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AFRICAN STUDIES / ANTHROPOLOGY / WOMEN’S STUDIES / POLITICS
“Alidou introduces readers to extraordinary Kenyan Muslim women who
deftly weave together secular, religious, and activist perspectives to
transform their communities. Their stories, and Alidou’s astute analysis,
portray the challenges facing twenty-first-century agents of change.”
—Susan Hirsch, author of
Pronouncing and Persevering: Gender and the Discourses
of Disputing in an African Islamic Court
In education, journalism, legislative politics, social justice, health, law, and other
arenas, Muslim women across Kenya are emerging as leaders in local, national,
and international contexts, advancing reforms through their activism.
Muslim
Women in Postcolonial Kenya
draws on extensive interviews with six such women,
revealing how their religious and moral beliefs shape reform movements that
bridge ethnic divides and foster alliances in service of creating a just, multi-
cultural, multiethnic, and multireligious democratic citizenship.
Mwalim Azara Mudira opened a school of theology for Muslim women. Nazlin
Omar Rajput of
The Nur
magazine was a pioneer in reporting on HIV/AIDS in
the Muslim community. Amina Abubakar, host of a women’s radio show, has
publicly addressed the sensitive subject of sexual crimes against Muslim women.
Two women who are members of parliament are creating new socioeconomic
and political opportunities for girls and women, within a framework that still
embraces traditional values of marriage and motherhood.
Examining the interplay of gender, agency, and autonomy, Ousseina D. Alidou
shows how these women have effected change in the home, school, mosque,
media, and more. She illuminates their determination to challenge the oppres-
sive influences of male-dominated power structures. In looking at differences as
opportunities rather than obstacles, they reflect a new sensibility among Muslim
women, redefining the meaning of women’s citizenship within their own commu-
nity of faith and within the nation.
Ousseina D. Alidou
is director of the Center for African Studies at Rutgers Uni-
versity–New Brunswick and associate professor in the Department of African,
Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures. She is the author
and editor of many books, including
Engaging Modernity: Muslim Women and the
Politics of Agency in Postcolonial Niger
and
Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Africa
.
PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
NOVEMBER
LC: 2013015042 HQ
192 PP. 6 × 9 15 B/W ILLUS., 6 TABLES
E-BOOK $19.95 ISBN 978-0-299-29463-2
Women in Africa and the Diaspora
Stanlie M. James and Aili Mari Tripp,
Series Editors
Of re l at ed int e re s t
Ousseina D. Alidou
“Illustrates the complex interplay of gen-
der, Islam, and modernity in Niger and the
way that women manage to negotiate their
way in a society with a strong patriarchal
tradition.”—
Choice
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 2005
LC: 2005005434 HQ 260 PP. 6 × 9
10 B/W PHOTOS
E-BOOK $19.95 S ISBN 978-0-299-21213-1
Women in Africa and the Diaspora
