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Khidmat as Understanding: Muslim Women, Marriage, and Ethics of Care in Muslim Households

Shahana Munazir

Abstract

The present ethnographic research falls within the field of cultural anthropology; it delves into the concept of khidmat among newly married Muslim women in Patna, Bihar, and its impact on their daily lives and family relationships. Rooted in Islamic theology, khidmat encompasses labor, service, devotion, and care, and thus endows household duties with spiritual meaning. Highlighting these spiritual epistemologies of ordinary caregiving, I emphasize that khidmat is not merely a chore, but a sacred responsibility intertwined with religious meaning. Seen as a means of securing divine blessings, such ordinary care practices at home foster mutual understanding (apsī samajhdārī) among spouses and in-laws, aiding in the prevention and resolution of household and marital conflicts. Through khidmat, women infuse their everyday lives with spiritual depth, transforming the mundane into the sacred. In doing so, this study challenges conventional approaches to ordinary ethics that divide the everyday from the transcendental; instead, it situates khidmat within Islamic ethics as a framework for piety in which relationality is central. Aligning with contemporary scholarship on the anthropology of care and ethics, this ethnography reveals how khidmat operates as a complex ontological concept, offering new perspectives on ordinary acts of care in gendered Muslim households in contemporary India.

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Introduction

  • 1 Throughout this article, I have used pseudonyms for people and also changed some identifying detail (...)

1When I first met Amina1 in 2016, she was still a high school student in an Islamic school in Phulwari Sharif, Patna. Having recently married, she is now a part-time Urdu teacher in the neighborhood and spends the rest of her time doing household chores and taking care of her family. On a casual evening, she invited me into her immaculately clean apartment for a cup of tea. She sat next to me after giving her mother-in-law her evening medicine. Amina’s daily routine included taking care of her mother-in-law’s medical needs, as well as regular cleaning and cooking at home. She lived in a joint family with her husband and parents-in-law. I sheepishly enquired about her day, which already seemed like a busy one. She said:

  • 2 In this context, “understanding” (used by Amina in English within her Urdu speech) refers to a form (...)

To be a housewife isn’t easy, but it is this magic of care that really develops an “understanding”2 in married life. Husbands and parents-in-law take you more seriously and don’t bother you. We understand our worth in this house. I don’t want any fuss in my marital home. Peace of mind is essential.” (Housewife honā āsān nahīn hai lekin yeh khidmat kā totkā hī hai jo shādī me ek understanding banātī hai. Husband aur sāṣ-sāsur āpkō zyādā seriously lete hai. Hamēṅ patā chaltā hai ki hamārī kyā value hai. Yahāṅ sasurāl me mujhe jhīk-jhīk nahīn chāhiye. Peace of mind bahut zarūrī hai.)

  • 3 The theological foundations of khidmat are deeply embedded in Islamic scripture and prophetic tradi (...)

2How does the concept of khidmat influence the everyday lives and familial dynamics of Muslim women and how do they perceive its role in fostering mutual understanding and harmony within their marital homes? I found myself asking these questions, as I frequently encountered the ethos of khidmat (Khidmah in Arabic)—an Islamic theological concept steeped in the language of labor, devotion, and care in Muslim households in Patna, Bihar. Nestled within the domestic lives of devout stay-at-home or gharelu married Muslim women, khidmat emerged not merely as a chore, but as a sacred responsibility intertwined with religious meaning.3 Since I lived in close quarters with my interlocutors throughout my fieldwork in working class neighborhoods in Patna, I became familiar with their daily lives, whose patterns were deeply rooted in an Islamic way of life. Women regarded Islam as a guiding principle that offered rules for their daily conduct (qaida qanoon), as well as ways to address the complexities of life in a rapidly changing world. Typically, Muslim housewives in Patna shoulder the majority of everyday responsibilities such as cleanliness, cooking, and attending to the health needs of their elders. In carrying out these tasks, they invoke the concept of khidmat, infusing their actions with spiritual significance in anticipation of divine rewards and the blessings of the elderly. Thus, the everyday lives of my interlocutors constituted a realm of affective and familial labor, characterized by both potentialities and limitations shaped by gendered familial obligations and Islamic ethical principles (cf. Bensaid and Grine 2014).

3With khidmat in mind as a conduit for divine blessings and rewards, women believed that caregiving at home sometimes worked as magic or totka in that it would foster apsī samajhdārī, or a mutual understanding between themselves and their spouses, as well as between themselves and their in-laws. This sense of mutual understanding would prevent and solve household and marital problems. Finding themselves in arranged marriages, the localized idea of apsī samajhdārī in women’s marital homes emerged as a gendered concept wherein women often spent more time at home taking care of the household than men. Yet, despite the theoretical underpinnings of the Quran advocating for gender equality and the proscription within Islamic law against wives undertaking household chores for their husbands (Katz 2022), women assert the paramount importance of caregiving and domestic labor in their marital homes to maintain kinship ties. Such endeavors, they contend, serve as the crucible from which love and trust emerge, providing solace in the face of current and future marital issues. Drawing on these spiritual epistemologies of caregiving, I explore how women use khidmat as a meaning-making force in their daily lives. As such, this article transcends the mere validation of Muslim agency or the recognition that women have choices. Rather, the crux of this inquiry lies in elucidating how women navigate and deploy the concepts of religion and relationality within their own discourses on marriage, filial piety, and wifehood.

