The acceptance of female leadership in mosques and madrassas is a significant change from much historical practice, signalling the mainstream acceptance of some form of female Islamic authority in many places. This volume investigates the diverse range of female religious leadership present in contemporary Muslim communities in South, East and Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America, with chapters discussing its emergence, the limitations placed upon it, and its wider impact, as well as the physical and virtual spaces used by women to establish and consolidate their authority. It will be invaluable as a reference text, as it is the first to bring together analysis of female Islamic leadership in geographically and ideologically-diverse Muslim communities worldwide.
Biographical note
Masooda Bano holds an ESRC Fellowship at the Oxford Department of International Development. She studies Islamic movements in comparative context. Her monograph, The Rational Believer: Choices and Decisions in the Madrasas of Pakistan, is forthcoming with Cornell University Press.
Hilary Kalmbach is the Sir Christopher Cox Junior Fellow at New College, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on changing structures of Islamic authority, knowledge and education in the modern Middle East. Her current project situates Cairo’s Dar al-‘Ulum in the context of twentieth-century social, religious and linguistic changes.
Contributors to the volume include PETRA BLEISCH BOUZAR, NATHAL M. DESSING, ROJA FAZAELI, JULIANE HAMMER, MONA HASSAN, SARAH ISLAM, MARIA JASCHOK, PATRICIA JEFFERY, ROGER JEFFERY, CRAIG JEFFREY, MIRJAM KÜNKLER, PETRA KUPPINGER, UTA LEHMANN, NICK MICINSKI, HIROKO MINESAKI, PIA KARLSSON MINGANTI, MATTHEW PIERCE, CATHARINA RAUDVERE, MARGARET J. RAUSCH, AMÉLIE LE RENARD, RIEM SPIELHAUS, NELLY VAN DOORN-HARDER, and ELS VANDERWAEREN
