Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (41 page)

ries of moral and political action in liberal and communitarian philosophies. In order to explicate these issues, let me tum to an analysis
-
of the debates

about ritual that saturate the contemporary political scene in Egypt.

PI ETY AN D PRAYER

The women I worked with described the condition of piety as the quality of "being close to God": a manner of being and acting that suffu all of one's acts, both religious and worldly in character. Although the consummation of

a pious comportment entails a complex disciplinary program, at a fundamen.. tal level it requires that the individual perform those acts of worship made in.. cumbent upon Muslims by God ( al..fara\(fa#:) l)
and acts of benefi that secure God's pleasure
(al..- emal al..�aliba) .
The at.. titude with which these acts are performed is as important as their prescribed form: sincerity
(al..-ikhla� ),
humility
(khushu e) ,
and feelings of virtuous fear and awe
(khashya
or taqwa) are all emotions by which excellence and virtuosity in piety are measured and marked. Many of the mosque attendees noted that though they had always been aware of these basic Islamic duties, it was only through attending mosque lessons that they had acquired the necessary skills to perform them regularly and with diligence.

According to the mosque participants, one of the minimal requirements critical to the formation of a virtuous Muslim is the act of praying fi times a day. The performance of ritual prayer (singular:
�alat;
plural:
�alawat)
is con.. sidered so centrally important in Islam that the question of whether someone who does not pray regularly qualifi as a Muslim has been a subject of intense debate among theologians .7 The correct execution of �alat depends on the fol.. lowing elements: (a) an intention to dedicate the prayer to God; (b) a pre.. scribed sequence of gestures and words; (c) a physical condition of purity; and

(d) proper attire. While fulfi ng these four conditions renders prayer accept.. able
(maqbul),
I was told it is also desirable that §alat be performed with all the feelings, concentration, and tenderness of the heart appropriate to the state of being in the presence of God-a state called
khushue.

While it is understandable that an ideal such as khushii would have to be learned through intense devotion and training, it was surprising to me that mosque participants considered the desire to pray fi times a day (with its minimal conditions of performance) an object of pedagogy. Many of the par.. ticipants acknowledged that they did not pray diligently and seemed to lack the requisite will to accomplish what was required of them. They often held the general social and cultural ethos in which they lived to be responsible for the erosion of such a will, claiming that it instead fostered desires and disposi..

tions that were quite inimical to the demands of piety. Because such states of will were
not
assumed to be natural by the teachers, or by their followers, women took extra care to teach one another the means by which the desire to

pray could be cultivated and strengthened in the course of performing the sort of routine, mundane actions that occupied most women during the day.

The complicated relationship between the performance of §alat and one's

6
These include verbal attestation to faith
(shahada ,
praying five ti�nes a day (�alat), fasting

(�aum),
the giving of alms
(zakat),
and pilgrimage to Mecca ( Q.ajj ).

7
See the debate between two preeminent theologians-al--Shafi (d. 820) and Ahmad Hanbal
(d. 855 )-on this issue (reported in Sabiq
1994,
72).

daily activities was revealed to me in a conversation that I ebserved among
_
three women, all of whom regularly attended lessons in different mosques of their choice in Cairo. These women
-
were among a small number of women whom I- had come to regard as experienced in the cultivation of piety. My measure for coming to such a judgment was none other than the one used by the mosque participants: they not only carried out their religious duties ( al..