4The ethnography presented here focuses on ethics, care, marriage, and relationality but it is contextualized within the ambit of Islam, in terms of both my interlocutors’ religious influences and the theoretical debates that are addressed in this study. Recent discussions within the anthropology of Islam and the ethics of self-fashioning are both generative and limiting sources of insight to understand the religious dimensions of caregiving in Muslim households in contemporary India. Anthropologists who theorize care relations have challenged approaches to pious self-formation because this scholarship tends to emphasize the individual self at the expense of the relational self (Mattingly 2014; Louwe and Mortensen 2021; Mittermaier 2021; Noddings 2013). For instance, Mattingly and McKearney (2023) argue that a focus on self-cultivation tends to neglect, if not to disavow, the elusive ethical dimensions and relationality of caregiving, which are rooted in the everyday and are at once pious, agentive, and ambivalent (see also Fadil and Fernando 2015; Schielke 2015). As such, my interest here is not to privilege one analytical approach over the other, but rather to think of the everyday and the transcendental in the same frame in order to underscore women’s pivotal roles as caregivers in households, which leads to the emergence of a form of “relational ethics” (Zigon 2024). Thus contemplating the epistemological significance of khidmat as a relational ethic, I highlight how the transcendental becomes part of the everyday (cf. Zigon 2024; Robbins 2016; Menin 2020; Maqsood 2023).

5Oftentimes, the phenomenon of khidmat unfolds in the everyday, and is something more than mere obligation. It undergoes a metamorphosis that shapes into an embodiment of religiosity. Even when ostensibly relegated to the realm of obligatory toil or emotional labor, khidmat assumes a nuanced manifestation as women articulate their anxieties and apprehensions vis-à-vis their arranged-marriage responsibilities, concurrently harboring faith in the esoteric compensations and faith in a divine plan carefully intertwined with care practices at home. Thus, I observe that the practice of khidmat brings out the intricacies of women’s agency and affective labor, wherein the messy quotidian is transfigured into the sacred through practices of care. Within this paradigm, I suggest, the boundaries that separate piety and everyday become blurred, prompting a focus on the “wholeness” of Islamic ethical conduct (El-Yousifi 2020) and the seamless integration of the self with acts of devotion in the everyday.

6Methods and context: Reflections within the ordinary

7I reflect upon these concerns of piety, relational ethics, and spiritual dimensions of caregiving through the life stories, accounts, and experiences of young married women from the lower and middle class in Patna and Delhi, collected during intermittent fieldwork conducted between 2021–2023. While my primary research site was Patna, my interactions with women sometimes extended to Delhi, where they had relatives and friends. Conversations transpired both in their homes in Patna and at their relatives’ residences in Delhi. Given these characteristics, I think of my work as emblematic of “ethnographic dislocation” (Islam 2024), migratory and diverging from a fixed or a singular physical domain. Herein, my situatedness transcends the mere delineation of a spatial locale; rather, it assumes significance within the realm of relational dynamics, irrespective of how dispersed or divergent these relations may have been.

  • 4 With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the school shut down in 2021. Based on my earlier research (...)

8Most of my interlocutors were in their early to late twenties and were recently wedded. Women self-identified as gharelu women with bachelor’s degrees in Education, Urdu, and Islamic Studies, some having a master’s degree as well. Some of my interlocutors had attended the Salehat Islamic school in Phulwari Sharif in Patna where I first conducted my fieldwork in 2015–2016.4 A longitudinal engagement with my interlocutors allowed for a deeper understanding of the socio-cultural context and facilitated rapport-building with participants, enhancing the richness and depth of the data collected. The interviews were conducted with ethical care, fostering an environment conducive to mutual trust. So, for example, fears about gossip and bad experiences of marriage were so strong that it was only in very intimate settings that women broached these topics, and with assurances that they would not be identified. Even the joys of marriage were expressed in private conversations. This study is based on many intimate conversations I have had with women in the privacy of late nights, auto rides, and afternoon and evening kitchen conversations.

  • 5 Maqsood (2021) finds a similar trend of urban piety in Lahore.

9The selection of participants was informed by a combination of convenience and snowball sampling techniques, ensuring diversity in perspectives and experiences within the target demographic of stay-at-home pious or gharelu Muslim women. My focus on lower and middle class pious stay-at-home women reflects some of the ongoing trends in the broader demographics of Muslim women in less cosmopolitan tier-two cities who often make the choice to at home for fear of rising racial and religious politics, as well as the increasing lack of employment opportunities. In these groups, there is a noticeable trend toward piety and Islamic study,5 in small self-organized Islamic study circles, but one that is disproportionately more evident among women than in men. Within these circles, as in India, more broadly, the socioeconomic importance of marriage, especially for women, is immense, and arranged unions remain the “norm.”

  • 6 Nikita Simpson (2022) also highlights an emphasis on respectability in the context of the Gaddi wom (...)

