ABSTRACT
This study has represented Shirazi women's religious accounts, ritual performance, and Islamic revivalism. My main message is that the religious participation of these women is far from being marginal or muted. I argue that the Iranian Muslim women carry a religious load, that they have a religious 'work' to do, and that they are even more involved in religious and socio-ritual activity than the average male family member. In the different chapters I have tried to show women's modes of religious participation and their activity across religious, family, social and political spheres. Among my central issues have been: (1) how can we recognise women's mode of Islamic knowledge; (2) how can we better understand Muslim women's ritual exchanges and nature of morality; and (3) how can we come to grips with the contemporary rise of female Islamic identi~ its pragmatic and ideological aspects as well as theoretical?
