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174 David Kloos

gure of the professional Muslim woman is a factor in all Malaysian political
parties that have advanced an Islamic agenda, but it draws substantially on
images and discourses that originated in the Islamist movement.
e rise to prominence of women activists and leaders is a remarkable
aspect of contemporary Islamism (see, e.g., Clark and Schwedler 2003).
Anthropological accounts of the role of women in Islamist social and political
movements, while producing some of the most important advances in our
thinking about agency and normative Islam, have focused on informal or
‘behind-the-scenes’ spaces and contexts (e.g., Arat 2012; Deeb 2006; Iqtidar
2011; Mahmood 2005; Rinaldo 2013). Looking at election campaigns, this
chapter instead engages with women who have moved to the very forefront of
Islamist politics. An in-depth analysis of the relation between constructions of
Malay-Muslim femininity and performances of professional authority requires
a certain level of ethnographic detail and a variety of perspectives. It requires, in
other words, grounded eldwork. I conducted extensive life-history interviews
with Mariah Mahmud and Siti Zailah Yuso , PAS’s only remaining female
MP after the 2015 split, in 2016–17. I spent time in Dr Mariah’s o ce in
Kota Raja, observing day-to-day a airs, interviewing her sta , and collecting
documents. I visited Siti Zailah in her constituency of Rantau Panjang,
Kelantan, following her and her entourage in their daily activities. e section
after this introduction o ers an account of the re-emergence since 2004 of
women as PAS MPs and the party’s connection to professional identities and
performances. is is followed by a discussion of the career of, and challenges
faced by, Mariah Mahmud, partly in comparison to the case of Siti Zailah.
e fourth section presents examples from GE14. Together with Nabillah,
I followed the campaigns of Mariah and Zailah. In addition, we observed the
campaigns of prominent leaders of Muslimat PAS (‘Women of PAS’, the party’s
women’s wing), and of candidates with a distinctly professional outlook. We
focused on constituencies in Selangor, Kelantan, mainland Penang, and Kuala
Lumpur. Generally, our choice of campaigns was based on the stature and
pro le of individual candidates rather than the assumed importance of the
seats they contested or the chance they had of winning. On average, we spent
two full days in each constituency, observing campaign activities; holding
interviews with candidates, members of their team, party activists, and voters;
collecting printed materials; and following social media. My position as a
male, white, non-Muslim researcher did not, generally, create big problems in
terms of managing access. As said, I already knew most candidates personally.
However, working with Nabillah during the campaign played a role as well.
As a Malay-Muslim woman, she navigated the places we visited with ease

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