Shared Roots, Divergent Paths? Gendered Religious Socialization in the Lives of Muslim Brothers and Sisters

Our paper contributes to biographical research on religious socialization within the social milieu of the Muslim Brotherhood, offering insights into how shared patterns of religious upbringing, education, and participation in communal activities influence the life trajectories of male and female participants. The central question explores the similarities and differences in how young men and women undergo religious socialization within in the gendered universe of the Muslim Brotherhood/Sisterhood. Using Karl Mannheim's theory of generations, our approach also includes a generational perspective on religious socialization, paying attention to the formative influence of different historical conditions, and trying to detect generational continuities, shifts, and ruptures across our sample of participants.

Our research is based on biographical and expert interviews conducted since August 2023 with present-day and former members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood living in Istanbul, Qatar and the Western diaspora, and aged between 25 and 75. The semi-structured biographical interviews include questions about socioeconomic background and upbringing, religion and everyday life, career choices and trajectories, as well as formative political events like Egyptian revolution of 2011, and the experiences of persecution and exile.

In this paper, we focus on participants’ narratives about their childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. How do they portray everyday life and gender relations within the family, the community and wider society? Where do narrated experiences differ according to gender and how religious practices and values are transmitted, negotiated, and adapted by both genders throughout life. What is the importance of other factors such as socioeconomic class, place of upbringing (rural/urban), and time/generation? The analysis reveals significant gendered differences, despite men and women sharing common foundational experiences rooted in the collective goals of the Muslim Brotherhood.