Politics of Piety

Politics of Piety PDF

Author: Saba Mahmood

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 0691149801

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An 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. The author's exposition of these practices challenges this assumption by showing how the ethical and the political are linked within the context of such movements.

The Politics of Piety

The Politics of Piety PDF

Author: Jessica Johnson

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 1351353292

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Saba Mahmood’s 2005 Politics of Piety is an excellent example of evaluation in action. Mahmood’s book is a study of women’s participation in the Islamic revival across the Middle East. Mahmood – a feminist social anthropologist with left-wing, secular political values – wanted to understand why women should become such active participants in a movement that seemingly promoted their subjugation. As Mahmood observed, women’s active participation in the conservative Islamic revival presented (and presents) a difficult question for Western feminists: how to balance cultural sensitivity and promotion of religious freedom and pluralism with the feminist project of women’s liberation? Mahmood’s response was to conduct a detailed evaluation of the arguments made by both sides, examining, in particular, the reasoning of female Muslims themselves. In a key moment of evaluation, Mahmood suggests that Western feminist notions of agency are inadequate to arguments about female Muslim piety. Where Western feminists often restrict definitions of women’s agency to acts that undermine the normal, male-dominated order of things, Mahmood suggests, instead, that agency can encompass female acts that uphold apparently patriarchal values. Ultimately the Western feminist framework is, in her evaluation, inadequate and insufficient for discussing women’s groups in the Islamic revival.

Performing Islam

Performing Islam PDF

Author: Azam Torab

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9004152954

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"Performing Islam" focuses on a wide spectrum of ritual activities in Iran today as a key for elucidating social, cultural and political processes, but in particular the values and beliefs underpinning gender constructions in a rapidly changing complex society.

An Enchanted Modern

An Enchanted Modern PDF

Author: Lara Deeb

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2011-06-27

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1400840783

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Based on two years of ethnographic research in the southern suburbs of Beirut, An Enchanted Modern demonstrates that Islam and modernity are not merely compatible, but actually go hand-in-hand. This eloquent ethnographic portrayal of an Islamic community articulates how an alternative modernity, and specifically an enchanted modernity, may be constructed by Shi'I Muslims who consider themselves simultaneously deeply modern, cosmopolitan, and pious. In this depiction of a Shi'I Muslim community in Beirut, Deeb examines the ways that individual and collective expressions and understandings of piety have been debated, contested, and reformulated. Women take center stage in this process, a result of their visibility both within the community, and in relation to Western ideas that link the status of women to modernity. By emphasizing the ways notions of modernity and piety are lived, debated, and shaped by "everyday Islamists," this book underscores the inseparability of piety and politics in the lives of pious Muslims.

Religious Difference in a Secular Age

Religious Difference in a Secular Age PDF

Author: Saba Mahmood

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2015-11-03

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 0691153280

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How secular governance in the Middle East is making life worse—not better—for religious minorities The plight of religious minorities in the Middle East is often attributed to the failure of secularism to take root in the region. Religious Difference in a Secular Age challenges this assessment by examining four cornerstones of secularism—political and civil equality, minority rights, religious freedom, and the legal separation of private and public domains. Drawing on her extensive fieldwork in Egypt with Coptic Orthodox Christians and Bahais—religious minorities in a predominantly Muslim country—Saba Mahmood shows how modern secular governance has exacerbated religious tensions and inequalities rather than reduced them. Tracing the historical career of secular legal concepts in the colonial and postcolonial Middle East, she explores how contradictions at the very heart of political secularism have aggravated and amplified existing forms of Islamic hierarchy, bringing minority relations in Egypt to a new historical impasse. Through a close examination of Egyptian court cases and constitutional debates about minority rights, conflicts around family law, and controversies over freedom of expression, Mahmood invites us to reflect on the entwined histories of secularism in the Middle East and Europe. A provocative work of scholarship, Religious Difference in a Secular Age challenges us to rethink the promise and limits of the secular ideal of religious equality.

