Mass-printed Islamic pedagogy blurred the scholar-ignorant distinction.

Evidence

To begin with, even though no one in the audience challenges the veracity of her account of the conversation between Ali and the Prophet, she voluntarily acknowledges that the }:t on which it is based is considered “weak” (<;lae if) by the imam of the mosque. Despite its dubious status, Umm Faris goes on to support her use of this }:t by arguing that since the advice it proffers urges incorporating Quranic verses into one’s daily life, it is in accord with general wisdom in Is.. lam about the edifi. effects of Quranic recitation and its use is therefore warranted. Importantly, Umm Faris’s argument resonates with a longstanding tradition among Muslim jurists who have justifi the use of weak a}:tadith if they encourage or promote pious behavior. I am not suggesting that Umm Faris was necessarily familiar with this scholarly argument. But what I want to draw attention to is the wide scope this kind of reasoning enjoys today, even among uneducated Muslims, facilitated in part by the kind of Islamic peda.. gogical materials (oral, visual, and print) that I discussed earlier, the produc.. tion and circulation of which has only increased since the effl of the Islamic Revival. The widespread distribution of such popular Islamic pedagog.. ical materials has substantially changed the conditions of assessment essential to the classical distinction made within Islam between ealim, “one who has knowledge,” and jahil, “one who is ignorant.” — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 674

Categorization

• XREF: Corroborates the postcolonial-theory concern with how the category of the ‘uneducated Muslim woman’ is produced — the woman here reasons like a jurist without knowing it, complicating the liberal image of subjugated piety.
• SEED: Amplification media redraw epistemic authority boundaries — how print/audio (and now TikTok) collapsed the ulama/laity divide is a transferable essay angle.