Engaged Surrender : African American Women and Islam (George Gund Foundation Imprint in African American Studies)

Rating:
Summary: Not appealing
Review: In the current international climate, Rouse has given us a book that hopes to promote more understanding of Islam in the US. Or at least of a particular [small] set of Muslims. She has studied black women who have become Muslims, often having previously been Christians. Many non-Muslims, especially feminists, would be surprised. The common question is, have these women willingly given themselves to subservience?

Rouse's interviews and analysis tries to dispell some of this. Several women see a version of Islam that to them is not oppressive. Some readers, including myself, will disagree. Several women who became Muslims did so because they were in the straitened circumstances of poverty and drugs. Not that they necessarily did the latter, but that it was part of their surroundings. By contrast, Islam offered an alternative. Sounds commendable. But scarcely a compelling appeal to women, black or otherwise, not labouring under these conditions.