When Women Speak...

When Women Speak... PDF

Author: Moyra Dale

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 9781506475967

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The twentieth century should be remembered in missions as the time when women got lost. Over that time, the voices of women missionaries, leaders, and facilitators of new Christian movements were all too often excluded from missiological discourse and strategic mission discussion. It is hoped that this book signals a revival in the contribution of women to mission in a way that values what they have to offer.

Postsecular Feminisms

Postsecular Feminisms PDF

Author: Nandini Deo

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-07-26

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1350038083

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Postsecular Feminisms explores the contested relationship between feminism and secularism through a series of case studies, featuring perspectives from the global North and South. It offers insights beyond those of the Abrahamic traditions, and includes multiple examples from South Asia. By decentering the European experience, Postsecular Feminisms shows how secularism and feminism have been constituted in North America, South Asia, and Anglophone West Africa. The book asks: can postsecular feminism offer a way to think about religion and gender so as to support women in all the variety of their lived experiences? The contributors show that postsecular feminism is a variety of feminism that is not necessarily either secularist or anti-secular. Rather it is feminism informed by a history of secularist bias within liberal feminism. Postsecular Feminisms explores both the potentials and pitfalls of postsecular feminisms, with some authors arguing that a contextually grounded praxis is possible, while others make a strong case against postsecular feminism as theory and practice.

An Analysis of Saba Mahmood's Politics of Piety

An Analysis of Saba Mahmood's Politics of Piety PDF

Author: Jessica Johnson

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 89

ISBN-13:

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In this original and controversial book, Mahmood argues that Muslim women can show independence even while assuming traditional Islamic roles. Her research suggests that, in choosing to embrace the norms of their faith, these pious Muslims are not limiting, but rather affirming, themselves. They do not value the idea of 'freedom' in the same way the liberal West does, and this can give us new insights into ideas about autonomy that we all too often take for granted. Mahmood challenges many assumptions made by feminists from the secular liberal tradition. She insists these Muslim women must be understood on their own terms, rather than via conventional feminist views. -- From the back cover.

Faith and Feminism in Pakistan

Faith and Feminism in Pakistan PDF

Author: Afiya S. Zia

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2017-11-30

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1782846670

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Are secular aims, politics, and sensibilities impossible, undesirable and impracticable for Muslims and Islamic states? Should Muslim women be exempted from feminist attempts at liberation from patriarchy and its various expressions under Islamic laws and customs? Considerable literature on the entanglements of Islam and secularism has been produced in the post-9/11 decade and a large proportion of it deals with the Woman Question. Many commentators critique the secular and Western feminism, and the racialising backlash that accompanied the occupation of Muslim countries during the War on Terror military campaign launched by the U.S. government after the September 11 attacks in 2001. Implicit in many of these critical works is the suggestion that it is Western secular feminism that is the motivating driver and permanent collaborator -- along with other feminists, secularists and human rights activists in Muslim countries -- that sustains the Wests actual and metaphorical war on Islam and Muslims. The book addresses this post-9/11 critical trope and its implications for womens movements in Muslim contexts. The relevance of secular feminist activism is illustrated with reference to some of the nation-wide, working-class womens movements that have surged throughout Pakistan under religious militancy: polio vaccinators, health workers, politicians, peasants and artists have been directly targeted, even assassinated, for their service and commitment to liberal ideals. Afiya Zia contends that Muslim womens piety is no threat against the dominant political patriarchy, but their secular autonomy promises transformative changes for the population at large, and thereby effectively challenges Muslim male dominance. This book is essential reading for those interested in understanding the limits of Muslim womens piety and the potential in their pursuit for secular autonomy and liberal freedoms.

The Politics of Piety

The Politics of Piety PDF

Author: Jessica Johnson

Publisher: Macat Library

Published: 2017-07-15

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 9781912302116

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In this original and controversial 2005 book, Mahmood argues that Muslim women can show independence even while assuming traditional Islamic roles.