Piety is produced through outward ritual performance rather than symbolizing inner belief

Evidence

Mahmood extends this exploration of countervailing types of female agency in The Politics of Piety, her anthropological study of religious practice and identity formation among women involved in Cairo’s da’wa, or mosque movement. According to Mahmood, the faithful subject is produced through the performance of pious behavior and ritual rather than such behavior and ritual symbolizing an inward state of faith. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 488

Categorization

• DEFINE: Reverses the commonsense model where outward practice merely expresses an inner state; here behavior constructs the subject.
• XREF: Connects to Mahmood’s argument that agency need not mean resistance — directly relevant to reading characters who embrace submission. — connects to: Everyday ritual etiquette encodes group orientation more than ritual content does. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 835; Ritual power depends on meaninglessness, not personal significance — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 270