It Is You and Allah

Abstract This article examines how Muslim women living in Dubai are invited into a distinct relationship with God. Highlighting the role of God in constituting the self, it complicates narratives of self-making that presume a bounded and agentive self, as seen in prior accounts of Islamic piety and neoliberal subjectivity. Through the accounts of women attending Al-Noor Islamic Center, the centrality of God to self-making—“Godly self-making”—becomes apparent. It is by way of God that women make sense of their own selves and interactions with others—and by way of others that they make sense of God. This Godly self-making is entrenched within the circumstances in which it transpires, shaped by Dubai's present-day socioeconomic and political dynamics. As a result, it is premised upon three elements: 1) a personal connection with God; 2) a pious self produced through continuous divine tests; and 3) an emphasis on tawakkul (reliance) upon God. In all three elements, the agency, role, and responsibility of other humans and institutions in shaping one's world are backgrounded, obscuring the politics inherent to divine-human relations and the power struggles that suffuse such exchanges.