Scholars of Faith: South Asian Muslim Women and the Embodiment of Religious Knowledge - Hardcover

by Usha Sanyal (Author)

Since the late twentieth century, new institutions of Islamic learning for South Asian women and girls have emerged rapidly, particularly in urban areas and in the diaspora. This book reflects upon the increased access of Muslim girls and women to religious education and the purposes to which they seek to put their learning.

Scholars of Faith is based on ethnographic fieldwork in two institutions of religious learning: the Jami'a Nur madrasa in Shahjahanpur, North India, and Al-Huda International, an NGO that offers online courses on Islam, especially the Qur'an. In this monograph, Sanyal argues that Islamic religious education in the early twenty-first century -- particularly for women -- is thoroughly 'modern' and that this modernity, reflected in both old and new interpretations of religious texts, allows young South Asian women to evaluate their place in traditional structures of patriarchal authority in the public and private spheres in novel ways.

Author Biography

Usha Sanyal, Visiting Assistant Professor, Wingate University

Usha Sanyal is an independent scholar whose prior research has focused on the history of the Barelwi or Ahl-i Sunnat wa Jama'at movement in British India. Her book, Devotional Islam: Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi and His Movement is in its 3rd edition (Yoda Press, 2013). She lives and teaches in North Carolina.