10The selection criteria for the female participants emphasized recent marriage as a pivotal life transition, offering insights into the shift and intersection of marital expectations, religious beliefs, and domestic roles post-marriage in predominantly lower to middle class Muslim households. The male members of these households predominantly engaged in small family businesses or contractual jobs, with aspirations often directed towards migrating to the Gulf for enhanced livelihoods (Ahmad 2017). Interestingly, women’s narratives scarcely reflected the economic and aesthetic pressures commonly associated with the Indian middle class (see Donner 2011; Fernandes 2006). Women prioritized respectability within their familial circles over external employment opportunities. Not unique to Muslim women in India,6 this emphasis on izzat” (respectability) highlights a perspective common among middle-class Muslim women, which is characterized by a delicate balance between universal aspirations and particular Islamic values and beliefs. In this sense, the conceptualization of employment as an intrinsic facet of their identity (Islam 2022) does not invariably pervade the consciousness of young Muslim women and employment is not necessarily perceived through a lens that confines them to the service industry of the working middle class due to mere boredom or apprehension of domestic confinement.

  • 7 See Zarin Ahmad’s “Delhi’s Meatscapes,” for exposition of caste within Muslim communities.

11Delving deeper into the nuances of their identities reveals a prevalent ambivalence regarding caste affiliations among these women . A resounding sentiment echoes through their collective voices: “we consider ourselves Sunni Muslims” (ham Sunnī Muslim hī hai); transcending caste delineations to situate them within the broader framework of Sunni Islam. This stance encapsulates a profound ambivalence reflective not only of caste associations but also indicative of inter-maslak distinctions, thereby underscoring diverse allegiances to varying schools of Islamic thought (Ahmad 2018).7 Engaging with these ethnographic inquiries does not just enable me to contemplate the intricate negotiation of diversity within these contexts; it also encourages me to ponder upon the evolution of such negotiations over time. Drawing on contemporary perspectives that have been emerging from ethnographic studies in South Asia, I perceive diversity as inherently generative. It contains potential experimentation, transformation, and cultural exchange, even as it is heavy with the potentially threatening possibility of upheaval and fragmentation (Maqsood 2024). In contrast to dominant narratives that frame Indian Muslim women’s experiences through lenses of backwardness, insularity, and violence, my analysis deliberately shifts focus from security-centered state and policy perspectives to examine women’s quotidian experiences. This methodological intervention prioritizes narratives centered on the mundane aspects of their lives, offering a counterpoint to prevailing discourses that often circumscribe their agency and lived experiences within restrictive analytical frameworks

  • 8 I draw inspiration from Todne Thomas’s seminal exploration of the Black Evangelical church (2021), (...)

12My own journey towards this project is deeply intertwined with the tutelage received from my mother, who, in assuming the bulk of household responsibilities, instilled within me the ethos of an Islamic feminine identity and proper female selfhood. My upbringing afforded me insights into the profound significance with which quotidian household chores were imbued, thus unveiling layers of selfhood, morality, and religiosity. For instance, the simple act of making tea for elders in the house transcended its apparent mundanity, embodying Islamic virtues of humility, reverence, and service, encapsulated by the principles of tawāzu or humility and khidmat. The fact that I am an insider to the research context, however, doesn’t automatically render me privy to “truthful” knowledge, but it has, made my relationships with my interlocutors closer. Over the years I have fostered intimate bonds with my participants, engendering a rapport of mutual trust and solidarity, thus facilitating a deeper engagement with the intricacies of their lived experiences.8

13Against the grain of this narrative of native affinity and personal experiences lies the counterpoint of my status as an “outsider” also, especially the traditional Islamic knowledge of my interlocutors who received their formal education in Islamic schools. This estrangement stems from my trajectory of pursuing “modern” education across diverse urban centers and cultural arenas, thereby treading paths that diverged from the trajectories of traditional Islamic scholarship and cultural immersion which those I seek to understand pursued. As such, from the perspective of feminist ethnographic practice, my is aim to move beyond these unhelpful dichotomies in order to conceive of the ethnographer’s subjectivity as a constantly evolving process situated within the dynamics of power, privilege, and situated capital. This perspective has constantly pushed me towards a critical interrogation of my positionality and the various ways in which my social and economic location intersects with the dynamics of power and privilege inherent to this research process.

Middle class women’s practice of being “at-home”

14Within the prevailing Hindu nationalist discourse, the lived experiences of many Muslim women in contemporary India, especially those with a formal Islamic education, is often said to be “backward” and in need of “modernization” (see Sarkar 2008). As a result, employment which emphasizes English-language education appears as a pivotal site of experience and the negotiation of modernity for middle-class Muslim women. However, this imposes a restrictive lens upon the multifaceted realities of women, confining their identities within a narrow framework tethered to Western-centric paradigms of progress, development, and aspirational pursuits (Khoja-Moolji 2018). As such, within state and policy discourse, the ordinary is inadvertently eclipsed by the imposition of a rigid backward/modern dichotomy that reinforces the dangerous trope of Muslim women as backward and victimized by their own circumstances.

