Saba Mahmood

8 books

About the Author

Saba Mahmood (1961–2021) was a renowned Egyptian-American anthropologist and scholar whose groundbreaking work reshaped understandings of gender, religion, and politics in the Muslim world. Educated at the University of Chicago, where she earned her PhD in anthropology, Mahmood served as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, until her untimely death. Her research challenged Western feminist assumptions by exploring how women in Egypt's Islamic revival movements cultivate piety as a form of ethical agency, blending rigorous ethnographic fieldwork with philosophical inquiry. Mahmood's influential scholarship, including her seminal book Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject, has been widely acclaimed for its nuanced critique of secularism and liberalism, earning her prestigious awards and a lasting impact on anthropology, gender studies, and Middle Eastern studies.

Common genres

Anthropology Beauty Cookbooks Feminism Food & Drink Gender Studies Health Islamic Studies Philosophy political theory Politics Religion religious studies Self-Help Sociology

Writing style

scholarly ethnographic theoretically rigorous