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Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject Paperback – October 23, 2011
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Politics of Piety is a groundbreaking analysis of Islamist cultural politics through the ethnography of a thriving, grassroots women's piety movement in the mosques of Cairo, Egypt. Unlike those organized Islamist activities that seek to seize or transform the state, this is a moral reform movement whose orthodox practices are commonly viewed as inconsequential to Egypt's political landscape. Saba Mahmood's compelling exposition of these practices challenges this assumption by showing how the ethical and the political are indelibly linked within the context of such movements.
Not only is this book a sensitive ethnography of a critical but largely ignored dimension of the Islamic revival, it is also an unflinching critique of the secular-liberal assumptions by which some people hold such movements to account. The book addresses three central questions: How do movements of moral reform help us rethink the normative liberal account of politics? How does the adherence of women to the patriarchal norms at the core of such movements parochialize key assumptions within feminist theory about freedom, agency, authority, and the human subject? How does a consideration of debates about embodied religious rituals among Islamists and their secular critics help us understand the conceptual relationship between bodily form and political imaginaries? Politics of Piety is essential reading for anyone interested in issues at the nexus of ethics and politics, embodiment and gender, and liberalism and postcolonialism.
In a substantial new preface, Mahmood addresses the controversy sparked by the original publication of her book and the scholarly discussions that have ensued.
- Reading age1 year and up
- Print length272 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions6.25 x 0.75 x 9.5 inches
- PublisherPrinceton University Press
- Publication dateOctober 23, 2011
- ISBN-100691149801
- ISBN-13978-0691149806
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Honorable Mention for the 2005 Albert Hourani Book Award, Middle East Studies Association"
"Mahmood's book is a tour de force that provides an alternative prism through which we may understand the women's mosque movement in Egypt."---Cynthia Nelson, Middle East Journal
Review
"This very timely book opens doors into spaces of Islamic piety that shatter the stereotypes which dominate thinking in the West. Mahmood carefully unpacks the distortions that common modes of liberalism and feminism impose on the Muslim world. She combines richness of description with theoretical sophistication to provide insight into the struggle of some Muslim women to live their faith, often in the face of not only Western liberal influences but also Arab nationalism and political Islamism. The reader is forced to face dilemmas that cannot be easily resolved. This is social science at its most illuminating."―Charles Taylor, Board of Trustees Professor of Law and Philosophy, Northwestern University, author of Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
"This brilliant study of women in the contemporary mosque movement in Egypt is a provocative challenge to secular feminists and a testament to what anthropology can still offer―through its insistence on serious listening to other worlds―to critical social theory. No feminist theorist or anthropologist of modernity will be able to think the same way about liberalism, agency, or religion after reading this book. I hope that Mahmood's incisive analysis of the Islamic movement will also finally put an end to the banalities that currently masquerade as knowledge about this meaningful social movement."―Lila Abu-Lughod, Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University, author of Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society
"This brilliant study of women in the contemporary mosque movement in Egypt is a provocative challenge to secular feminists and a testament to what anthropology can still offer―through its insistence on serious listening to other worlds―to critical social theory. No feminist theorist or anthropologist of modernity will be able to think the same way about liberalism, agency, or religion after reading this book. I hope that Mahmood's incisive analysis of the Islamic movement will also finally put an end to the banalities that currently masquerade as knowledge about this meaningful social movement."―Lila Abu-Lughod, Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University, author of Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society
"My enthusiasm for this brave and stunning book is unqualified, and I learned something on every page. Politics of Piety will reorient the way in which cultural theorists regard religious practice and the account of moral agency. It will be of widespread interest not only to anthropologists of various persuasions but also to scholars of Middle East studies, to moral philosophers, to religious studies scholars and lay readers, and to theorists of embodiment across the disciplines."―Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley, author of Bodies That Matter
"My enthusiasm for this brave and stunning book is unqualified, and I learned something on every page. Politics of Piety will reorient the way in which cultural theorists regard religious practice and the account of moral agency. It will be of widespread interest not only to anthropologists of various persuasions but also to scholars of Middle East studies, to moral philosophers, to religious studies scholars and lay readers, and to theorists of embodiment across the disciplines."―Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley, author of Bodies That Matter
"Mahmood's keenly anticipated and very brave book is a brilliant contribution to the theoretical project for the anthropological study of Islam and to our understanding of Islam in the Middle East, especially as it is practiced by women. There is no question that it is highly significant for all kinds of reasons. The kind of data that the author presents is fresh and relatively unknown in the literature."―Steve Caton, Professor of Contemporary Arab Studies and Social Anthropology, Harvard University, author of Peaks of Yemen I Summon
