Privately empowered : expressing feminism in Islam in northern Nigerian fiction / Shirin Edwin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Edwin, Shirin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nigerian fiction (English)--History and criticism.

Nigerian fiction (English).

Muslim women in literature.

Feminism--Religious aspects--Islam.

Feminism.

Islam--Nigeria.

Islam.

Nigeria.

Nigeria--In literature.

Literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xi, 232 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2016.

Summary:

Privately Empowered responds to the lack of attention paid to Islam in Africa in comparison to Islam in the Middle East and the Arab world. Shirin Edwin points to the right embrace between Islam and politics that has rendered Islamic feminist discourse historically and thematically contextualized in regions where Islamic feminism evolves in tandem with the nation-state and is commonly understood in terms of activism, social affiliations, or struggles for legal reform. In Africa itself, Islam bears the burden of being a "foreign" presence that is considered injurious to African Muslim women's success. Edwin examines the fictional works of the northern Nigerian novelists Zaynab Alkali, Abubakar Gimba, and Hauwa Ali because of the texts' emphases on personal and private engagement, Islamic ritual and prayer in the quotidian, and observance of Qur'anic injunctions. Analysis of these texts connects the ways in which Muslim women in northern Nigeria balance their spiritual habits in ever changing configurations of their personal and private domains. The spiritual universe of African Muslim women may be one where Islam is not the source of their problems or their legislative and political activity, but a spiritual activity that can exist devoid of activist or political forms. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: Conjugating feminisms: African, Islamic as African-Islamic discourse

Connecting vocabularies: a grammar of histories, politics, and priorities in African and Islamic feminisms

Noetic education and Islamic faith: personal transformation in the stillborn

Historical templates and Islamic disposition: personal journeys in the virtuous woman

Spiritual legacies and worship: personal spaces in the descendants

Frequent functions and references: personal solutions in sacred apples and destiny.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780810133679

0810133679

9780810133686

0810133687

OCLC:

948340251