Paper short abstract:

This paper explores negotiations and contestations of 'being pious' and searching for 'moral role model' among British Muslims. I am problematizing the notions of piety as mere 'ethical self-fashioning' and extending these notions to their wider social, economic and political implications.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims at exploring the everyday life struggle, negotiations and contestations about 'being pious' and searching for 'moral role model' among British Muslims. The paper will focus on how and why the projection of self righteousness and morality-led lives becomes pivotal for British Muslims whenever they encounter each other at any social gathering or assemble at any public place. The paper argues that giving public performance of pious and moral lives not only generate personal credibility and economic success for British Muslims, but also the personal credibility and economic success advances the public expressions of pious and moral selves amongst themselves. The ethnography focuses on how British Muslims learn and reorient themselves with piety and morality led lives through practicing Islam in everyday life; how the search for the moral role models encourages the display of piety among its members and how it becomes integral element of their collective social and political lives. This paper is based on ethnographic fieldworks conducted in Birmingham with Sunni Muslims and in London with Shia Muslims. In this paper, I am problematizing the notions of piety as mere 'ethical self-fashioning' in anthropological debates and extending these notions by exploring the wider social, economic and political implications of piety and morality led lives of Muslims. The lives of British Muslims provide interesting insights for anthropological inquiry regarding their yearnings for demonstration of a utopian morality and piety led life styles and their negotiations while facing challenges over piety exhibitionism.