We did not intend to undertake a statistically representative study of Muslim women’s experiences of qiwamah and wilayah, but rather to develop a process of enquiry and a new kind of methodology as well as to devote time and open a safe and honest space for a collective effort of reflective knowledge production and movement building.

Analytical Process

 
 
We chose to document women’s life stories in their entirety both because life events and experiences were so interrelated and could not be isolated, and in order to capture nuanced, layered knowledge about qiwamah and wilayah. This helped shed light on how the women made sense of their experiences, choices and factors that enabled or made difficult certain paths. Sharing their life stories also allowed the resource persons—those who shared their stories—to reflect on their life trajectories and changes in self-understanding.
 
The aim of recording the stories was not to document some objective ‘truth’ about the women but rather to trace and highlight their personal trajectories and perspectives as they grappled with the diverse workings of male authority and patriarchal gender norms. The resource persons shared their stories in open-ended conversations over the course of multiple extensive meetings. This gave them space to speak freely and spontaneously, add or clarify details and reflect on the experiences and the meanings that they gave to their lives. It also allowed us to capture and explain multiple layers of a life: significant life events and how these were explained; choices a woman makes and why; complexities and implications of these choices and changes in self-understanding.
 

We developed the collective framework for analysis together, and the country teams then applied it as best suited their contexts. The framework included the following inquiries:
 
• Whether the life experiences departed (e.g. with regard to gender roles, relations and rights) from the juristic qiwamah- and wilayah-based gender regimes, the determining factors when this occurred and the consequences and implications.
• How resource persons made sense of self and their relations with tradition and authority.
• How patterns, norms and power structures in the stories related to qiwamah and wilayah and how they might have influenced the resource persons’ choices, access to rights, resources, opportunities and life trajectories.
• Similarities and differences between the stories within each country and between countries in terms of the resource persons’ experiences, choices and views, and how individual life stories might speak to a larger narrative of gender inequality and marginalization or empowerment in the global or national contexts.
Some of these points are covered in the transnational overview and the country sections.
 
We recognize that while we can identify trends on the basis of these reports, the experiences of our resource persons are not necessarily representative of all Muslim women in all contexts, nor of all women’s or men’s experiences in Muslim families. We did not intend to undertake a statistically representative study of Muslim women’s experiences of qiwamah and wilayah, but rather to develop a process of enquiry and a new kind of methodology as well as to devote time and open a safe and honest space for a collective effort of reflective knowledge production and movement building.