Embodying the Faith: Religious Practice and the Making of a Muslim Moral Habitus

Abstract

Despite a number of contemporary theoretical works in sociology and moral philosophy arguing that the project of modern selfhood is necessarily a deeply moral endeavor, there are few empirical studies examining the specific ways in which social actors construct moral selves and lives. Utilizing ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews, this article examines how a group of adult Muslim converts in Missouri produced new moral selves in and through the use of embodied religious practices. Drawing on the theoretical insights of Bourdieu, I demonstrate how the embodied religious practices of ritual prayer, fasting and covering formed within converts the moral dispositions, or habitus, associated with becoming a "good Muslim."