WEEK 8 SABA: AGENCY, GENDER AND EMOBODIMENT

       For this weeks reading Agency, Gender, and Embodiment, by Saba Mahmood is focused on the ways women within the mosque movement express their agency given their social circumstances they live under in a patriarchal society. Due to the author’s profound interest, Saba exceedingly explores and examines the women of the mosque movement in Egypt and how women survive within a system of inequality and flourishes despites its constraints.

    What I found particularly interesting is they way the author juxtaposes and looks at two different ways of expressing individuality when engaging with social injustice. She interviews a woman named Nadia, who may seem more “traditional” and part of the mosque movement and a woman named Sana who is critical of the virtues of the mosque movement and considerers herself a “secular Muslim.” The author investigates how these two women dealt with the pressures of getting married where being single is rejected by the entire society as if “she has some disease, as if she is a thief (pg.169).”  She highlights how these women view sabr- an important Islamic principle that means to preserve in the face of difficulty without complaint.  The author to juxtaposes 2 opposing women—one being part of the piety movement and one who does not take part to show the significance of how women in Egypt due to their same restraints both think similar in that it is a very painful situation but how they cope with it is different

    I think the author is trying to illuminate that there are different ways of dealing with social constraint by analyzing the women in Egypt who go about in their daily life to express their individuality in ways that transform their conditions under societal norms. The author is proclaiming when examining agency there shouldn’t be a universal notion of what it looks like, a prescriptive agency but to look at the different ways it takes form due to societal norms and in what ways it is performed and how the individual tolerates or copes with it.

     Both women recognize the painful situation single woman face but how they express their individuality due to their constraints differs.  Sana believes that sabr is a vital Islamic principle that it shouldn’t be a solution to everything and that it is a passive way of dealing with their limitations as a single woman in Egypt. The way she mentally survives is by realizing her self-worth-- who you really are which enables her to pursue her individual goals. What she draws her self-worth from is he how she is good at her job, not if she is married or not. For Nadia sabr is a practice that helps one how to live with a painful situation, to trust and accept your fate.