Public Islam in Post-Apartheid South Africa: The Radio Islam Controversy

Abstract

This article examines the Radio Islam controversy of 1997, in which a South African Muslim radio station, affiliated with the conservative Deobandi organization Jamiatul Ulama, forbade women’s voices on its airwaves, citing the notion that women’s voices in this context were `awrah (part of the body that must be concealed), and thus should not be heard on the radio. It locates this event and the legal, ethical and theological debates that ensued within the context of emergent post-apartheid constitutional discourses on gender and religious freedom, and post-apartheid religious media. The article then situates these debates against the nature of ‘public’ religion during and after apartheid. It concludes by suggesting the Radio Islam case is a particularly salient example of the porousness of the ‘secular’ and ‘post-secular’ in a specific constitutional and legal arrangement.