The da’iya’s religious authority is not fixed by social location

Evidence

Despite the ubiq.. uity of this observation, however, we lack a clear picture of the kind of au.. thority commanded by the complex figure of the daciya, whose profi is not fi in any single social, class, or gender location but traverses a wide terrain of the social landscape. Furthermore, we lack a robust sense of the pedagogical domain that has been created through the circulation of these new Islamic knowledges and ethical materials: What kind of authority does their use evoke? In what kinds of institutional settings are these sources used? And to.. ward what end and under what circumstances? Since women’s mosque lessons represent an important space where these materials are used and cited, by a variety of women from a range of social locations under the guidance of a daciya, I want to explore these questions through an ethnographic analysis of the discussions that unfolded within the context of mosque lessons. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 578

Categorization

• QUESTION: This challenges the reader’s analytic habit of reading authority through class/gender position — worth interrogating what kind of authority the da’iya embodies instead.