Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (14 page)

how might we
theoretically
conceptualize resistance given the model of subjec..

tivation undergirding the practices of the mosque movement, I will offer some thoughts in chapter 5 when I analyze the interrelationship between performa.. tivity, embodiment, and agency. Here, let it suffice to say that I think the issue of resistance to modes of domination cannot be asked outside of the embodied forms of attachment that a particular mode of subjectivation makes possible.

As to the question of whether my framework calls for the suspension of cri.. tique in regard to the patriarchal character of the mosque movement, my re.. sponse is that I urge no such stance. But what I do urge is an expansion of a normative understanding of critique, one that is quite prevalent among many progressives and feminists (among whom I have often included myself). Crit.. icism, in this view, is about successfu demolishing your opponent's position and exposing the implausibility of her argument and its logical inconsisten.. cies. This, I would submit, is a very limited and weak understanding of the no.. tion of critique. Critique, I believe, is most powerful when it leaves open the possibility that we might also be remade in the process of engaging another's worldview, that we might come to learn things that we did not already know

before we undertook the engagement. This requires that we occasionally turn the critical gaze upon ourselves, to leave open the possibility that we may be remade through an encounter with the other.

It is in light of this expanded notion of critique that, during the course of my fi I was forced to question the repugnance55 that often swelled up inside me against the practices of the mosque movement, especially those that seemed to circumscribe women's subordinate status within Egyptian society. This is a sentiment that I share with many secular progressives and liberals who feel a deep sense of discomfort when confronted with socially conserva.. tive movements of the kind I describe here-a sentiment that is continually brought home to me both in the sympathy I receive from audiences who mar.. vel at my ability to withstand the asceticism of my informants' lives and in the anger my argumentative framework ignites for its failure to condemn my in.. formants as "fundamentalists."56

My strategy in dealing with this repugnance has been to avoid the denunci.. atory mode that characterizes many accounts of the Islamist movement popu.. lar in the academy today. I fi such a mode unhelpful in the task of under.. standing what makes these practices powerful and meaningful to the people who practice them. But more importantly, I have been fascinated and com.. pelled by the repugnance the mosque movement provokes in feminist.. progressive scholars like myself and by our inability to move beyond this vis.. ceral reaction. We might remind ourselves that the mosque movement (like the larger piety movement of which it is a part) is neither a fascist nor a mili.. tant movement, nor does it seek to gain control of the state and make Egypt a theocracy. As such, it is quite diff from other politico..religious move- ments like the Hindutva movement in India, the Gush Emunim in Israel, the Jam�ft al-- slami in Pakistan, or the international group al-- aeida. Yet the depth of discomfort the pietistic character of this movement evokes among liberals, radicals, and progressives alike is extraordinary.

I believe that one needs to unpack all that remains congealed under the ad.. mission that it is the "social conservatism" of movements like the piety move..

ss
This is a term I take from Elizabeth Povinelli's provocative discussion of how the discourse of multiculturalism is critically limited by what liberalism constructs as culturally "repugnant prac, tices" (Povinelli 2002 ).

56
Susan Harding observed over a decade ago that despite the increase in the study of "cultur, ally marginal" groups within a range of academic disciplines, there is a marked absence of studies that focus on groups considered the "cultural and political Others" from the perspective of progressive,liberal scholars-such as the Protestant fu entalist Harding writes about in the United States (Harding 1991 ). These "culturally repugnant" groups continue to be understood in oppositional terms-as antimodem, fundamentalist, backward, irrational, and so on-without any regard for how conditions of secular modernity have been crucial both to their production and their reception (see Harding 2000).

ment that makes liberals and progressives uncomfortable, and to examine the constitutive elements and sensibilities that comprise this discomfort. This task takes on a particular urgency since the events of September 11 , 2001, wherein a rather heterogeneous collection of images and descriptions associ- ated with "Islamic social conservatism" ( key among them, women's subordi- nate status in Muslim societies) are made to stand in for all that liberals and leftists are supposed to fi threatening to their entire edifi of beliefs, values, and political system (see Hirschkind and M ahmood 2002 ). In many ways, this book is an exploration of, to evoke Connolly again, the "visceral modes of ap- praisal" that produce such a reaction among many fellow liberal--left intel.. lectuals and feminists, as much as it is an exploration of the sensibilities that animate such movements. The aim of this book, therefore, is more than ethnographic: its goal is to parochialize those assumptions-about the consti- tutive relationship between action and embodiment, resistance and agency, self and authority-that inform our judgments about nonliberal movements such as the women's mosque movement.

It is in the course of this encounter between the texture of my own repug- nance and the textures of the lives of the women I worked with that the po- litical and the ethical have converged for me again in a personal sense. In the course of conducting fi ldwork and writing this book, I have come to recog- nize that a politically responsible scholarship entails not simply being faithful to the desires and aspirations of "my informants" and urging my audience to "understand and respect" the diversity of desires that characterizes our world today ( cf. Mahmood 2001a). Nor is it enough to reveal the assumptions of my own or my fellow scholars' biases and ( in)tolerances. As someone who has come to believe, along with a number of other feminists, that the political project of feminism is not predetermined but needs to be continually negoti.. ated within specifi contexts, the questions I have come to ask myself again and again are: What do we mean when we as feminists say that gender equal- ity is the central principle of our analysis and politics? How does my enmesh- ment within the thick texture of my informants' lives affect my openness to this question ? Are we willing to countenance the sometimes violent task of remaking sensibilities, life worlds, and attachments so that women of the kind I worked with may be taught to value the principle of "freedom" ? Further- more, does a commitment to the ideal of equality in our own lives endow us with the capacity to know that this ideal captures what is or should be fulfi .. ing for everyone else? If it does not, as is surely the case, then I think we need to rethink, with far more humility than we are accustomed to, what feminist politics really means. ( Here I want to be clear that my comments are not di- rected at "Western feminists" alone, but also include "Third World" feminists and all those who are located somewhere within this polarized terrain, since

these questions implicate all of us given the liberatory impetus of the feminist tradition. )

