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This paper attempts to explore the development of Islamic identity of a group of elite women in Dhaka, Bangladesh. These women constitute a significant group in the country where 10% of the rich control 40% of the national wealth, and the 10% of the poorest control 1.84% of the national wealth.* Socially, politically and economically, elite women and their families are powerful and have access to resources and political influence. Many of these women who did not grow up with a very strict religious orientation came to Islam and consolidated religious thoughts and practices through a weekly Quran reading class. This particular Quran class began in 2002. The classes were initiated by a foreign diplomat's wife who was Muslim, and have continued even after her departure from the country in 2004. While Dhaka houses many meetings of Muslim men and women to discuss Islamic ideas and practices, this particular class was quite unique in its ability to attract and convert elite women whose lives were seemingly perfect. This urban elite phenomenon of Islamic revivalism has not been the subject of any in-depth research in Bangladesh, and this work therefore, is the first of its kind and largely introductory.

Bangladesh has recently been seeing a rise in religiosity which has been treated as problematic, anti-secular and anti-progressive within the public sphere. Various writers describe this trend as having a disempowering effect on women and negating their self-expression. However, underlying these views is the assumption that the assertion of women's agency is not enough if it does not confront existing structures of relations. This article asks whether it is possible that in seeking changes in certain aspects of one's life, existing gender relations are not necessarily transformed, but indirectly challenged and reconfigured? The conclusion suggests that rather than a polarisation of the secular and religious ways of living most people are in fact in between, negotiating between the two camps, and borrowing ideas and ways from both.

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