Locating Maldivian Women’s Mosques in Global Discourses

In this ethnographic examination of women’s mosques in the Maldives, anthropologist Jacqueline H. Fewkes probes how the existence of these separate buildings—where women lead prayers for other women—intersect with larger questions about gender, space, and global Muslim communities. Bringing together ethnographic insight with historical accounts, this volume develops an understanding of the particular religious and cultural trends in the Maldives that have given rise to these unique socio-religious institutions. As Fewkes considers women’s spaces in the Maldives as a practice apart from contemporary global Islamic customs, she interrogates the intersections between local, national, and transnational communities in the development of Islamic spaces, linking together the role of nations in the formation of Muslim social spaces with transnational conceptualizations of Islamic gendered spaces. Using the Maldivian women’s mosque as a starting point, this book addresses the roles of both the nation and the global Muslim ummah in locating gendered spaces within discourses about gender and Islam.

• Islam
• Muslim women
• space
• place
• ummah
• nisha miskii
• women's mosques
• Maldives
• Asia

“Locating Maldivian Women’s Mosques in Global Discourses should … deserve a warm welcome, and it is hoped that its publication will stimulate new academic work on Islam and Muslim society in the Maldives. … This is a worthy project—pushing discussions of ‘women’s mosques’ beyond the level of an unexpected novelty and toward a more sustained critical discussion that is long overdue.” (R. Michael Feener, Reading Religion, readingreligion.org, July 29, 2020)

• Honors College, Florida Atlantic University, Jupiter, USA

  Jacqueline H. Fewkes

Jacqueline H. Fewkes is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University, USA. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and has conducted research in many parts of the world, including India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. Dr. Fewkes is also the author of the book Trade and Contemporary Society along the Silk Road: An Ethno-history of Ladakh.