5 - Vaizeler’s Invitation

Summary

The chapter presents the vaizeler’s engagement in inviting women to participate in the mosque’s public realm. This invitation (davet in Turkish) consists of a call of the vaizeler that dates back to the origins of Islam, a period reported as a “golden age” for women’s participation within the religious community. The Diyanet’s projects sought to invite women to mosques and to forge a “new religious woman” who is representing these old, traditional models in a modern way. In everyday life, inviting women to mosques requires the vaize to be aware of the communities’ heterogeneous attendance. Their sessions are places in which women share concerns with both the group and the preachers. Far from any wishful thinking about women’s resistance, victimization, or fears of “false consciousness,” the engagement of women in the Diyanet’s sessions embodies the concept of a “good Muslim woman” behaving piously in everyday life.