This essay is a speculation of some conceptual strategies that could enhance our understanding of feminist politics and rhetorical practices in the nation-state of Pakistan. I hope that this process will also aid efforts to delineate the emergent configurations of the cultural political space of the transnational as it has been altered by the events of n September 2001 and the ensuing war on terrorism. In their struggles at a variety of family, community, and state1 levels, self-defined feminist and human rights groups in Pakistan have traditionally resorted to liberal notions of citizenship, gender-neutral ideas about rights, and universalism of the public sphere. Their reliance on these universalist concepts of rights and freedom has intensified in the past two decades as a strategy against oppressive regulation of political and social life in the name of Islamization. Given the present international pressure on Pakistan to crack down on" extremists," we can expect an intensification in accusations of" anti-Islamic" and" Westernized" against those who are pursuing a secularist agenda in Pakistan. These processes, along with their mirror opposite, that is, the hysteria that the spectre of Muslim terrorism raises in some Western societies, are hardening the rhetorical divide of Islam versus West. At the same time debates about the relationship between Islam and democracy have intensified among Muslim scholars following September 2001. In