Reshaping the Holy: Democracy, Development, and Muslim Women in Bangladesh

Islamic studies tend to focus on texts rather than lived experience and to privilege Muslims in Arab countries, Iran, and Turkey over Muslims in the rest of the world. Breaking away from these traditional concerns, Elora Shehabuddin directs her attention to South Asia, home to a the largest number of Muslims in the world. Through extensive ethnographic field research, she demonstrates how women, in their employment and in their interactions with the legal system, the state, NGOs, and political and religious groups, are changing state practices, views of women in the public sphere, and the nature of lived Islam itself. Shehabuddin's close study of the relationship between Islam and politics accentuates not only the internal diversity of formal Islamist politics in different Muslim countries, but also the multiple understandings of Islam among Muslim women and the consequences of these perceptions in terms of women's actions and activism. Among Shehabuddin's many surprises is her revelation that poor, uneducated women, typically believed to be vulnerable to the oppression of the Islamic tradition, are in fact actively engaged in reshaping both political and religious movements. Shehabuddin challenges us to rethink our position on one of the most contentious debates of the twenty-first century: can Islam support democratic rights, especially the rights of women? Shehabuddin provides crucial insights into the supposed incompatibility between Islam and genuine democracy and the desire of large numbers of Muslim women to retain, reclaim, and reshape-rather than reject-their faith. Elora Shehabuddin