‘Children and the Beauty of the World’: Beyond Sexual Morality and Family in Islam.

Abstract

This paper sets out to detail some of the principles that characterize sexual and family morality in the religious discourse constructed and/or circulated in certain sectors of the Muslim community in Buenos Aires. It draws the attention to the meanings and counter-meanings surrounding the „role‟ or „status‟ attributed to and self-ascribed by Muslim women. Through an examination of the testimony of a group of women, questions are raised about the limits imposed by prevailing conceptions of „family‟ and „motherhood‟. In this context we can nevertheless glimpse different ways of interpreting and approaching normativity or normativeness.