The academic literature on Islamist moderation offers several explanations for why some Islamist political movements are moderate and others radical. These theories focus on the movements' ideology, tactics, and internal democracy. Few accounts address, however, how an Islamist movement's relations with external powers influence this outcome. This paper finds that "moderation" reflects an Islamist movement's relationship of compliance or defiance with external powers rather than its essential organizational characteristics. In comparing the Moroccan Justice and Development Party (PJD) with the Egyptian Muslim Brothers, it explores why the United States has built good relations with the former but not with the latter. Employing approximately 20 interviews conducted with Islamists, U.S. diplomats, and Moroccan experts in 2009, I show that the PJD's compliance with U.S. foreign policy decisions and interests helps to shape perceptions that the movement is more moderate than its Egyptian counterpart, despite the two movements' similar ideology, tactics, and internal practices. / text

In this thesis, women who identify as both queer and Muslims living in North America tell their stories of family, religion, and home. These immigrants and first generation Westerners describe their identities in an effort to acknowledge the difficulties that can accompany being both Muslim in the diaspora in a time when religious and political tensions are aimed at the Middle East. While each has a unique life history, the participants represented here challenge assumptions about the "inherent" contradictions that are assume to exist for those who are both Muslim and queer due to constructions of Islam as sexually and socially conservative. They also offer insight into the usefulness of the current international LGBTQ movement for Muslim lesbians. Using the in-depth interviews from eight women, as well as several first-person published narratives, the aim of this research is to explore how each of these individuals to experience their identities in the diaspora.

Discursive psychology was used to analyze constructions of Canadian Muslim identities in the Canadian mainstream daily press. News and opinion discourse from a six-month period (November 1, 2008 - April 30, 2009) was examined. Whereas previous research has typically focused on negative news coverage, I examined the full range of identity portrayals of Canadian Muslims available in the daily press. Not unexpectedly, the most overtly negative identity constructions of Canadian Muslims were found in coverage of terrorism trials. In that coverage, the accused were typically worked up as endorsing an extreme interpretation of Islam. These extreme descriptions of the accused may suggest a particularized and therefore non-representative Muslim identity. Negative identity was also constructed in articles that reported on Canadian Muslims’ interactions with the legal and immigration systems: the behaviours of some Canadian Muslims (e.g., polygamy) were formulated as a threat to mainstream Canadian social values. The coverage also dealt with the issue of discrimination against Canadian Muslims. The case for discrimination was accomplished via comparison (e.g., government treatment of Muslim versus non-Muslim Canadians). However, in some coverage, Canadian Muslims were indirectly and subtly portrayed as possibly deserving of discriminatory treatment. Canadian Muslims were favourably portrayed when they: 1) upheld mainstream Canadian social values, 2) had a sense of humour about their Muslim identity, and 3) educated non-Muslim Canadians about Islam. However, favourable identity constructions of Canadian Muslims were often accompanied by background information that negatively portrayed Muslims in general. This juxtaposition of positive representations of individual Canadian Muslims with negative general information about Muslims and Islam may have subtly suggested that good Muslims are an exception rather than the norm. Overall, it was found that Canadian press coverage offers a fuller picture of Canadian Muslim identity than elsewhere (e.g., the U.S. and the U.K.). However, Sampson’s (1993) distinction between accommodative and transformative voice suggests that this picture is still incomplete. Several possibilities for improvement are suggested; for example, the press’s reliance on ready-made news (e.g., staged events) may provide opportunities to increase favourable identity portrayals of Canadian Muslims.

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The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the topoi found in various writings on the Indian subcontinent, which depict Muslim mystics, the Sufis, as responsible for the conversion, forced or peaceful, of non-Muslim Indians to Islam. Our analysis of various historiographical traditions produced in the Subcontinent between the eleventh and the twentieth centuries, will show that this image of Sufis qua missionaries is more the result of socio-political considerations (legitimization of imperial order; posthumous images of Sufis in the eyes of different folk audiences, etc.) than the reflection of historical reality. This thesis also examines the processes, most of them indirect, in which Sufis were involved and which on the long run led to the acculturation and to the Islamization of certain non-Muslim groups, thus opening the way for the birth and then consolidation of a Muslim identity.

This study presents the complex situation of non-Muslim (Christian and Hindu) / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2008.

The aim of this study is to examine new interpretations of homosexuality in Islam based on Scott Kugle’s book “Homosexuality in Islam” and the documentary “A Jihad for love” by Parvez Sharma. Through a theological perspective, a critical analysis is performed in order to find new interpretations and compare them with each other and with the Islamic legal tradition. Argumentative analysis is also used for both the book and the documentary for this essay.     Both Kugle and Sharma use new interpretations and arguments about love to find space for homosexuality in Islam. They use a Muslim language to have relevance with their discussions to Muslim readers and viewers. It is obvious that Sharma is aware of the scenes and arguments he chose to show in the documentary. Kugle focuses on unclear verses in the Qur’an, which contribute to that he could find possibilities to interpret homosexuals in the verses to fulfill his purpose and open up a topic for discussion. Their discussion show what Muslim homosexuals have to struggle with and with their new interpretations they both discover ways to find reconciliation between Islam and people’s sexual orientation by questioning the normative society.

This study is based on a comparative qualitative analysis of religion textbooks in elementary schools. The aim is to investigate how Muslim women have been represented in religion textbooks used as educational material in Swedish schools, between the 1970s and the 2000s. This study rests on the social constructivist theory which implies that reality is what we make it. In order to do a comparative qualitative analysis, three deductive stereotypes have been applied: the oppressed, the submissive and the uneducated. However, an additional, inductive stereotype was identified during the analysis of the material: the independent. The text analysis showed that Muslim women were mostly represented as oppressed and submissive, having no right to their own opinions, lives or bodies and simply needing to be covered to get accepted by the Muslim society. However, it was also possible to conclude that similar representations of Muslim women could be found in textbooks from the 1970s and 2000s.

This thesis examines the social role of the Indonesian women's organization known as `Aisyiyah, the female wing of the reformist group the Muhammadiyah, founded in 1912. This is achieved by analyzing the development of the organization vis a vis other Muslim women's organizations. It looks at the activities of `Aisyiyah during the period extending from its birth in 1917 until the late New Order era of the 1990s, with close reference to other women's organizations. / A comparison of the activities of `Aisyiyah with those of other women's organizations, and an analysis of the response of this organization towards such issues as polygamy, is also an important feature of this work. While there was much common purpose, still, inevitable differences in perspective, even disharmony developed between `Aisyiyah and other women's groups. This was due in many respects to its determination to maintain its identity as a Muslim women's organization, while it at the same time faced certain limitations by virtue of its being a part of the Muhammadiyah. In general, however, `Aisyiyah is no different from other women's organizations in Indonesia, all of which have tried to represent women's interests and have struggled for their enhancement, while at the same time being faced with the challenges posed by a constantly changing political situation.

This thesis deals with the political participation of Muslim women since the colonial period into the New Order period. It is a study of the Indonesian women's movement in its different trends: the roles of women in gaining and defending Indonesian independence as well as in Indonesia's politics in the Liberal Democracy, Guided Democracy, and New Order periods. It investigates the reasons for the relatively limited participation of women in politics. This low level of political participation is indicated by the ratio of women membership in the House of People's Representatives (DPR, Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat), in the Consultative Assembly (MPR, Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat), and in the central boards of political organizations. This thesis also focuses on the political career and discourse of Aisyah Aminy, and examines her involvement as a case study. The prominence of Aisyah Aminy lies in her ability to transcend the barriers which usually obstruct Muslim women from getting involved in politics.