Muslim Women: Emerging Identity

Broadly speaking, it is an empirical inquiry into the dynamics of change in the role and status of Muslim women in India. The study, inter alia, besides identifying the past and the present, focuses attention on some of the change-resistant socio-economic and politico-cultural institutions. And to be of use in designing measures for corrective action by the Muslim community, it discusses the differential importance of education, employment, modernization and overseas migration in combating the anti developmental attitudes of Muslims–both men and women–and in initiating and accelerating the positive forces of change and progress. The author points out that the Muslim community, in the name of religion, has developed certain innocent notions about women’s employment, and shows that there is no inherent contradiction between the two. The study identifies education as one of the decisive factors in sensitizing and conscientizing Muslim men and women. The findings of the study would be of immense use to all those who have concern for Muslim women and also conviction and determination to convert such concern into action.