Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer, and Poetry in Iran

Following the 1979 revolution, the Iranian government set out to Islamize society. Muslim piety had to be visible, in personal appearance and in action. Iranians were told to pray, fast, and attend mosques to be true Muslims. The revolution turned questions of what it means to be a true Muslim into a matter of public debate, taken up widely outside the exclusive realm of male clerics and intellectuals.

Say What Your Longing Heart Desires offers an elegant ethnography of these debates among ...