How and why have women come to play a central role in the political project of Islamic revivalism and in the power struggles between Islamic and secular forces in Turkey? In this innovative book Ayse Saktanber rejects approaches to this issue that ask what Islam means for the position of women, or see Muslim women as the "reverse" or the "dark" side of modernity. Taking as her subject matter families who have come together to "live Islam" as "conscious Muslims" in a suburb of Ankara, she attempts instead to "render thinkable" the experiences of women who are not situated within the discourse of modernity, and to look at the ways in which they have become crucial agents in the effort to make Islam a living social practice in a secular order.

Ayse Saktanber lectures in sociology at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara.