A NNUAL REVIEW OF I SLAM IN A FRICA • I SSUE NO. 11 • 2012 55 A Muslim Woman’s (re-)Making of Her Religious Identity through Activism in Qibla 1 Gadija Ahjum University of Cape Town Introduction In analysing Muslim discourses in the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, Farid Esack (1988) identi fi es three South African Muslim ‘strands of justice,’ with each one presenting particular forms of political opposition to the state. Scholarship on Qibla has largely focused on its ‘militancy’ and on the charismatic personality and role of Achmad Cassiem, leader and main ideologue of Qibla, 2 with little or no research conducted on other individuals active in this movement. In this paper, the writer considers the experiences of some of the female members of the Qibla movement who were, and continue to be, ignored in scholarship. 3 After providing a brief background on the Qibla movement, the writer draws from an interview conducted with Mariam (fi ctitious name), a female member of this movement. Hans Mol’s identity model of religion (Mol 1979) is used as a framework through which to interpret the data. This theory is used to show how political activism is intertwined with, and an aspect of, the quest to develop as a religious being. This paper suggests that by being an activist in an Islamist movement such as Qibla, Mariam, in a very explicit way, reconstructed her religious identity. Thus, activism in the movement can be viewed as a part, and a simultaneous re-making, of one’s religious identity. In Qibla’s response to the apartheid state and to politically complacent Muslim bodies, Qibla, as an Islamist movement, powerfully contributed to the re-construction of the religious identities of many of its members. Qibla – An Islamist Movement 4 Contemporary scholar of ‘Political Islam’ Salman Sayyid (2003) defi nes Islamism 5 as a political project. Islamists are people who “use the language of Islamic metaphors to think through their political destinies, those who see in Islam their political future.” 6 In essence, Islamists are individuals whose Muslim identity is at the centre of his or her political practice. Thus Islamists, and by extension Islamist movements such as Qibla, could be said to interpret Islam in a manner which places emphasis on its socio-political signi fi cance. In South Africa, the mid-1970s to 1980s was a period which witnessed Muslims, as a collective, making their most signi fi cant contributions to the struggle for socio-political justice. Qibla was established in 1979 because, according to its founding members, no other organisation at the time encompassed fully the values and principles of Islam in its totality: “What we are emphasising is that ideology, and especially the ideology of Islam, encourages and creates social consciousness, identity, solidarity and inspires positive action on a scale which no other ideology has done or can do.” 7 Qibla saw itself fi rstly as the mantle-bearer of Thus Islamists, and by extension Islamist movements such as Qibla, could be said to interpret Islam in a manner which places emphasis on its socio-political significance.