Sisters in the Mirror A History of Muslim Women and the Global Politics of Feminism

"An exciting and original contribution to the global history of feminist thought. Through a focus on the two-way gaze and the interplay of ideas between Bengali and Anglo-American thinkers, Elora Shehabuddin makes a compelling case for the ways global feminism was shaped over time by East-West interactions in the form of mutual influences, reciprocal learning, and a fair amount of misapprehension. She enlarges our vision of feminism and its modern history by telling a hitherto neglected transregional story."—Judith E. Tucker, author of Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law

“Drawing on various historical texts and, importantly, writings by South Asian Muslim women and men, Shehabuddin traces a genealogy of representations by and about Muslim women. This is a long overdue, powerful, and necessary intervention in feminist history on gender, religion, and colonialism, and emphasizes why transnational feminist accounts must attend to the locations and contexts out of which differing and entangled representations emerge.”—Inderpal Grewal, author of Saving the Security State: Exceptional Citizens in Twenty-First-Century America

"Shehabuddin provides an important analytical framework for understanding the intertwined experiences and political mobilizations of women across borders. A deeply researched and illuminating account of transnational feminist encounters, Sisters in the Mirror will undoubtedly raise our consciousness about seemingly disparate trajectories of social movements in various geopolitical contexts. This is a beautifully written book that centers diverse voices of women who are influencing national, regional, and global politics."—Elora Halim Chowdhury, author of Transnationalism Reversed: Women Organizing Against Gendered Violence in Bangladesh

"Shehabuddin compellingly explores the tangled story of feminist movements in the West and in Muslim South Asia and their secular expressions. Digging deep into history, Shehabuddin tells the stories of individual women’s writings from the sixteenth century to the present and shows how the politics of colonialism, decolonization, and postcolonialism have shaped women’s struggles for gender equality within their societies in Bangladesh, the United Kingdom, and the United States."—Yasmin Saikia, author of Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971