15In the past decade, an emerging body of literature within the anthropology of Islam has given us insights into how pious women negotiate their Islamic selves within the context of modernity (Jeffery and Qureshi 2022). Conceptualizing Islam as dialogical (Mittermaier 2011), scholars have contended that the process of Muslim self-fashioning engenders complex subjectivities, as individuals navigate the intersection between their devout and worldly selves. In India, instances of this everyday Islam often depict middle-class aspirational women who perceive Islam not as an immutable reality, but rather as a realm of possibilities, within which active choice and selections are conceivable. This perspective is evident in studies focused primarily on cosmopolitan cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, where there is a discernible construction of aspirations intertwined with modern development trajectories (Patel-Banerjee and Robinson 2017; Borker 2018).

16In my study, which primarily focuses on lower-middle-class pious women in the less cosmopolitan city of Patna, women’s narratives diverge from prevailing discourses centered around state-driven modernity or aspirational identities tethered to emerging professions. While some women did aspire to careers such as joining the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) or excelling in fields such as media, medicine, engineering, or finance, the idea of staying home as homemakers was not inherently excluded, given the constraints in which women find themselves. Even though staying at home was not a goal per se, it was clear that to be a pious woman was not a passive role, nor was being “modern” defined exclusively by the metrics of consumption, education, and employability. Saira’s comments on being a housewife are relevant here:

“I know most people think of gharelu women and housewives as kamtar (inferior) because we don’t earn our own money. Nine-to-five jobs that start at 9 am and end at 5 pm are not for me. Home is good that way, especially since it’s easier to look after everyone. (Corporate jobs mere liye nahīn hai. Ghar hi thik hai sabki khair khairyat rakhne mein easy hai).

17As a follow-up to my question about what being at home meant to her, she asked me: “Why are you asking me this question?” It was a question that spoke about the pervasive scrutiny and judgment that Muslim women often face regarding their choices and priorities.

Is being caretaker of the home a sign of weakness? Why are we considered inferior? These days, women are too focused on getting a job. To earn money. That is of course important, but equally important is your home and family. To be with family gives me a feeling of completeness” (Kyā gharelū hone kā matlab yeh hai ki ham kamzor hai? Hame kamtar kyōṅ mānā jātā hai? Ājkal lakiyāṅ jobs pe zyādā focus kartī hai. Woh important to hai hī, lekin ghar bhī zarūrī hai. Family mujhe ek mukammal zindagī kā esās detī hai.)

18I met Saira in the summer of 2022. She had married a year earlier in 2021 soon after completing her bachelor’s degree in Urdu. It appeared that she wasn’t expected to work and seemed rather disinterested in doing so as well. She said she was happy to stay at home. Saira’s husband ran a small family business selling electronic appliances in Phulwari Sharif. Her own professional experience included teaching in a high school, but she left this occupation after getting married due to concerns about constant travel and family responsibilities. She said she was quite happy in her marriage and clearly asserted that she wanted to take care of her family, even if that meant leaving her teaching job and not contributing financially to the household. Saira’s reluctance to work outside the home also reflects her reluctance both to contribute financially and her adherence to the duty of maintaining social relations within the family, which Hochschild describes as “the second shift” (Hochschild and Machung1989).

19Scholarship on middle-class women’s domesticity in India reveals a double bind they face at the intersection of social expectations, family duties, and economic pressures. These women navigate complex tensions between maintaining their expected domestic roles while simultaneously confronting financial necessities that compel participation in income generation, often rendering their labor both essential yet undervalued within domestic and economic spheres.

20Henrike Donner (2008) underlines this double bind in her detailed ethnography of women from middle-class families in West Bengal. Her work displays the effects of globalization on Indian society and changes in middle-class women’s practices and domestic lives in Kolkata. Upon the backdrop of liberalization, she argues that on one axis, women confront the prevailing narrative within state, policy, and media discourses that casts them as non-aspirational or uneducated, thereby engendering a subtle coercion that they integrate the extra-domestic workforce (see also Islam 2024). Concurrently, women also grapple with the weight of multifaceted expectations, which expect them to embody the archetype of the “good daughter,” the virtuous caregiver, and the nurturing mother (see also Kelting 2009; Bapna 2012). In the course of this study, I also observed this ambivalence, with an added emphasis on the role of religiosity as a fundamental element to be negotiated in the daily lives of these women.

  • 9 Many Muslim women confront the disquieting specter of racial and religious stigmatization within pr (...)

21According to other accounts included in this study, being “at-home” was overdetermined by the racial and religious politics of India and the economic instability experienced by many lower middle-class households across the country, difficulties that have been particularly exacerbated by the recent pandemic, which induced businesses closures and subsequent loss of income.9 This combination of circumstances has heightened the significance of domestic roles (Baviskar and Ray 2020). For example, for Nadia, grappling with the responsibilities of motherhood and looking after aged in-laws, financial constraints were a reality. In her own words, she articulates the perpetual reality of “paise kī tangī,” or financial constraint. Nadia’s husband, who operates a modest tailoring business in the bustling Patna Market, has faced financial setbacks exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic.

  • 10 The Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) administers a rigorous, multi-stage teacher recruitment (...)

