The Muslim-American community faced a crucial moment after the events of September 11th to define themselves both at home in the United States and abroad. The years which followed brought about an increasingly mobilized, better organized group of Muslim-Americans who made a decision to become more active members of American society through participating in the political system, something very difficult if not impossible in their native countries. Those who answered the call did so in different ways. One way as shown in this study was through taking a bold step and running for the United States Congress and for the first time in U.S. history, the first Muslim was elected to the House of Representatives. For the first time, the oath of office was taken on the Qur'an. The Muslim-American community, especially the immigrant population, is highly educated and successful and as generations pass, they will become a more visible part of the American landscape.

Indonesian Muslim women???s identity and subjectivity are not created simply from a single variable rather they are shaped by various discourses that are often competing and paralleling each other. Discourses such as patriarchal discourses circumscribing the social engagement and public life of Muslim women portray them in narrow gendered parameters in which women occupy rather limited public roles. Western colonial discourse often constructed Muslim women as oppressed and backward. Each such discourse indeed denies women???s agency and maturity to form their own definition of identity within the broad Islamic parameters. Rewriting women???s own identities are articulated in various forms from writing to visualisation, from fiction to non fiction. All expressions signify women???s ways to react against the silencing and muteness that have long imposed upon women???s agency. In Indonesian literary culture today, numerous women writers have represented in their writings women???s own ways to look at their own selves. Literary representations become one group among others trying to portray women???s strategies that will give them maximum control over their lives and bodies. Muslim women writers in Indonesia have shown through their representations of Muslim women in their writings that Muslim women in Indonesian settings are capable of undergoing a self-definition process. However, from their writings too, readers are reminded that although most women portrayed are strong and assertive it does not necessarily mean that they are free of oppression. The thesis is about Muslim women and gender-related issues in Indonesia. It focuses on the writings of four contemporary Indonesian Muslim women writers: Titis Basino P I, Ratna Indraswari Ibrahim, Abidah El Kalieqy and Helvy Tiana Rosa, primarily looking at how gender is constructed and in turn constructs the identity, roles and status of Musim women in Indonesia and how such relations are portrayed, covering issues of authenticity, representation and power inextricably intertwined in a variety of aesthetic forms and narrative structures.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Calvin Theological Seminary, 1988. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 119-122).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Northwest Baptist Theological Seminary, 1988. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [183-189]).

Thesis (M.A.)--International School of Theology, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-[77]).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Asian Languages and Societies, 2004. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 257-276).

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Rhode Island, 2007 / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-93).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 116-120).

Thesis (M.A.)--Columbia Biblical Seminary and Graduate School of Missions, Columbia, S.C., 1994. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-125, 128-137).