The Terms of Empowerment Vol. 24. Number 4

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This focuses on the Islamic women's movement in Cairo to investigate the impact of their activism on women's self-empowerment. The author argues that Islamic women's activism cannot be adequately understood in terms of liberal feminist discourse. Rather, she proposes an approach that relies on these women's perspectives as a guiding factor in assessing the impact of their activism. Islamic women activists are pursuing their self-enhancement through perfecting their religious practice in order to arrive at a Muslim notion of the ideal woman. Their empowerment is engendered as they perfect themselves through religious discipline. The study concludes that the applicability of the notions of ''empowerment'' and ''agency'' as understood in western liberal paradigms need to be reevaluated with regard to Islamic women activists.