Women as Modern Heads of State

Abstract

Abstract The modern world has produced several Muslim women heads of state or heads of government. While roughly one-third of non–Muslim majority countries worldwide have had women government leaders, a more appropriate comparison is with developing countries whose modern histories are characterized, like those of Muslim-majority countries, by struggles for economic, social, and political recovery from colonialism. Africa, for example, has had roughly the same percentage of women governmental leaders, including three Muslim women. Few of these women cite their religion as motivation for entering politics, but several articulate Islam as the source of their empowerment and specific values, including opposition to religious extremism.