In this project, I suggest a Deleuzian ontological perspective to address the interconnected and relational constitution of Muslim women‘s experiences and practices to illuminate the multiple-layers of their lives. Namely, I call into question the category ―Islamist,‖ used for contemporary headscarf-wearing women in Turkey, and examine how this categorization erases contingency, specificity, and relationality of women‘s experiences. For this purpose, I articulate the conception of body as a relational and affective multiplicity based on a Deleuzian ontology. According to this ontology, bodies are composed of an infinite number of smaller bodies through the confluence of relations and the creative capacity of affects, which are produced by this relational flux. Since the body is a relational and affective aggregate and a multiplicity within an assemblage, it is not a stable ontological essence or determined by overarching structures, but it is instead dynamic, continually changing, and always in a process of becoming. Since this Deleuzian approach problematizes the stability and singularity of identities, it offers a radical change for the framing of the question of Muslim women. This approach provides useful means to illuminate the experiences, desires, and practices of women in their contexts and through the particular characters of their relations and affects. Therefore, this project stresses the idea that we need analytical tools which allow us to attend to dynamic configurations of Muslim women without reducing them to existing categories or marginalities. / Religion

The purpose of this project is to examine how contemporary contexts of Islamophobia contribute to shaping notions and performances of Muslim womanhood. I center Muslim female social media influencers in my analysis and examine how they perform and (re)define Muslim womanhood through fashion, aesthetic labor, the hijab, and modest embodiment practices online. The specific research question that undergirds this project is, "How do contexts and discourses of Islamophobia contribute to shaping notions and performances of Muslim womanhood?" My data is derived from interviews with Muslimah social media influencers in the US, UK, and Canada; a survey with their social media followers, and a content analysis of their photo and video posts on Instagram and YouTube. Findings suggest that racialized and gendered expectations of Muslim womanhood emerge on the one hand, from the western non-Muslim community's racialized perceptions and understandings of Muslim women and Islam, and on the other, from the western Muslim community's reaction to its racialization in the global war on terror. The result of these expectations is the imposition of representational and moral responsibilities on Muslim women, who are regarded as visible and public representations of the Muslim community and of Islam as a faith. Findings also suggest that in response to the burden of these expectations, Muslim women exercise their agency to mobilize Islamic feminisms to their advantage in order to negotiate with, resist, and critique western Muslim and non-Muslim expectations of modesty, piety, empowerment, and the hijab. Consequently, Muslimah influencers are forcing western Muslim and non-Muslim communities to reevaluate their expectations of who fits within the category the 'Muslim Woman' while also opening up a discursive space for the possibility of new formulations and conceptualizations of Muslim womanhood that are more aligned with egalitarian Islamic feminist interpretations of Muslimah ways of living and being. / Doctor of Philosophy / In this research study, I examine how Islamophobia has contributed to shaping western Muslim and non-Muslim community perceptions and expectations of Muslim women. I focus specifically on Muslim female social media influencers to understand how they perform Muslim femininity, modesty, piety and the hijab on Instagram and YouTube. I collected data from interviews with Muslim female social media influencers in the U.S., UK, and Canada, a survey with their social media followers, and photos and videos posted by Muslim female influencers on social media. My findings show that Muslim women must contend with expectations from western non-Muslim communities, whose perceptions of Muslim emerge from Islamophobic understandings of Muslims and Islam. Simultaneously, Muslim women must contend with certain moral and representational responsibilities imposed on them by Muslim communities in the west, who are currently working to address and counteract Islamophobia, by posing a positive image of Muslims and Islam in the eyes of the western public. My findings also show that in response to the burden of these expectation, Muslim women critique these gendered burdens by exercising their agency to interpret Quranic scripture on modesty, the hijab, and gendered behaviors with an Islamic feminist lens. In doing so, they are forcing Muslim and non-Muslim communities to reevaluate the moral and representational burdens placed on Muslim women's shoulders, while also offering a space where others can conceptualize and perform Muslim womanhood in ways that align more with egalitarian Islamic feminist interpretations of Muslim women's ways of living and being.

The study examines the extent to which pregnancy is perceived as a means of status enhancement through interviews of a sample of 118 currently married Muslim women. Data for the study were collected from the Northern Mindanao Region of the Philippines. This study is part of a larger study that included both Christians and Muslims. The Christian sample was the subject of an earlier study by Bautista (1986). Socio-demographic variables included in analyzing pregnancy as status-enhancing were: age, educational attainment, socio-economic status, social activity, modern role orientation, and the total number of pregnancies. Multiple regression analysis indicated modern role orientation as the only significant variable to influence pregnancy as status-enhancing. Age and education of the respondents were found to have significant effects on the total number of pregnancies. Direct and indirect effects of independent variables (age, education, and socio-economic status) on pregnancy status and the total number of pregnancies were also tested. Findings reported by Bautista (1986) on Christian respondents were also found similar to the present study on Muslim respondents: Muslim women tend to regard pregnancy as status-enhancing rather than status-degrading. However, the expected effect of pregnancy status upon the total number of pregnancies was not supported. The study hopes to stimulate more interest on the area of pregnancy status and fertility behavior. / M.A.

