ABSTRACT
Introduction In this chapter I examine identity politics as a strategy of the military-
supported state (and in this case, party) hegemonic processes. I critique the modernist Islamist (political Islam) movement of the National Islamic Front (NIF), analyze its manipulation and re-creation of religious ideology toward a more "authentic" culture, and explore the centrality of Muslim women and the Muslim family in creating an Islamic state and a Muslim umma (nation). Islamist women are both organizers within the NIF and socializers within the family. In the latter role, women in general are seen by Islamist men as the potential instrument to lay the foundation of an authentic culture, one that, although based on an Islamic past, is not atavistic or fundamentalist.1
