The Art of Resistance in Islam
The Performance of Politics among Shi'i Women in the Middle East and Beyond

Examines different forms of resistance among Muslim women in the Middle East and in the diaspora.

Yafa Shanneik (Author)

9781316516492, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 January 2022

288 pages
23 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.53 kg

'Shanneik beautifully illustrates how ritual performances are a means of empowerment for Shi'i Muslim women and a form of resistance to religious sectarianism. This groundbreaking book erases traditional area studies boundaries by ambitiously connecting the understudied Arab Gulf to the Shi'i diaspora in Europe through artistic expression and political protest.' Mara Leichtman, Michigan State University

Based on first-hand ethnographic insights into Shi'i religious groups in the Middle East and Europe , this book examines women's resistance to state as well as communal and gender power structures. It offers a new transnational approach to understanding gender agency within contemporary Islamic movements expressed through language, ritual practices, dramatic performances , posters and banners. By looking at the aesthetic performance of the political on the female body through Shi'i ritual practices – an aspect that has previously been ignored in studies on women's acts of resistance -, Yafa Shanneik shows how women play a central role in redefining sectarian and gender power relations both in the Middle East and in the European diaspora.

Preface
Introduction
1. Trajectories of Shi?is in the Gulf and their presence in Europe
2. The rites of mourning within Shi?i Islam
3. Performing the sacred: emotions, the body, and visuality
4. Aestheticisation of politics: the case of ta?b?r
5. Fatima's apparition: power relations within female ritual spaces
6. The power of the word: the politicisation of language
7. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political activism [JPW], Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Islamic life & practice [HRHP], Islamic worship, rites & ceremonies [HRHC], Religion & politics [HRAM2], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]