"Mahmood's keenly anticipated and very brave book is a brilliant contribution to the theoretical project for the anthropological study of Islam and to our understanding of Islam in the Middle East, especially as it is practiced by women. There is no question that it is highly significant for all kinds of reasons. The kind of data that the author presents is fresh and relatively unknown in the literature."―Steve Caton, Professor of Contemporary Arab Studies and Social Anthropology, Harvard University, author of Peaks of Yemen I Summon
From the Back Cover
"This very timely book opens doors into spaces of Islamic piety that shatter the stereotypes which dominate thinking in the West. Mahmood carefully unpacks the distortions that common modes of liberalism and feminism impose on the Muslim world. She combines richness of description with theoretical sophistication to provide insight into the struggle of some Muslim women to live their faith, often in the face of not only Western liberal influences but also Arab nationalism and political Islamism. The reader is forced to face dilemmas that cannot be easily resolved. This is social science at its most illuminating."--Charles Taylor, Board of Trustees Professor of Law and Philosophy, Northwestern University, author of Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
"This brilliant study of women in the contemporary mosque movement in Egypt is a provocative challenge to secular feminists and a testament to what anthropology can still offer--through its insistence on serious listening to other worlds--to critical social theory. No feminist theorist or anthropologist of modernity will be able to think the same way about liberalism, agency, or religion after reading this book. I hope that Mahmood's incisive analysis of the Islamic movement will also finally put an end to the banalities that currently masquerade as knowledge about this meaningful social movement."--Lila Abu-Lughod, Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University, author of Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society
"My enthusiasm for this brave and stunning book is unqualified, and I learned something on every page. Politics of Piety will reorient the way in which cultural theorists regard religious practice and the account of moral agency. It will be of widespread interest not only to anthropologists of various persuasions but also to scholars of Middle East studies, to moral philosophers, to religious studies scholars and lay readers, and to theorists of embodiment across the disciplines."--Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley, author of Bodies That Matter
"Mahmood's keenly anticipated and very brave book is a brilliant contribution to the theoretical project for the anthropological study of Islam and to our understanding of Islam in the Middle East, especially as it is practiced by women. There is no question that it is highly significant for all kinds of reasons. The kind of data that the author presents is fresh and relatively unknown in the literature."--Steve Caton, Professor of Contemporary Arab Studies and Social Anthropology, Harvard University, author of Peaks of Yemen I Summon
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Princeton University Press; Revised edition (October 23, 2011)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0691149801
- ISBN-13 : 978-0691149806
- Reading age : 1 year and up
- Item Weight : 13 ounces
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 0.75 x 9.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #424,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #799 in Feminist Theory (Books)
- #1,307 in Literary Criticism & Theory
- #1,337 in Cultural Anthropology (Books)
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Robert Cook[...]
Feminism in Islam is split between "modern Muslim women" treating the veil as a personal choice, while others see the veil as a religious command. The latter distinction Mahmood makes in her book, shows that she is not a Western scholar attempting to "analyze" the psychology of 'them' Arab women, and that is something only I, as an Egyptian who was born and raised in Egypt, can identify. The fact she knew about the many Egyptian women "wearing the HIjab(veil) as a custom rather than a religious duty that also entails other responsibilities," and believing that the veil should be a means for us Muslim women to find peace and serenity rather than acting up 'virtue,' makes her perspective a reality rather than an assumption. She portrayed the Mosque movement and Islamic Revival that are the signs of 'Piety,' not as strict and extreme practices as other Academias have already done, but as religious practices that these educated Muslim women take pride in.
Mahmood did a great job of not condemning the rules of Islam or ever daring to treat them as 'oppressive.' She portrays the religion as one with a middle ground rather than extreme in its entirety, as it was commonly perceived after 9/11. This middle ground was clearly defined when talking about Women's Daw'a in Islam and how Zaynab el Ghazali is a source of pride to Egyptian females as she was "the first prominent female da'iya in Egypt." And although there are limitations to women's Daw'a in Islam as it cannot be done amongst men but only with other women, the author showed that there is still resistance because not all Muslim women are 'obedient and docile.' The common misconception that "men and women are not allowed to mix according to the Quranic rules," were corrected in the book when providing evidence that even at the time of the Prophet, men and women were in fact mixed, it is not 'haram' (forbidden) as long as the "women lower their gaze and be mindful of their chastity."(Surat Al Nisa'a).
Mahmood highlighted the fact that Islam is tolerant enough that it allows for loose interpretations of certain texts because it is not all black and white, that is how disagreement over circumcision for example stems from.
In Mahmood's analytical framing, she left the reader with the idea that within religion that there is still room for individual freedom and self realization which can be achieved through "keeping away from sinful behavior, without having to conjoin this understanding with particular forms of clothing and attire."
Overall, Mahmood's language was both feasible and accessible for a wide range of readers with different backgrounds, and she did an amazing job comparing and contrasting the religious facts with the social constructs.