Reflecting on the Politics of Piety

Abstract

This essay reflects on Saba Mahmood's book, The Politics of Piety, The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject, which analyzes conceptions of self, agency, and politics among the female practitioners of Da'wa in Egypt. Mahmood draws upon Judith Butler and Michel Foucault to demonstrate that the manner by which practitioners inhabit the norms governing their lives, is the source of their agency and influence in Islamic society. I provide a feminist analysis of the Da'wa conceptions of agency by drawing parallels with two distinct North American phenomena: the emergence of Women‘s Clubs in the 19th Century as purveyors of social and moral reform, and the Christian Patriarchy movement promoting the doctrines of complementarianism and pronatalism.