Book description
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…
- Coming soon!
Why read it?
1 author picked Politics of Piety as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Saba Mahmood’s book is an intellectually stimulating and insightfully written study of a grassroots women’s mosque movement in Cairo, Egypt.
Speaking to a North American audience, Mahmood challenged secular-liberal theorizations of human agency and views that depicted Muslim women in patriarchal societies as without agency. Her nuanced and multi-dimensional study evidenced a considerably more complex picture of moral choice, agency, and Islamist politics that centered on the women’s own understandings and interpretation of a complex religious and political landscape.
It is Mahmood’s balanced and reflexive approach that makes this book a deeply educational study for students and scholars alike.
From Romina's list on gender, religion, and domestic violence.
If you love Politics of Piety...
The Rosewood Penny
2023 Queer Indie Award Nominee!
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
Want books like Politics of Piety?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Politics of Piety.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,343
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like Politics of Piety, you might also like...
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman
Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.
A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…
Malcolm Before X
Malcolm Before X is about finding a way to continue moving forward after everything has been taken from you. While in prison, Malcolm Little discovered the power of reading and found a way to transform his character and become a better man. This half-biography focuses on that transformation, especially his…
