Politics of Piety

In reading Saba Mahmood's first chapter of her book  The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and The Feminist Subject, my take away is that the piety movement is hard to understand for feminists of all sorts because of western ideals surrounding the concept of freedom in which rebelling against the system that is oppressive is the "proper" way to be liberated from said system in order to gain freedom. This "conservative" approach of the piety movement can be seen less as a revolt, as the women are operating within this system of oppression and yet are becoming liberated. Mahmood is thus making a comment about how freedom and equality are different for all people and shouldn't be generalized as it limits feminist scholarship  for the sake of "political clarity". She then says that we must "leave open the possibility that our political and analytical certainties might be transformed in the process of exploring non-liberal movements...[which} teach us beyond what we can learn from the circumscribed social-scientific exercise of "understanding and translation" (Mahmood p. 39)."

From this article I went on to try to better understand what I read and how to understand the piety movement more so. That is when I found the documentary called The Light In Her Eyes and an interview with Saba Mahmood. Reading the interview helped to clearly define what the piety movement is and what it does for the women who are involved. Also, watching the trailer made me understand the drive behind the women who are involved in the piety movement as to them learning and memorizing the Quran gives them a better understanding as how to operate in the social structure that often oppresses women and how they can have a voice and not get taken advantage of because of the male dominated culture in which they live in. Of course the film and the interview don't present the analysis that Saba Mahmood does in her book but I think it is useful to see that these women, contrary to U.S. media portrayals, do not need to be liberated or saved.
 http://thelightinhereyesmovie.com/resources/interview-saba-mahmood/
http://thelightinhereyesmovie.com/