Talk by Niloofar Haeri

More than four decades after the revolution of 1979, how do we assess the religiosity of Muslim Iranians now? What is it to be religious? How is it that certain texts, ancient and repeatedly recited, continue to have such sway over the emotional and cultural histories of individuals and societies? I will examine the central ritual of Muslims and search for answers to these and similar questions in my ethnography of a group of middle class educated women who live in Tehran