22Faced with this economic instability, Nadia has often considered seeking employment to alleviate the financial strain on her family but she has been unsuccessful. With a bachelor’s degree in Education (B. Ed), she acknowledged the challenges inherent in securing gainful employment, particularly in the competitive landscape of teaching positions in India. She often lamented, explaining that she has not been able to qualify10 even after repeated attempts and that she would much rather take care of her infant son. She further said: “I don’t find it safe to work 9–5 jobs. Teaching is better.” Nadia recognized the potential benefits of such employment, which would afford her the flexibility to balance familial duties with professional pursuits. But with no success in finding a teaching job, she said:

“I don’t want to plan so much. Some things are better left to Allah. He knows better” (Mujhe itnī planning nahīn karnī. Kuch cheeze Allāh par chor denī chāhiye. Wuhī behtar jāntā hai)

23Nadia’s words encapsulate a sentiment echoed by many Muslims in India who navigate everyday uncertainties, acknowledging the limitations of human agency in the face of divine will, yet working strategically toward their “destined” future (cf. Elliot and Menin 2018). It was apparent to me that both Saira and Nadia’s seemingly paradoxical sentiments regarding staying-at-home underscored a deeper reality, one that moved beyond the simplistic dichotomy of empowerment versus disempowerment or modernity versus tradition. For one, it laid bare the societal stigma attached to domesticity, challenging the entrenched notion that a woman’s empowerment is contingent upon her participation in the workforce. More importantly, the meanings of domesticity and being at-home transcended its functional arrangements to embody a form of spiritual labor with a powerful manifestation of religion in the everyday.

Khidmat as spiritual labor

  • 11 Sylvia Vatuk (2017) argues that even in cases of extreme marital discord, Muslim women do not initi (...)
  • 12 Arlie Hochschild’s seminal contribution to this burgeoning literature on emotional labor (1983) res (...)

24Khidmat emerged as a form of spiritual labor rooted in the concept of the emotional labor that women put forth to make their marriages work.11 In her ethnography based in Delhi, Geetika Bapna (2012) delves into the intricacies of the concept of nibhaana, a term used to describe the process through which married couples negotiate and maintain their relationships over time. Bapna argues that nibhaana is not simply about enduring or tolerating marriage but involves active engagement, negotiation, and adaptation, closely aligned with the concept of emotional labor. Central to the concept of emotional labor is the acknowledgment that societal structures and institutions exert normative pressures, circumscribing the contours within which individuals navigate their emotional landscapes. In navigating these normative imperatives, individuals engage in emotion management, endeavoring to harmonize their private emotional experiences with societal expectations (Hochschild 1983).12 Interestingly, religiosity and the influence of religious vocabulary is conspicuously absent in the extant work on marriage and/as emotional labor. In this study, a similar yet different form of emotional management emerged within the concept of ordinary care at home, in that emotional management was not necessarily a performance but immanent to social life where religiosity played a central role.

25The role of religion in practices of care has been noted in other contexts within anthropological studies on care (e.g., Nistelrooij 2022; Coe 2017). In the context of Thailand, for example, Felicity Aulino (2019), argues that the concepts of karmic debts and merit extend across an individual’s lifetime, thereby significantly influencing caregiving practices in the region. Within this context, karma provides caregivers with a rationale for accepting their circumstances, while merit is accrued through the physical provision of care for the elderly or those in need. The significance of karma and merit within caregiving practices also sheds light on the prominence of volunteerism in Thailand, where the latter practice has evolved into a national strategy aimed at combining elderly care with merit-making. Thus, caregiving is contextualized in a manner that emphasizes the merit volunteers accrue through their altruistic deeds, rather than placing emphasis on the obligatory nature of familial caregiving responsibilities. In doing so, the focus on karma and spirituality decenters the sentimentalized and morally loaded aspects of care.

26Similarly, by invoking the spiritual dimensions of khidmat, I move beyond thinking of domesticity simply as familial obligation; instead, I explore how the transcendental becomes part of the everyday. It becomes part of the Islamic ethical framework of wholeness where the everyday and transcendental can be understood in one frame within relationships that are germane to what Jarrett Zigon (2021) terms “relational ethics.” Here, relationality and its inherent challenges are no longer viewed as burdensome tasks but rather as an intrinsic aspect of human existence. This understanding reveals itself as an ontological reality, one that is embraced as an essential component of leading a “fulfilled” life or a mukammal zindagī. In this way, women are able to think about maintaining their marriages or are often aided in the navigation of stresses in their marriages as they remain open to possibilities of change and positivity (see also Bapna 2012; Maqsood 2024).

Marriage and mukammal zindagī

27My interlocutors’ daily lives unveiled a connection between marriage, spiritual labor, and the inherent ethical completeness of Islamic lives encapsulated in the concept of a “fulfilled” existence, known as mukammal zindagī. Marriage holds immense social importance for lower and middle class pious Muslim women in Patna, and despite the weight of familial expectations and fear of the unknown, women often underscored marriage as a sacred union that pleases Allah and, by extension, their families. Often, the discussion of marriage with my interlocutors drew my attention to expectations surrounding arranged marriages vis-a-vis love marriages. There is widespread evidence in contemporary India that “love marriages” play an important role in people’s self-shaping, and the rise of the idea of the individual who actively pursues personal desires and feelings (cf. Cole and Thomas 2009; Donner and Santos 2016; Hirsch and Wardlow 2006).

