ABSTRACT
Public opinion in the West generally ignores this diversity and is largely influenced by deep-rooted assumptions that Islam is a monolithic religion controlling all aspects of its adherents’ lives. At the forefront of concerns over Islamic revivalism in different parts of the world is an abiding western interest in Muslim women. In the general perception of the West, there is an association between the subordination of Muslim women and the physical as well as the symbolic segregation of the sexes. Contemporary manifestations of veiling have led to a proliferation of debates on concepts of women’s role and status within the Islamic movement in particular, and Muslim societies in general. The active participation of modernist Muslim feminists in contemporary Muslim discourses has probably been an important factor behind the secular feminist trend in parts of the Muslim world to analyse these discourses within their own framework.
