Ansar al-Sunna and Women's Agency in Sudan

A Salafi Approach to Empowerment through Gender Segregation

Bibliographic Data

ID11241449
AuthorsLiv Tønnessen (0000-0002-6486-3089, corresponding author), Liv Tønnessen Liv Tønnessen
Year2016
Volume37
Issue3
Pages92
Publication date2016-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueFrontiers A Journal of Women Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0160-9009 • E-ISSN: 1536-0334
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.5250/fronjwomestud.37.3.0092
OpenAlexW2532627990
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited25

This article explores the possibilities, limits, and paradox of Salafi female agency at a time when Ansar al-Sunna is assuming a new political role under the rule of an Islamizing state in Sudan. The Islam Ansar al-Sunna preaches is Salafism and is based on the idea that there is a unitary Islamic doctrine and only one correct understanding of the Quran and the Sunna. That one correct understanding of Islam dictates gender segregation. Introducing new empirical data on a largely understudied movement from Sudan, the article argues that in its attempt to introduce gender segregation Ansar al-Sunna has provided (perhaps unintentionally) a space for women’s empowerment. Despite Ansar al-Sunna disavowing women’s political participation based on arguments that women are more emotional and less rational than men, the women have begun to challenge this stance of the unitary Islamic doctrine. Women have begun to participate politically as a consequence of: (1) the opening of a segregated Ansar al-Sunna women’s center in which leadership fall to women themselves and therefore constitutes a parallel form of governance within the movement, and (2) the political context in which Ansar al-Sunna are entangled within Sudan’s Islamic state, in which they struggle to distinguish themselves from Islamism. While women are challenging the male leadership’s position that women’s biological makeup excludes them from making sound political decisions, they are simultaneously maintaining and inhabiting norms of gender segregation and thus implicitly and explicitly critiquing state-induced gender mixing in the name of Islam. \n \n A preprint of the article can be downloaded as a PDF file above

Agency (philosophy · Empowerment · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Religion, Society, and Development · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

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