Women in Islam The Western Experience by Anne Sofie Roald (London & New York: Routledge, 2001. 339 pages.)

Abstract

Anne Sofie Roald, a Norwegian convert to Islam and associate professor of
the history of religion at Malmo University (Sweden), devotes her book to
two major themes: Examining what the interpretations of the Qur'an and
Sunnah in the Arab cultural sphere "say" on various women's issues, and
how this interpretation tends to change during the cultural encounter with
the West. The cover picture exemplifies these themes: two young happy
Muslim women wearing headscarves while biking, illustrating Muslim
women well integrated into western society but without giving up their
Islamic identity. The book is divided into two parts: theoretical and methodological
reflections, and empirical issues.
Roald's approach involves exact textual citation. Her emphasis on text
is explained, as Islam is a scriptural religion, as "what can be termed
Islamic is what can be linked to the text." Further, she analyses how classical
and contemporary scholars have interpreted the text, in addition to the
results of her fieldwork among Arab Sunni Muslim activists living in the
West. This methodology allows her to avoid the reification of Islam - the
apprehension of Islam as separated from its social context. She chooses to
emphasize the opinions of the Muslim Brotherhood (ikhwarJ) and the postikhwan
trend, or an "independent Islamist trend" of Islamists who go
beyond the ikhwan's thought and who are not linked to its organization.
Being an Arabic-speaking Muslim herself, Roald plays both roles of being
an "insider" and an "outsider."
Her analysis builds basically on two theories: the "basket metaphor"
combined with the idea of"normative fields." The "basket," defined as the
set-up of traditions in a specific religion or ideology, is a metaphor that
comes from the idea that a basket leaks from the inside and absorbs from
the outside. In other words, concepts might leak out and new ones might
get absorbed. Further, even though all of its contents are latently present,
what is needed in different times and spaces is subjected to the processes of
selection. Roald explains that Muslims might consider such a metaphor
blasphemous, but the selection from ''the basket" is what actually happens.
The text's function, how it is being interpreted and applied, is superior to
the text's very existence ...