This is a new and engaging examination of the emergence of a Muslim women s
movement in India. The state of Bhopal, a Muslim principality in central India,
was ruled by a succession of female rulers throughout the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, most notably the last Begam of Bhopal, Nawab Sultan Jahan
Begam.
Siobhan Lambert-Hurley puts forward the importance for early Muslim female
activists to balance continuity and innovation. By operating within the
framework of Islam, these women built on traditional norms in order to introduce
incremental change in terms of veiling, female education, marriage, motherhood
and women's political rights. For the first time, this book analyzes