Supplication (Du'ā) in the Lives of Sunni Muslim Women: An Ethnographic Study in Doha

This study aims to research the discretionary practice of supplication [du'ā]. Based on an analysis of interviews with highly educated Sunni Muslim women in Qatar, the multiple meanings of supplication are identified. The study explores how this group of religious women debates and argues the correct usages of pious formulae using their reflexive Islamic knowledge. In the testimonies of interviewees, supplication appears efficacious when practiced in situations of vulnerability. Change was evident to them in their psychological and emotional state; the emotional state being not only the result, but indeed a precondition for entreating the Divine. This practice also proved to be an important spiritual venue. Indeed, it may serve to counter the notion—perpetuated in the classical Orientalist literature—of a spiritual void supposedly characteristic for the central practices of Sunni Islam. For interviewees, the spiritual life was constituted by acts of asking for His benevolence and the concomitant experiences of God’s companionship [ma 'iyya] and connectedness. Furthermore, this practice is informed by notions of Islamic virtue ethics, functioning also as an element in a broader process of self-education and cultivation of specific Islamic virtues. The participants in this research agree that conformity with Islamic doctrine [manhaj] as a requirement for requests to be granted by God. In some cases, however, their diverse religious orientations led to differences in their understanding and way of practice.