A highly controversial intervention into the debate on postmodernism and feminism, this book looks at what happens when these modes of analysis are jointly employed to illuminate the sexual politics of Islam.

1. Oriental Sexuality: Imagined and Real

Muslim Women Imagined
The Islamic Concept of Sexuality

2. From Orientalism to Islamic Feminism

A Breakthrough in Studies of Gender and Islam
The Construction of a New 'Muslim Woman'
The Veil as a Tool of Empowerment?

3. Postmodern Relativism and the Politics of Cultural Difference

The Postmodern Frame
Rethinking Modernity in the Middle East?

4. Islamic Fundamentalism and its Nostalgic Accomplice

Islamic Fundamentalism Defined
The Marriage of Premodern and Postmodern Outlooks

5. Women, Modernity and Social Change

Mystification of 'Islamic Traditions'
Feminism Revisited

6. Fundamentalists in Power: Conflict and Compromise

The Islamization Project
Women's Legal Rights in the Family
he Law of Retribution
Paid Work as a Terrain of Contestation
Resistance to the Islamization Project

7. Islamic Feminism and its Discontents

'Muslim' Feminism and Gender Activism
Silencing the Secular Voices