Womens Islam

by KAMALKHANI

• ISBN13: 9780710305992
• ISBN10: 0710305990
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-01-07
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

After the 1979 revolution in Iran, the western media revealed pictures of full-veiled Iranian women demonstrating in the streets of Tehran to demand the death of the Shah and the downfall of his regime. Many asked what it was that made these women reject the nobility of the socio-economic modernity of the Shah's regime and instead embrace Islamic belief widely presumed to be "oppressive" and misogynistic--a religion in which women have no place and no identity. Zahra Kamalkhani's new book goes behind the veil to disprove this misconception and to look in detail at the complex lives of the majority contemporary Muslim women. She deals with Islamic beliefs and the religious tradition of women in the context of modern political turmoil and addresses the false assumption that a clear distinction can be made between the "official" Islam practiced by men and the "popular" Islam practiced by women. In this important study in Islamic anthropology, the author treats women as actors in the interconnected domains of family, religious, political and social contexts, all under the umbrella of Islam., in order to generate new models for understanding the Muslim women of today.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
1 Introduction	1	(11)
At my father's home	1	(5)
The religious life of women	6	(2)
Islamic knowledge: text or practice	8	(4)
2 Female religious meeting: rowzeh-e zananeh	12	(22)
Introduction	12	(1)
The structure and organisation of women's religious meetings	13	(6)
Going to rowzeh	19	(6)
The symbolic construction of home Islamic rituals	25	(6)
Network of religious friendship and sisterhood: ham-jales'i	31	(2)
Conclusion	33	(1)
3 Ritual exchanges and morality	34	(13)
Introduction	34	(1)
Shi'i cosmology and food feast	35	(10)
Conclusion	45	(2)
4 The female preacher	47	(24)
Introduction	47	(1)
The girl's religious school	47	(3)
The female preachers	50	(3)
Becoming a preacher	53	(6)
Dissemination of Islamic knowledge and learning	59	(6)
The economic position of the female preachers	65	(3)
Conclusion	68	(3)
5 The concept of martyrs and its symbolic application	71	(15)
Political nature of Islamic rituals	72	(13)
Conclusion	85	(1)
6 The passage of the dead	86	(16)
Female mortuary rituals: from death to burial	86	(15)
Conclusion	101	(1)
7 Women making the pilgrimage	102	(11)
The local and international shrines	102	(2)
Gender dynamics of pilgrimage	104	(6)
Conclusion	110	(3)
8 Reproduction of the Islamic social order and disorder	113	(20)
Introduction	113	(1)
Ethical and political aspects of Islamic rituals	114	(2)
Qur'anic commentary and religious lessons	116	(7)
Women's prayer lessons	123	(4)
Political content of prayers	127	(4)
Conclusion	131	(2)
9 Hejab: Islamic modesty and veiling	133	(23)
Introduction: hejab as discourse	133	(1)
Veiling, modernisation and revolution	134	(1)
Veiling in the Islamic state	135	(9)
Modesty and sexual taboos	144	(3)
Hejab as a strategic behaviour	147	(6)
Conclusion	153	(3)
10 Family management in the context of change	156	(23)
Introduction	156	(1)
Household management: micro-macro economics and ideological concerns	157	(4)
Life of lower- and middle-class families	161	(4)
Open market and petty trading	165	(3)
Household and families with more capital: economic mobility	168	(9)
Conclusion	177	(2)
11 Conclusion: Women, Islam, and ritual	179	(5)
Glossary	184	(9)
Bibliography	193	(7)
Author Index	200	(2)
Subject Index	202