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Résumé :
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Women’s religious activism flourished in the last decades of the 20th century. Some researchers speak of a feminization of religion that is rooted in the democratization of religious discourse and in the decentralization of religious authority. In Egypt, however, as in other Muslim countries, it is also the transformations of the Islamist movements themselves that have opened up new opportunities of involvement for many women. While they have long remained in the shadow of media attention and academic research - focused, until recently, on male religious leaders and the structures they lead -, the women involved in “Islamist activism” have demonstrated, after the uprisings of 2011, their capacity to mobilize and participate in the political fabric. The purpose of this issue is to shed light on the forms of engagement practiced by these women. All articles here included are based on fieldwork carried out in different Muslim countries. By bringing them together, this issue intends to question a number of paradoxes. Based on the itineraries of women activists, the authors question women’s empowerment and their capacity to occupy a strong symbolic place or a key role in structures dominated by a conservative discourse and a patriarchal distribution of roles. This issue also examines what the transformations in women’s roles reveal about changes in Islamist organizations, both in terms of their internal functioning and governance, and of how they adapt to changing political and religious contexts.
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