ-
ent jihads upheld by Indian Muslims did not
involve women.
Recently, the situation has changed. After the
attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001,
the feminist wings of the Islamist parties were asked
to attend protest rallies in the larger cities of
Pakistan. Women were seen in the streets with ban-
ners demanding jihad against the American coalition
during the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Some women were members of the Jamaat-e-Islami,
but the most active were linked to the so-called
jihàdìgroups, such as the Lashkar-i Tayba and
Jaysh-i Mu™ammad, which published newspapers
for women in which they were asked to give their
jewelry for the sake of jihad. Another example of
ways in which women participated in the jihad
effort is the letters in which mothers, sisters, and
wives eulogized the sacrifice of their dear ones, the
shahìds. In November 2001, the jihàdìnewspaper
Dharb-i-Mu±min, reported that 5,000 armed and
veiled women had expressed their desire to take
part in a jihad to help the Taliban in Afghanistan.
These cases remain marginal because it is paradox-
ical to require women to live in seclusion and take
an active role in a physical fight. Despite this atti-
tude, when Dr. Farhat Hashmi, who ran Qur±ànic
classes in Al-Huda Institution for Islamic Educa-
tion, stated that women had many important things
to achieve before thinking of jihad, she was called a
kàfirby an ≠àlim.Jihàd-e akbar
Here the situation is quite different. Jihàd-e akbar,
“greater” jihad, is the Sufi fight against the self
(nafs). In the patriarchal society of South Asia,
nothing forbids women from devoting their lives to
religion, though there are very few Sufi-related
organizations for women. An individual woman
can nevertheless, in certain circumstances, turn to