28Recent discussions on intimate modernities in India, particularly within the Indian middle-class have shown how discourses on coupledom, love, personal choice, and self-realization must be understood against the backdrop of more nuanced, enduring social changes and pre-existing institutional frameworks. In Parul Bhandari’s (2020) study, for example, “true” love was described as beginning with individuals marrying despite parental opposition, but ultimately winning their families’ approval over time. She argues that for the middle class, honoring their families was paramount. Similarly, Henrike Donner (2016), has shown both continuities and subtle shifts in the discourse surrounding “love” and “marriage” in her ethnography in West Bengal. She examines how these concepts are articulated in familial conversations and how young women, alongside their parents, navigate marriage amidst the dynamics of middle-class consumerism and status competition. Donner’s work underscores the need to appreciate the intricate interplay between traditional familial expectations and emerging modern individual aspirations in shaping contemporary marital practices. I draw upon these nuanced conceptualizations of marriage in contemporary India to explore the ethics of marital relationships, situating them against the backdrop of prevailing social structures of middle-class domesticity and religion.

29In my interviews, women overwhelmingly agreed that Islam encourages marriage, and it is usually the responsibility of parents to ensure that their daughters are well matched, although sometimes “love” marriages also take place, with parental consent on both sides. As noted in much of the scholarly literature within South Asia, there are few clear distinctions between “arranged” marriages and “love” marriages (Bhandari 2020; Neve 2016; Donner 2016; Donner and Santos 2016; Osella 2012) in contemporary India. Women in my study often used the phrase “you can call our marriage arranged” (hamārī shādī arranged hī keh sakte hai), suggesting that women didn’t necessarily feel that there were clear distinctions between arranged marriages and love marriages. In one of our conversations, Amina said:

My husband and I met before marriage but not to an extent that you would call it “love” (with emphasis) but my husband was not unknown to me. It is a good thing to have meetings before marriage because it helps in developing understanding and compatibility in the relationship. Knowing each other beforehand is also beneficial because you already have an idea about each other’s nature and preferences.

(Shādī se pahle mulāqātėn thō thī lekin utnī nahī ki love marriage kahīn, lekin bilkul unknown bhī nahī tha. Shādi se pahle mulaqāte honā ek acchī bāt hai, kyūnki rishte me understanding aur compatibility develop karne me madad miltī hai. Kisī ko pahle se jān lenā bhī ek achhī bāt hai, kyūnki āpko ek dusre ke nature aur preferences ke bāre me pahle se paṭā hotā hai.)

30Initially apprehensive and uncertain about her marriage, Amina recounted the familial pressures she faced, particularly from her father, who emphasized the importance of “settling down” as marriage brings moral, ethical, and relational completeness to individual lives. Despite her initial reservations, she expressed gratitude, stating, “Alhamdulillah, I am very happy now.” Wiping sweat beads off her face with her cotton dupatta or scarf, she said, “marriage is not easy; it brings with it a lot of work, but it has also given me a sense of fulfillment that I did not experience as a single woman. Cooking everyday is hard work and also sometimes boring but it also brings me a lot of joy and contentment, or sukūn.” She further emphasized:

“Indeed, the essence of our existence finds completion in these small joys when my husband compliments my food and Ammi gives me blessings for my hard work. It is only through the blessings of the elderly that we can come closer to Allah.”

31Amina’s discourse underscores the essence of familial bonds, wherein the fulfillment of human existence is intrinsically intertwined with practices of ordinary care and the blessings bestowed by the elderly. This sense of fulfillment was particularly emphasized in the context of maintaining marital relationships, as I would highlight in the next section. Amina’s narrative serves as an exemplification of an Islamic ethos, wherein relationality, familial duty, and spiritual fulfillment converge to delineate the contours of ethical wholeness. Her faith in the pursuit of a fulfilled life in marriage echoes the Islamic ethical framework of “wholeness,” suggesting that Islamic ethics pervade all human actions (El-Yousfi 2020). As opposed to ordinary ethics, which create a clear division between the transcendental and the everyday (see Das 2012; 2015; Lambek 2011), relegating religious dimensions to a separate realm (Zigon 2021; Robbins 2016), ethical wholeness challenges this dichotomy by recognizing the inherent interconnectedness between the everyday and the transcendental. Within this analytical framework, Islamic ethics and the ethical modality of intense relationality are not merely incidental to existence; they are rather fundamental to and even precede individual existence itself (Zigon 2021, 393). As a result, domesticity in Muslim households appears not merely functional, but an intrinsically immanent part of women’s spiritual everyday life, in which interpersonal relationships play a central role.

Divine rewards of khidmat

32Khidmat is not always selfless service, nor are women’s lives solely governed by religion. Rather, it was clear that women practiced religion as a strategy to navigate the uncertain terrain of arranged marriages. By invoking divine contentment and rewards, they sought to forestall current and future marital challenges. Within these everyday forms of kinship negotiations and marital challenges, the idea of apsī samajhdārī, or mutual understanding within the household emerged as pivotal. Thus, the spiritual labor of khidmat emerged as a strategic negotiation within the intricate interplay between tradition, faith, and personal agency faced by many young, middle-class women in urban settings.

