In the last 15 years, India has witnessed the expression of a variety of new non-conformist religious practices performed by Muslim women. A range of vibrant campaigns has been pioneered by Muslim women's associations, asserting women's claims to hold and lead congregational prayers, enter and manage mosques, visit shrines, officiate Muslim marriages, and issue shari‘ah-based legal decisions. This article explores the twin questions of why these experimental remodellings of women's Islamic observance and leadership have been so pronounced in the Indian context compared with much of the Islamic world, and furthermore, why Muslim women's rights activists have put such confessional matters at the centre of their work. Exploring a series of specific female-led assertions of religious agency centring upon mosques, shari‘ah councils, and a Sufi shrine, the article argues that India's variant of ‘secularism’, which has normalized the state's non-intervention in religious institutions and laws, has given women the freedom to embark upon overhauls of Islamic conventions denied to their counterparts elsewhere. Simultaneously, this same framework for handling religious questions has historically given intra-community and clerical voices particular influence in regulating Muslim community affairs and family laws, compelling activists to seek women's empowerment in individual and local community contexts to further their objectives, including through the assertion of experimental forms of religious conduct.

中文翻译：

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“对我们的宗教采取行动”：穆斯林妇女运动和印度伊斯兰习俗的重塑

在过去的 15 年中，印度见证了穆斯林妇女进行的各种新的不墨守成规的宗教习俗的表达。穆斯林妇女协会开创了一系列充满活力的运动，主张妇女声称可以举行和领导集体祈祷、进入和管理清真寺、参观圣地、主持穆斯林婚姻和发布伊斯兰教法——基于法律的决定。本文探讨了两个问题：与伊斯兰世界的大部分地区相比，为什么这些对女性伊斯兰信仰和领导力的实验性改造在印度背景下如此明显，此外，为什么穆斯林妇女权利活动家将此类忏悔问题置于中心他们的工作。探索以清真寺为中心的一系列由女性主导的特定宗教机构主张，伊斯兰教法文章认为，印度的“世俗主义”变体使国家对宗教机构和法律的不干预正常化，使妇女可以自由地着手对其他地方的同行拒绝的伊斯兰公约进行彻底改革。同时，处理宗教问题的同一框架在历史上赋予了社区内部和神职人员在规范穆斯林社区事务和家庭法方面的特殊影响力，迫使活动家在个人和地方社区环境中寻求赋予妇女权力以推进其目标，包括通过断言宗教行为的实验形式。