Gender and Islam in Africa: New Book from Wilson Center Senior Scholar Margot Badran

Wilson Center Senior Scholar Margot Badran is the editor of a new book published jointly by the Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press. Gender and Islam in Africa: Rights, Sexuality, and Law examines ways in which women in Africa are interpreting traditional Islamic concepts in order to empower themselves and their societies. African women, it argues, have promoted the ideals and practices of equality, human rights, and democracy within the framework of Islamic thought, challenging conventional conceptualizations of the religion as gender-constricted and patriarchal. The book's contributors come from the fields of history, anthropology, linguistics, gender studies, religious studies, and law.