33Khidmat as an ethic of care acted as a sheltering foundation in the lives of women, giving them the strength to face economic and social precarity in their everyday lives. Women preferred living in joint families to access economic and childcare assistance in the future. Tensions or conflicts between family members, especially between wives and female in-laws, were common in my interlocutors’ homes. In such instances, women used devotional care or khidmat as an agentive tool through which these marital relations, their connections and disconnections, were thickened or thinned over time (cf. Carsten 2013, 2020; Das 2007; Lambek 2011). Noor shared the story of her friend who was facing trouble in her marriage. She said that her friend complains that her husband often comes home late at night. She just doesn’t know what is happening. Adding to this, Noor emphasized that it falls on the wife to look after the husband’s parents, although Islamic law does not require taking care of in-laws. She said it’s a married Muslim woman’s wifely duty to look after her husband to prevent him from going astray, adding:

“It is my responsibility as a wife to make sure that my husband is well taken care of and that his needs are met, in order to keep him away from temptations outside of the marriage. I believe that if I am not able to provide the level of care he needs, then it is likely that he will look for it elsewhere.”

“If it’s my marriage, then I am the one who must save it. These days divorce rates are too high. I don’t want to fall into this problem. Before the situation gets worse, I have to make sure that problems are avoided” (Shādī merī hai to usko bachānā bhī mera hī kam hai. Aaj-kal divorce cases bahut ā rahe hain lekin mujhe us jhamele mei parnā hī nahīṅ hai. Situation kharāb ho usse pahle hī uskā hyān rakhnā hotā hai).

34Marital work most prominently features ordinary caregiving within the household, which more often than not was also generative of tension. When I asked Noor if there were any complications and worries in her arranged marriage, she responded:

“Whether it’s love or arranged, effort, hard work, and struggle are intrinsic to both forms of marriage(Shādī arranged ho yā love, mehnat toh dono me karnī parnī hai).

“With hard work and with caregiving one has to generate an understanding. These efforts do not stop with taking care of husbands; one has to take care of the whole household” (Mehnat se, khidmat se ek “understanding” banānī partī hai. Yeh mehnat sirf husband ke khayāl rakhne pe khatam nahīn hotī. Pūre ghar kā khayāl rakhnā partā hai).

35My immediate reaction to Noor’s repeated mention of mehnat (effort or hard work) was whether the work is tiring and stressful. Noor said:

“Bilkul!” (of course!) and gave me an example of stress and tension in her married life: “My husband listens to his mother a lot. Sometimes that results in misunderstanding between me and my husband because I don’t agree with my mother-in-law on everything. It has also resulted in conflict between me and my mother-in-law. But I never disrespect my mother-in-law. I show her my devotion to the house and to my marriage by taking care of her needs. In time, she has started to understand me. She gives me more respect. There are fewer problems now. We have developed an understanding. This is a work of patience and usually it’s women who have to continue to have this patience.” (Mere husband apni māmi kī bāt bahut sunte hain. Kāī bār misunderstanding ho jātī hai. Kāī bār ūnch-nīch bhī ho jātī hai kyunki main apnī sās kī sārī bāton se agree nahīn kartī. Lekin main kabhi apnī sās se badtameezī se bāt nahīn kartī. Main unko apnī loyalty dikhatī hūn is ghar se, apnī shaadi meiñ unka dhyaan rakh ke. Ab woh bhī mujhe samajhne lagī hain. Zyāda izzat detī hain. Ab, mashallah, problems bahut kam ho gayī hain. Ek understanding develop ho gayī hai. Yeh ek bahut patience kā kaam hai—aur aurat ko patience rakhnā partā hai).

36Notably, “love” is not always the word used by women in Patna to describe their intimate feelings for their partners. In urban Lahore, Maqsood (2021) observed that women used English words such as “caring” to describe their husbands’ love for them. In Patna too, “caring” or khayāl karnā was a common term that women used to express their loving sentiments for their husbands. Women believed that caregiving and receiving care were reciprocal sentiments, and that they could be cultivated by putting work into their marriages. Once I asked, in a rather frustrated tone, if it wasn’t also the responsibility of the husband to maintain their marriage and love their wives. Noor said:

“Yes, it is, but I can only take responsibility for myself. May Allah put everyone on the right path. But it’s not like that. Husbands also care [for their wives] but we have to continue to work to maintain that care.” (Of course, it is. But Main sirf apnī zimmedāri le saktī hūn. Allāh sabko hidāyat de! Aisā nahīn hai, husbands bhī care karte hain lekin ūs care ko banā ke rakhnā partā hai).

37Both when Noor emphasized the idea of “understanding” with her mother-in-law and her friend’s husband, it was clear that she understood the gendered nature of this love and labor. Yet rather than dwelling on the patriarchal aspects of these marital relationships, Noor strove to self-make her marriage into a dutiful one by using the localized notion of “understanding” and taking on responsibility.

38It also became evident that khidmat was part and parcel of discipline and behavior in the everyday and not just the tangible aspects of caregiving. Thus, the labor of understanding and responsibility was an integral part of “feeling” (Pernau 2017), experiencing, and articulating the stresses and anxieties of marital relationships. In some ways it meant a clear surrender of the individual self, since it was ensconced within the domain of marital and patriarchal expectations. However, the spiritual dimensions of devotional care were experienced and articulated in ways that also allowed women to actively negotiate their agency by creating a positive and secure married life for themselves.

