Week 8: Saba Mahmood: "Agency, Gender, and Embodiment"

After reading Saba Mahmood’s “Agency, Gender, and Embodiment” one of the topics that stood out to me the most was concerning the virtue of “Al-Haya” and the insight she gave regarding this virtue and the relationship practicing Muslim had with it. According to the text, “Al-haya” is the virtue of shyness or modesty, something that Mahmood notes as a coveted virtue for pious Muslims, but especially for Muslim women. What really intrigued me about this virtue and the relationship that these women had with it, was their understanding and process of practicing it. For example, one of the women named Amal who by all means wanted to be a pious woman, stated that it wasn’t in her nature to be a shy person and so by trying to practice al-haya when her heart wasn’t in it felt hypocritical. However, Amal explained that she found a resolution by making herself become a shy person, to create the shyness within her and therefore, become a shy person to herself and to the outside world. 

Mahmood captured Amal’s testimony by stating, “action does not issues forth from natural feeling but it creates them.” What really intrigued me about this was the idea that instead of your being defining your actions based on who you are naturally, you let actions mold you into a being that you ideally want to be and makes it so that  that ideal becomes your “new” natural state of you as a being. It’s like making yourself  uncomfortable with what you are comfortable and so then you make yourself choose to be comfortable with something different than what you were originally comfortable with. In this instance, the women chose the al-haya virtue to be their new “comfort,” which was their ultimate goal. 

I find this concept really interesting because I never really have heard of this. I understand their rationalization and could see how it works, but I just wonder if you could ever lose your “original” true sense of self or you simply let yourself be uncomfortable with it. I find it very aspiring especially for one who is so devoted to their faith. I really enjoyed this piece because it just shows the power of a human beings free will and the ability to transform ourselves.