Abstract

In the last two decades as the political landscape of the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia increasingly has become increasingly identified with conservative Islamist discourses, a number of feminist historians have tried to probe the contradictions in an attempt to understand the underlying reasons for the growth of Islamism. Most of these studies, including writings by this author, have adopted a broad historical, political, or sociological lens through which gender relations and the concerns of women of the region have been analyzed.