This paper will examine political activism of independent Muslim women’s groups in Turkey and Egypt during the last decade. Islamic discourse on women’s rights is a rising trend in Muslim countries, thanks to the local and global Muslim women’s mobilization. Turkey and Egypt have had different pace and shapes of Islamization for the last 15 years: In Turkey, an ‘Islamist’ party is governing more than a decade. Although the government has initiated liberalization in the public discourse on certain issues such as military’s role in politics and ethnic diversity in Turkey; it has also increased the conservative discourse on gender. On the other hand, Egypt has undergone disrupted waves of liberalization, revolution, and Islamization during the last decade; while Islam has always been prevalent in policy making and public discourse in Egypt. How have Muslim women’s activists in Turkey and Egypt reacted and contributed to the changes of the discursive landscape on women’s rights during this recent period? The paper will specifically analyze campaigns and discourse of two Muslim women’s organizations in Turkey, namely, "Women who Get Together" and "Muslim Initiative Opposing the Violence against Women". Women’s organizations CEWLA and Musawah will be the focus on Egypt. The paper aims to analyze how these groups merge their religious and gender identity to mobilize or lobby for political action, addressing to the government, state or public opinion. The paper will evaluate and compare the diverging (and sometimes converging) discourses and activism patterns of present-day Turkish Muslim women’s activism to the present-day Egyptian Muslim women’s activism. The findings will be based on on-going field research in Istanbul and Cairo since 2013.
