Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the notions of religion, ethnic community and gender, through the case study of a Jewish woman's conversion to Islam and subsequent re-conversions, in 1950s Aden (Yemen). I ask, how much does colonial legacy affect the way i.e. sectarian divides are understood in anthropology?

Paper long abstract:

My paper takes up the case of a young Jewish woman in 1950s colonial Aden whose conversion to Islam and subsequent re-conversions caused a communal mayhem and set the British armed forces into alarm. While the British feared the situation would escalate into communal riots, heads of concerned community organisations engaged into a peaceful consultation process that eventually exposed quite spectacular features. The barely adult woman from a minority community was allowed room to make up her mind in each turn of the events; it was left to her to decide whether to remain with her family and community as a Jewish girl or to accept a Muslim marriage and become a member of a South Asian Muslim community. The anti-Jewish riots and rising independence struggle against the British form the political background to the events. Against all odds, the way gender, ethnicity and religion were negotiated in the process tells something different from how within anthropology, a Middle Eastern patriarchal society is understood to operate. Material for this paper was collected in the British India Office records in London and through ethnographic fieldwork in Aden (Yemen) during some three years.