THE NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE AND ISLAMIC FEMINISMS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Abstract

In this article, I investigate the impact of the national liberation struggle on the rise of Islamic feminisms in South Africa. Muslims form less than two per cent of the population in South Africa yet their minority status has not meant their exclusion from political life, including the anti-apartheid struggle. Their involvement in ‘the struggle’ has had many consequences for the Muslim community including encouraging the emergence of Islamic feminist tendencies. I argue that the development of political Islam in South Africa in the 1980s and its interaction with the national liberation struggle helped give rise to Islamic feminisms that flourished from 1990 to the year 1998 when the Islamic feminist tendency began to decline.

The article was originally published in Women’s Studies International Forum 28 (2006) 27-41.