ABSTRACT
In Islamicate cultures, the intermingling of the sexes in physical space remains compared to Western cultures; intermingling of the sexes in cyberspace, however, falls outside the scope of this regulation. The Internets obfuscation between private and public domains, furthermore, not only gives women access to settings that were previously conceptualized as homosocial spaces for knowledge consumption but also gives women new opportunities to exert agency over the kind of knowledge being produced. The male monopoly over religious knowledge has continued to exist insofar as physical space is concerned, given that production and consumption of Islamic knowledge are generally male spaces. New spaces enable laypeople to develop religious literacy, discuss issues of concern, offer support in times of crisis, form social coalitions, and interrogate religious norms and practices. Cyberspace, with its obfuscation of public and private space, empowers women to deviate from their culturally sanctioned, domestic roles and participate in the public dissemination and production of religions knowledge online.