Chi, Zeyu. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 91-93). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter One --- Background of the Research and its Main Theoretical Questions --- p.4 / Chapter Chapter Two --- Liberating or Burdensome? Case Study of the Veiled --- p.36 / Chapter Chapter Three --- Fitna and the Universal Norms of Practical Reason --- p.46 / Chapter Chapter Four --- The Ontological Significance of Veiling --- p.67 / Conclusion --- p.83 / Bibliography --- p.91

In Islamic societies, religion plays a significant role in shaping the home and the environment. An important feature of the Islamic culture is the segregation of women from males other than next of kin. This aspect has given rise to the separation of domains for men and women, both in the home and the neighbourhood. And this duality of space in turn reinforces the seclusion and segregation of women. / This thesis studies this phenomenon in rural settlements in South Asia in regions where Muslims predominate and also in non-Muslim areas influenced by centuries of Muslim rule. The living patterns of rural women and how they use and perceive their local space formed the focus of the study. / A field study was undertaken in a rural community in Bangladesh. Gender segregation norms and the resulting spatial organization of dwellings of different socio-economic groups were studied and compared. An important premise of the study is how the poor manage to integrate their faith and Islamic customs in their living environment.

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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / Includes bibliography / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Impressions and perceptions about Islām, particularly in a world where much of what is known about Islām has emerged from after the tragic devastation of the Twin Towers in New York, are creating huge challenges for Muslims wherever they may find themselves. Women as the more visible believers in Islām are, what I believe, at the forefront of the growing skepticism surrounding Islām. And central to the modern day debates and suspicious regard meted out to Muslim women today is her hijāb (head-scarf). Ironically, it would appear that the same amount of detail and attention that Islamic scholars have devoted to the role of women in Islām and how they are expected to conduct themselves is now at the centre of the modern day debates and suspicious regard. Yet, the debates seldom move beyond what is obviously visible, and so little is known about what has given shape to Muslim women’s being, and how their understanding of Islām has led them to practise their religion in a particular way. This dissertation is premised on the assertion that in order to understand the role of Muslim women in a cosmopolitan society, you need to understand Islām and Islamic education. It sets out to examine and explore as to whether there is commensurability or not between Muslim women and the notion of cosmopolitanism, and what then the implications would be for democratic citizenship education and Islamic education. One of the main findings of the dissertation is that the intent to understand Muslim women’s education and the rationales of their educational contexts and practices opens itself to a plurality of interpretations that reflects the pluralism of understanding constitutive of the practices of Islam both within and outside of cosmopolitanism. Another is that inasmusch as Muslim women have been influenced by living and interacting in a cosmopolitan society, cosmopolitanism has been shaped and shifted by Muslim women. By examining the concepts of knowledge and education in Islām, and exploring the gaps between interpretations of Islam and Qur’anic exegesis, I hope to demystify many of the (mis)perceptions associated with Muslim women, and ultimately with Islām. And finally, by examining how Islamic education can inform a renewed cosmopolitanism, and by looking at how democratic citizenship education can shape a renewed Islamic education, the eventual purpose of this dissertation is to find a way towards peaceful co-existence.

This thesis will study the development of the Palestinian women's movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from the Mandate period (1920) to the outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada (2000). This work will attempt to outline the evolution of this movement and the impact of two factors that have significantly affected the form and course of its development; the first of which and the principal force is Palestinian Nationalism; the second is Islamism. / Nationalism and Islamism are presented here as two formations that functioned separately and in conjunction to present impediments to the ability of an independent Palestinian women's movement to develop and implement a social feminist agenda aimed at establishing gender equality and ensuring women's legal and political rights within Palestinian society.

Relationships between „madams‟ and „maids‟ have been the subject of various South African works, detailing the lives of domestic workers and their daily struggles. This study however aims to turn the focus on the madam and questions the complex intimacy at work between her and her maid. It is this intricate association between „madam‟ and „maid,‟ as well as the context of the home, which creates a site for a unique personal relationship that extends beyond the constraints of the working contract. In order to investigate this relationship, I explore the preconceived notions Muslim madams of North Beach have when recruiting the ideal domestic worker as well as the way everyday life between madams and maids shapes their relationship. In demonstrating the types of relationships and levels of intimacy between them, this thesis focuses on three aspects of everyday life between Muslim madams and maid. Firstly, I explore the „home‟ as a contradictory location – being both a private space for the employer and a workspace for the maid, paying particular attention to the creation of boundaries and negotiations of space within the home. The second key aspect I examine is the extent to which religion influences the relationship between madam and maid. Religion is a thread running through this thesis as a determining factor in the recruitment of a domestic worker and a way in which space is produced. Thirdly, I discuss the sharing of gender between madam and maid and the question of „sisterhood‟ between them. These are underlying elements of the types of relationships between madam and maid which, I argue are characterised by levels of cultivated intimacy. The project is based on the qualitative results gathered from 20 in-depth interviews with Muslim madams, two focus groups and five key informant interviews with domestic workers. My thesis contributes to the existing research exploring the relationships between madams and maids and opens further avenues for research. It demonstrates that there are key elements besides race and class that shape the relationships between madam and maid, which contribute to levels of cultivated intimacy between them. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sci.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

The purpose of this project is to gain a better understanding of gender segmentation strategy possibilities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The findings from this survey graphically illustrate and statistically demonstrate some critically important information about the consumer demographics, needs, and behaviors of the targeted female Saudi shopper.