Gendering Minorities: Muslim Women and the Politics of Modernity
Sherin B. S.
Price
615
ISBN
9789352876693
Language
English
Pages
240
Format
Paperback
Dimensions
140 x 216 mm
Year of Publishing
2021
Territorial Rights
World
Imprint
Orient BlackSwan

Gendering Minorities: Muslim Women and the Politics of Modernity explores the politics of framing Muslim women’s identity in India. Against the backdrop of colonial modernity, nationalist movements and post-Independence dialogues, it provides details of the ‘feminist enterprises’ that Muslim women in Kerala were involved in at several historical junctures.

Examining Muslim women’s negotiations with their cultural and religious identities, the author also analyses the exclusion and homogenisation that did not allow them to be viewed as active political agents. Through oral narratives, folk songs, journal entries, little magazines and historical documents, the chapters address the subjectivity of Muslim women in Kerala through their participation in diverse fields such as religion, governance, sufism, and in early twentieth-century reform movements in Kerala.

The author also examines the popular novel Barsa by Khadija Mumtas in the context of discourses on Islam in Kerala, stating that its construction of the Muslim woman as defined only by Islam is problematic. Through her engagement with women and Islam in Kerala, the author presents Muslim women as heterogenous subjects of differently conceived ideas of religion, shaped by different variables of time, region, class, ethnicity and culture.

Sherin B. S. is Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad.

List of Images
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements

Foreword
Susie Tharu

Introduction
Messy Mediations: Feminist Politics and Muslim Identity in India

  1. Islam in Kerala
    History and the Underpinnings of Women’s Agency
  2. Muslim Women and the Reform Movements in Kerala
  3. Contemporary Dialogues on Muslim Women in Kerala

Conclusion

Bibliography
Index

1. Book Review | Published in the Indian Journal of Gender Studies (IJGS), 20 October 2023.
2. Book Review | Published in the Journal Social Change, 11 March 2023.
3. Book Review | Published in The Hindu, Hyderbad, 8 March 2023.
4. Book Review | Published in The Wire, 6 January 2023.
5. Book Review | Published in the india-seminar.com, New Delhi, April 2022.
6. Book Review | Published in The Telegraph, Kolkata, 21 January 2022.
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