"Tunisian Islam," Women's Rights, and the Limits of French Empire in Twentieth-Century North Africa.

This article examines the concept of "Tunisian Islam" during and after the French protectorate in Tunisia (1881–1956), arguing that the colonial construction of a distinct national Islam was inconsistent, limited, and disconnected from the transnational intellectual exchanges between Tunisian Muslim scholars—particularly those at the Zaytuna Mosque-University—and their counterparts in Egypt and the broader Middle East. It highlights how colonial discourse failed to capture the regional and multidirectional nature of Islamic scholarship and neglected connections between Tunisian Islam and women's rights, a linkage that the postindependence Tunisian state later forged through landmark personal status legislation (the 1956 Personal Status Code). The article contends that both the colonial and postcolonial narratives of Tunisian Islam are "invented traditions," shaped by political agendas rather than reflecting coherent or enduring religious realities, and emphasizes the importance of situating Tunisian Islamic thought within broader regional and historical contexts beyond the confines of the French empire or the nation-state.