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Book SynopsisIn the decades leading up to the Arab Spring in 2011, when Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian regime was swept from power in Egypt, Muslim women took a leading role in developing a robust Islamist presence in the country's public sphere. Soft Force examines the writings and activism of these women--including scholars, preachers, journalists, critics, ac
Trade ReviewWinner of the 2016 JMEWS Book Award, Journal of Middle Eastern Women's Studies and Association of Middle East Women's Studies "Women's roles in the intellectual, organizational and political development of Islamist movements have rarely received the attention they deserve. McLarney focuses in depth on the writings of a wide array of Egyptian women involved with Islamist movements, presenting a nuanced and careful reading of their religious and political thought."--Marc Lynch, WashingtonPost.com's Monkey Cage blog "McLarney offers a different and highly important ... perspective, refreshingly free of the shadows of neo-orientalism."--Caron E. Gentry, Times Higher Education "McLarney (Arabic literature and culture, Duke Univ.) provides an intellectual history of women's ideas within the Islamist movement in Egypt over the past century... This work will be of interest to a wide variety of scholars in Islamic studies, women's studies, political science, and literary theory. It illuminates the essential role of women in the modern Islamist movement in a unique way."--Choice "Through her eloquent, sophisticated and careful analysis, McLarney offers a very important but somewhat overlooked contribution to the in depth understanding of the various roles of women in the historical and current developments within the Muslim world... The wealth of information in this volume makes it an important contribution to the study of Islamic revivalism, women and Islam within the context of 20th and 21st century developments in Egypt and the wider Middle East."--Katherine Ranharter, Ph.D., Journal of Global Analysis
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction-The Islamic Public Sphere and the Subject of Gender: The Politics of the Personal 1 Part One: Women's Liberation in Islam 1. The Liberation of Islamic Letters: Bint al-Shati"s Literary License 35 2. The Redemption of Women's Liberation: Reviving Qasim Amin 70 Part Two: Gendering Islamic Subjectivities 3. Senses of Self: Ni'mat Sidqi's Theology of Motherhood 103 4. Covering in the Public Eye: Visualizing the Inner I 143 Part Three: Politics of the Islamic Family 5. The Islamic Homeland: Iman Mustafa on Women's Work 180 6. Soft Force: Heba Raouf Ezzat's Politics of the Islamic Family 219 Epilogue-Fann wa-Fitra: Art and Instinct 255 Bibliography 271 Index 295