The fact that I pose these questions does not mean I am advocating that we abandon our critical stance toward what we consider to be unj ust practices in the situated context of our own lives, or that we uncritically embrace and pro.. mote the pious lifestyles of the women I worked with. To do so would be only to mirror the teleological certainty that characterizes some of the versions of progressive liberalism that I criticized earlier. Rather, my suggestion is that we leave open the possibility that our political and analytical certainties might be transformed in the process of exploring nonliberal movements of the kind I studied, that the lives of the women with whom I worked might have some.. thing to teach us beyond what we can learn from the circumscribed social.. scientifi exercise of "understanding and translation." In this sense, one can say that the tension between the prescriptive and analytical aspects of the feminist project can be left productively open-that it should not be prema.. turely foreclosed for the sake of "political clarity. " As political theorist Wendy Brown reminds us, to "argue for a separation between intellectual and politi.. cal life is not to detach the two. The point is to cultivate . . . an appreciation of the productive, even agonistic, interlocution made possible between intel..

lectual life and political life when they maintain a dynamic distance and ten.. sion"
(
200
1,
4
3).

If there is a normative political position that underlies this book, it is to urge that we-my readers and myself-embark upon an inquiry in which we do not assume that the political positions we uphold will necessarily be vindi.. cated, or provide the ground for our theoretical analysis, but instead hold open the possibility that we may come to ask of politics a whole series of ques. tions that seemed settled when we fi embarked upon the inquiry.

2

Topography of the Pi ety Movement

O
nce a week, in the quiet heat of late aftern one can see a stream of women-either singly or in small groups-making their way up a narrow staircase tucked away on one side of the large Umar mosque complex.1 The mosque is an imposing structure located at one of the busiest intersections of a bustling upper..middle..income neighborhood of Cairo, Muhandiseen. Com.. peting for attention with the relatively somber presence of the mosque is a long avenue of glittering shop fronts, American fast..food restaurants, and large hand..painted billboards advertising the latest Egyptian films and plays. The Umar mosque offers a relief from the opulent and consumerist aura of this thoroughfare, not only in its architectural sobriety, but also in the welfare ser.. vices it provides to a range of poor and lower.. income Egyptians. The women making their way discreetly to the top fl of the mosque are here to attend a

religious lesson
(dars;
plural:
durus )
delivered weekly by a woman preacher/re..

ligious teacher (dltiya; plural:
daeiyat)
by the name of Hajj a Faiza.2

1
All the names of the mosques, the preachers, and attendees have been changed to preserve confi ntiality.

2
The term
hajja
(rendered as
l)a
in Modem Standard Arabic and as
l;agg
in Egyptian coHo,

quial Arabic) literally means "a woman who has performed the pilgrimage to Mecca ( the
h.a, j),"
but it is also used in Egyptian colloquial Arabic to respectfu address an older woman. While not all the
dit
had performed the l). jj, and some were quite young, they were all referred to as

l)agg
as a sign of respect. Throughout this book, Arabic honorifi terms (such as
hajja, sayyid,
and

shaikh
as with the proper names they precede, are neither italicized nor have diacritical marks. See my earlier note on transcription.

Hajja Faiza gives lessons in two other mosques, as well as in one of the pri.. vate elite clubs of Cairo. She is well known in mosque circles, both for her scholarly erudition and for her dedication to providing lessons to women since the inception of the mosque movement approximately twenty..fi years ago. Each week between fi and one hundred women sit for two hours in an air..conditioned room listening to Hajja Faiza provide exegetical commentary in colloquial Arabic on selected passages from both the Quran and the
l),ad
( the authoritative record of the Prophet's exemplary speech and actions).3 The attendees listen attentively in pin.- rop silence, seated in rows of brown wooden chairs, as Hajja Faiza speaks in gentle and persistent tones from be.. hind a desk on a raised platform.

Some of the attendees are housewives, others are students, and a large num.. ber are working women who stop on their way home from work to attend the weekly lessons. While the majority of women are between the ages of thirty and forty, there are attendees as young as twenty and as old as sixty. Some of these women drive to the mosque in private cars, others arrive on Cairo's overcrowded public transportation, and still others come in taxis. The women's attire is striking in its variety. Many come dressed in fi tailored ankle..length skirts and tucked.. in blouses, with printed chiffon scarves wrapped tightly around their heads, conveying an air of modest sophistica.. tion. Others, including Hajja Faiza, wear well.- ilored, dark.- red long coats
( baltu)
with heavy thick scarves covering their hair and neck. Still oth.. ers wear the
khimii
(plural :
akhmira),
a form of veil that covers the head and extends over the torso (similar to the cape worn by Catholic nuns), and that is very popular .among mosque attendees. There are even bareheaded women dressed in jeans and short tops, with styled hair and face makeup, who attend Hajja Faiza's lessons-a sight almost impossible to fi in other mosques. And yet, while a wide variety of attire is represented, it is rare to see a woman wear.. ing the
niqii
more conservative form of the veil that covers the head, face, and torso-at the Umar mosque; the absence of women wearing the niqab is an indicator of the kind of audience that Hajja Faiza's lessons attract.4