Ousseina D. Alidou has written a fascinating book that offers a clear argument on a significant topic, Muslim female leadership in Kenya, which has long needed monographic treatment of this kind. The book has two major strengths: first, it offers an account of Kenyan female Muslim leaders who have for many years been neglected in academic research and erased from historical memory. Second, on the basis of extensive interviews, it presents a lively picture of Muslim women's struggles and concerns in postcolonial Kenya. Based on these strengths, the book will be a lasting addition to the bibliography on both Islam in Africa and gender studies. The author presents six female Muslim leaders in diverse professions who are active and influential in different areas of society. An important theme emerging from the book is the efforts of these women to challenge the male ulama on the issues of the gender of Islamic authority and of employment opportunities.
In their struggle the women make explicit references to male authorities in both religious and secular realms of power who oppose their advancement efforts. In Chapters One and Two the author addresses the issue of education by examining the efforts of Muhashamy Said and Azara Mudira respectively. Through her creative effort, Said began a program to modernize the traditional Quran schools in order to respond to the structural inequalities created by the expensive private nursery schools. Her innovative work presented a substitute to both the inadequacy of traditional Quran schools in meeting the demands of modernity, and the unaffordable secular nursery school system that, according to widespread views among Muslims, culturally estranges Muslim children from their religion. The modernized integrated madrasa curriculum initiated by Said proposes to make Islam an integral part of learning the other ‘secular’ subjects. Mudira, on the other hand, opened a formal boarding school for advanced Islamic theological training for women in the face of the opposition of conservative Muslim ulama. The mission of her school is to challenge the exclusionary male-centered tradition of higher education in Islamic studies. Clearly, Mudira's effort seeks to challenge patriarchal control of religion among Kenya Muslims through her educational project.
In Chapter Three, the author explores the leadership roles of female Muslim members of parliament, analyzing their justification for embracing secular rather than faith-based politics in their struggle to achieve equal rights and political opportunities for other Muslim women. Evident are the ways in which the two female Muslim members of parliament use their positions of influence to contest negative forces within their own communities and the country at large that bar women from rising to national political leadership offices. A social biography of the first Muslim woman to be appointed judge of the High Court in Kenya, Abida Ali-Aroni, is presented in Chapter Four. Here, the book offers a critique of the culture of political activism of Muslim women in Kenya, which Ali-Aroni considers to be operating under the patronage of Muslim male organizations. This view highlights a common attitude among male Muslims about women occupying leadership positions. And finally, Chapter Five illustrates the interplay between information and communication technologies and Muslim women's activism by focusing on two case studies: a Muslim women's magazine (Nur) and a women's radio program (Ukumbi wa Mamama). The chapter demonstrates how some Muslim women have appropriated media tools to advance both religious and sociopolitical goals.
There are a few minor issues where this reviewer disagrees with the author. For instance, she characterizes some of the women discussed in the book as ‘Islamists’ (pp. 31, 145–6) without substantiating her claim. Despite their views being shaped by an Islamic framework, these women are not necessarily advancing an Islamist agenda. On the issue of the nationalization of the Arab school (p. 44), I am of the view that this process did not affect the teaching of Arabic language and Islamic religious education as claimed by the author. In fact, offering religious education in public schools was a recommendation of various postcolonial education commissions. Alidou takes for granted without evidence the subjective claim made by a section of Muslims in the country that postcolonial schools on the coast were less accommodating to Muslims than the colonial ones (p. 44). She states that the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission under the leadership of Yash Pal Ghai was established in 2003 during the presidency of Mwai Kibaki (p. 116). However, the review commission was actually founded in 1997 during the rule of Daniel Arap Moi.
Over all, Muslim Women in Postcolonial Kenya is a major step forward in the study of Islam and gender in Africa, and the book will have a lasting impact in this growing field.
