Ritual worship in Egypt has become folkloric custom detached from piety

Evidence

An important aspect of the mosque movement’s critique of the secularization of Egyptian society focuses upon how the understanding and performance of acts of worship (ibadat) have been transformed in the modem period. Move.. ment participants argue that ritual acts of worship in the popular ‘imagination have increasingly acquired the status of customs or conventions, a kind of “Muslim folklore” undertaken as a form of entertainment or as a means to dis.. play a religio..cultural identity. According to them, this has led to the decline of an altern understanding of worship, one in which rituals are performed as a means to the training and realization of piety in the entirety of one’s life. Part of the aim of the mosque movement is to restore this understanding of worship by teaching women the requisite skills involved in its practice. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 345

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the immodesty moral-panic article: both concern how religious/cultural practices get re-read as identity display rather than lived discipline.
• DEFINE: Defines the mosque movement’s core critique: ibadat as skill-training for piety vs. mere custom.