Hidden in the Household: Gender and Class in the Study of Islam in Africa

The household, if understood in a dynamic multi-status, multi-generational, multi-cultural, "gendered" way, can provide a conceptual framework for reinterpreting practices, processes, and patterns of Islamization in Africa. This framework contrasts with the one privileged in literature tha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCanadian journal of African studies Vol. 42; no. 2-3; pp. 508 - 545
Main Author Ann McDougall, E.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Toronto Routledge 01.01.2008
Canadian Association of African Studies
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
African culture
African languages
African studies
Children
Culture
Developing "Themes": Historry of Islam in Africa
History
Households
Islam
Islamization
Men
Muslims
Religion
Religious conversion
Slave children
Slavery
Slaves
Women
Africa
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Summary:The household, if understood in a dynamic multi-status, multi-generational, multi-cultural, "gendered" way, can provide a conceptual framework for reinterpreting practices, processes, and patterns of Islamization in Africa. This framework contrasts with the one privileged in literature that focuses on the agency of traders, clerics and chiefs in public institutions. It reminds us that they "lived Islam" next to their mothers, wives, sisters, and slaves in households. This preliminary exploration of women and slaves usually seen as marginal to Islamization is intended to challenge extant perceptions: women and slaves were not only "recipients" of Islam but its agents. In their households, they shaped how Islam was lived by all around them. So instead of looking only at the history of more public Islamic people and places, addressing attention to the household and its changing nature over time may allow us to see a different face of Islam and different process of Islamization.
ISSN:0008-3968
1923-3051
DOI:10.1080/00083968.2008.10751395