Malay Muslim women in Singapore cultivate piety by attending popular Islamic self-help classes. Nurhaizatul Jamil’s ethnographic study offers an interdisciplinary analysis of this phenomenon.
The Islamic self-help classes in this book exist at the nexus of sacred texts, aphorisms, and social media engagements, scaffolded by the neoliberal economy that shapes idealized Muslim subjectivities. Within a context whereby the Singapore state discursively frames Malayness in terms of cultural deficiency, Malay Muslim women’s inward focus on transformative ethics rather than societal change underscores the appeal of gendered pious self-help discourses. At the same time, Jamil’s referencing of Black, Indigenous, and Ethnic studies offers a compelling analytical frame that places affective transformation within the context of racial capitalism, historical trauma, and embodied healing.
A provocative and rich ethnography, Faithful Transformations tells the stories of Malay Muslim women desiring piety and self-improvement as minoritized subjects in contemporary Singapore while exploring the limitations of self-care.
By:
Nurhaizatul Jamil
Imprint: University of Illinois Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: New edition
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9780252088728
ISBN 10: 0252088727
Series: Dissident Feminisms
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 08 July 2025
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Acknowledgments Introduction “Hope Is a Discipline”?: Introducing Islamic Self-Help Whose Singapore Story?: Historicizing Malay-Muslim Subject-Formation “God Tests Us with Hardship and Ease”: Self-Help Pedagogies Eat, Pray, Love?: Racializing Affective Self-Help “Just Listen to Your Husband!”: Gender, Religious Authority, Agency Striving to Do Good Deeds Consistently: Everyday Islam, Discursive Traditions Coda I’m Not Sure if I Still Want to Be a Feminist Killjoy: Thoughts on Self-Help, Ventral Vagal Regulation, and Collectivizing Care Notes Bibliography Index
Nurhaizatul Jamil is an assistant professor of global south studies at Pratt Institute.
