Saba Mahmood, professor of anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, passed away Saturday, March 10. Scholars at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs had the privilege to work with Mahmood on several occasions and found her work deeply influential.
Mahmood was known for researching the relationship between modern religion and secularism, with a special focus on gender, Islamist politics and ethics, and the status of non-Muslim minorities in the Middle East.
During her career, Mahmood was the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the 2016 Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion for her book Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report. Her book, The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject, an ethnographic account of women’s pietistic movements in Cairo, Egypt, was a groundbreaking analysis of Islamist cultural politics. She also served on the editorial boards of Representations, Anthropology Today, L’Homme, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and Journal of the American Academy of Religion.
Religious Freedom and the Secular
A key area of research for Mahmood was in the field of religious freedom. Specifically, she analyzed the power dynamics of international religious freedom policy, demonstrating how the historical development of the practice and concept of religious liberty has been intertwined with the exercise of Western power.
In 2010, Mahmood presented on her research in this area at a Berkley Center event titled “Politics of Religious Freedom and the Minority Question: A Middle Eastern Genealogy,” where she problematized the notion that religious freedom has served as a key mechanism for ensuring that religious minorities are able to practice their traditions freely.
Feminism and Religion
Mahmood’s work within feminist theory and religion offered new concepts of women, agency, and religious practice in Islam.
Through her studies of women in Cairo, Mahmood challenged readers to shift their perspective of pious Muslim women as oppressed and suppressed. Instead, she offered a different perspective: that some Muslim women were engaging in pietistic forms of religious practice through their own free will and were reading and interpreting the Qur’an on their own.
Berkley Center Postdoctoral Fellow Sara Singha found Mahmood’s work to be highly influential.
Her research and analysis on women, gender, and the rights of religious minorities under Islamic governments was innovative, challenging, and deeply critical.
Beyond Scholarship: Mentor and Colleague
Mahmood’s presence and influence was felt beyond her contributions to scholarship. At UC-Berkeley, she is remembered as “a bright light in [her] department, an intellectual force, a generous and demanding mentor, an inspiring teacher, and a strong voice in all parts of department matters.”
Singha, who worked with Mahmood on several occasions, said of the late scholar, “Mahmood was a lively and engaging speaker; she was astute, critical, and self-reflective. She was very encouraging to young women in academia and was generous with her time, reflections, and support.”
To learn more about Mahmood’s life and legacy, please read the obituary issued by UC-Berkeley’s Department of Anthropology.