The popular manuals repurpose jurisprudence as practical worship rules, not legal scholarship

Evidence

While fiq is a technical term for the science of Islamic jurisprudence, it is used within such manuals as a general category referring to the collection of rules and regulations governing the performance of religious rituals and observances Cibadat). … It is common to fi little booklets sold on Cairene sidewalks called Fiqh al..-mar;,a ( Women’s Fiqh) or Fiqh al..-cibada (Fiqh of Worship), though the most widely used compendium, comprised of three volumes, is Fiqh al..- by Sayyid Sabiq (d. 2000) ( Sabiq 1994). Fiqh al..- unna was written in the 1 940s and is reported to have been commissioned by the Muslim Brotherhood leader Hasan al—Banna (who wrote a short introduction to the book) . The collection condenses complicated juristic com.. mentaries on regulations govern the performance of religious obligations 1 While there are some superfi similarities between this literature and the self�help books that are published in the United States and Europe (both privilege the theme of self�improve� ment so characteristic of modern societies), there are also important differences between these two genres that will become clear in the course of this book. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 563

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies how fiqh shifts meaning from technical jurisprudence to a general category of ritual conduct rules in lay manuals.