Gendering ‘Everyday Islam’: an introduction

Abstract

In this introductory paper, we contribute to the important debate on 'Everyday Islam' by thinking about ways in which the everyday constitutes a useful analytical category in relation to Islam, not in contrast to studies of Islamic piety and normativity, but as co-constituted with (Islamic) morality. Secondly, drawing on a feminist critique in anthropology that is intricately linked to the discussion of the everyday in the wider Mediterranean, we seek to insert 'gender' as an analytical category into the debate on everyday Islam and quotidian life in the region, focusing on norms of femininity and the particular experiences of women. The focus on women, we argue, is especially suited to analyse the gendered dynamics in Muslim-majority societies and indeed an almost revolutionary process within Islam in recent years, namely that of women becoming knowledgeable, self-reflective and 'literate' in reference to the hermeneutics and rhetorics of Islamic texts. The main research question that this introduction, as well as the entire special issue raises is whether we are witnessing a new kind of gendered 'everyday Islam,' one in which Muslim women claim leadership roles, not in spite of their everyday modes of living, but through their mastery of the minutiae of everyday life as part of a deeper ethical project of self-transformation. The question pays tribute to Saba Mahmood's work, to whom this special issue is dedicated. We argue that it needs to be investigated empirically on the background of the fact that there is no longer any simple ‘doxa’ or taken-for-granted assumptions for many actors in the wider Mediterranean, whether these be secular, Islamic or Christian norms and doctrines.