An Enchanted Modern

Gender and Public Piety in Shi'i Lebanon

By: Lara Deeb

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eBook | 27 June 2011

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Based on two years of ethnographic research in the southern suburbs of Beirut, An Enchanted Modern demonstrates that Islam and modernity are not merely compatible, but actually go hand-in-hand. This eloquent ethnographic portrayal of an Islamic community articulates how an alternative modernity, and specifically an enchanted modernity, may be constructed by Shi'I Muslims who consider themselves simultaneously deeply modern, cosmopolitan, and pious.

In this depiction of a Shi'I Muslim community in Beirut, Deeb examines the ways that individual and collective expressions and understandings of piety have been debated, contested, and reformulated.

Women take center stage in this process, a result of their visibility both within the community, and in relation to Western ideas that link the status of women to modernity. By emphasizing the ways notions of modernity and piety are lived, debated, and shaped by "everyday Islamists," this book underscores the inseparability of piety and politics in the lives of pious Muslims.

Industry Reviews

"Lara Deeb's expansive and eloquent ethnography focuses on the community of Lebanese Shi'i who identify with Hizbullah. It is an excellent analysis of the way that women, in particular, live and define a modern, 'authenticated' Islam in the neighborhoods of al-Dahiyya.... Both theoretically and ethnographically, Deeb offers nuanced and thorough analyses, all the while being attentive to overlapping, contradictory, and shifting viewpoints."---Anne Bennett, Middle East Journal