Masjid Al-Nasaa: Women Call for an Islamic Elsewhere

Abstract

My research explores what it means to be a “Muslim woman” in South Africa in the digital age. More broadly, what does Muslimness and Religiosity mean? How do we enact these concepts and practices, and how do they inform our processes of identification? How does access to digital platforms allow a new way of engaging these forces? This research took place over the course of three years, starting in 2020, and was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. With the increased digitalisation that came with the pandemic, many activities had to shift to online platforms to survive. This also created a space where Muslim women were able to create virtual masjids and hold online prayers. I followed one such online Jumu’ah (Friday prayer) group and interviewed the women who attended. I also interviewed women from a women-led South African Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) on their experiences and relationships with Islam(s). While their relationships with Islam(s) and Muslimness were complex and nuanced, what echoed through all their narratives was that they felt called to Islam(s) in some way and their Islamic practice was a response to that call. In my thesis, I unpack this call and use it as a guiding conceptual and theoretical framework. Through the multifaceted nature of the call, and the different ways that the women are called to Islam(s), I explore what it means to respond to a call that is not bounded or territorial in its address. The thesis takes the form of a masjid (mosque) in its architecture: beginning with a preface that is named ‘Niyyah’ (intention); moving into the ‘Wudhu’ introductory chapter that provides the contextual and historical orientations for the research; and then proceeding to go through seven chapters, named after the minarets (spires) in a masjid complex. These seven core theoretical and narrative chapters unpack the call to Islam(s) that the women experience. The call ranges from a call to the Digital Islamic Elsewhere as an alternate semi-public, to a call beyond essentialised identifications (such as ‘Muslim’), a call that re-orients and queers notions of the ‘Muslim woman’, to a call that challenges a hegemonic ummah (transnational Islamic community) in favour of a multiplicity of ummah(s), a call that is hidden and opaque, and a call that is ensouled in its manifestation. These different frequencies of the call to Islam(s) echo and reverberate through the thesis as I unpack what it means to be a woman in Islam(s) in the digital age.