39However, Muslim women’s agency to work on their marriages, as in other spheres of their everyday lives, did not always have the consequences they hoped for. Working on these relationalities was one of patience or sabr for divine rewards (see Maqsood 2024). It was this attraction of blessings and rewards that were integral to processes of khidmat in women’s everyday lives. While caregiving was generative of understanding, women emphasized the infallibility of divine will in achieving these desired goals. Noor often said, “We can work hard, but everything happens by the will of Allah.” (Hum mehnat kar sakte hain lekin dene wāla to Allāh hī hai).

40In my study, the individual is not a solitary self, but is rather intimately linked to the divine. Noor’s philosophy emphasizes the importance of viewing human intention working alongside a divine plan. And, as we have seen, for many women, care work has a deeply spiritual dimension. Through these activities women endeavor to realize religious values such as believing in one God (tawhid), strengthening their faith (īmān), and following the commands (farmān) of Allah. For women, this philosophy encourages individuals to be in tune with their faith and to re-establish relationships within and between their kin networks. In such cases, taking care of others may become an opportunity to contribute to a divine plan.

41Women often invoked the miraculous powers of khidmat and divine will in solving problems in their marriages, enabling them to handle the stresses that came with these relations. For them, these miracles were not necessarily self-evident but required careful work. Miracles came in the form of apsī samajhdārī, that helped them in their daily lives, enabling them to live happy and good lives.

Conclusion: Religiosity and caregiving

42This article sheds light on an abstract notion of care: frequently explored within the affective dimensions of caregiving, it is also inherently intertwined with its practical application. This being the case, actions, labor, and work form integral components of our modes of existence and functioning in our daily lives. My study on stay-at-home pious Muslim women illuminates this multifaceted aspect of caregiving, which encompasses the physical, religious, and sentimental dimensions of ordinary care. In delving into the domestic lives of middle and lower-middle-class Muslim women in Patna, Bihar, and exploring the concept of khidmat, this study offers a nuanced understanding of the intricate dynamics within women’s marital homes and the role of Islamic ethics in shaping women’s everyday lives. Through intimate conversations and ethnographic engagement, I have sought to unravel the significance of khidmat as a conduit for divine blessings and its impact on familial relationships. Central to the concept of khidmat is the idea of apsī samajhdārī, or mutual understanding, between spouses and in-laws. Through acts of caregiving, women assert their agency and navigate the complexities of marital life. Despite the theoretical underpinnings advocating for gender equality, women emphasize the paramount importance of domestic labor in maintaining kinship ties and nurturing familial relationships.

43Fundamentally, this article asks a central theoretical question: what do we get if we understand the lives of lower-and middle-class Muslim women through the lens of religious dimensions of care or khidmat? The domain of gendered care within the household is complex and can easily lead to complacency, acceptance, and normalization, postures that are often seen as enabling injustice. However, must ordinary caregiving in working- and middle-class Muslim households necessarily adopt these stances? In contexts where issues of gender justice, empowerment, and human rights are shaped by the social and political fields of their circulation, what possibilities for justice arise from attending to the spiritualized dimensions of caregiving? Firstly, this article contributes to the literature on middle-class domesticity by highlighting the specific case of Muslim women. It unveils a nuanced reality wherein such ideals are experienced ambivalently, simultaneously captivating and fraught with complexity (cf. Berlant 2011). For Muslim women specifically, my study moves beyond the binaries of empowerment versus disempowerment or modernity versus tradition. My interlocutors’ narratives highlight the societal stigma attached to domesticity and the need to redefine notions of empowerment. By prioritizing familial duties over opportunities for employment outside home, these women assert their agency and challenge normative gender roles. Secondly, this ethnographic inquiry underscores the significance of relational ethics within Muslim households. By intertwining the everyday with the transcendental, women reframe domesticity as an immanent aspect of their spiritual lives—a “fulfilled life.” In their pursuit of a fulfilled existence, they draw upon religion and religiosity to navigate familial duties and interpersonal relationships. Thus, for many women khidmat transcends mere household chores; it embodies a sacred responsibility intertwined with religious meaning. In doing so, khidmat becomes a transformative force, fostering mutual understanding and harmony within marital homes. Finally, in highlighting the Islamic dimensions of caregiving, I concur with recent scholarly interventions in the ethics of caregiving and placemaking (e.g., Shenila Khoja-Moolji’s 2023) to illuminate the multifaceted ways in which care functions beyond the economic concerns of household labor. Oftentimes, domestic responsibilities and caregiving becomes a way to produce sociabilities within communities and within domestic spaces. Adding to this literature on the anthropology of care and ethics, this article looks at devotional care or khidmat as an ontological concept in Islam for alternate pathways to understanding acts of care in gendered Muslim households.

44In conclusion, this study weaves together the rich body of scholarship on domesticity and religiosity in South Asia, whilst offering a nuanced perspective through which to view the role of religion in ordinary caregiving within middle-class Muslim households in India. By exploring the concept of khidmat, this article highlights the complex interplay between ethical completeness and marital ethics, aligning itself with recent scholarship and frameworks of Islamic ethics of care. Furthermore, this study showcases the inherent ambivalence within middle-class domestic life in localized contexts, enriching our understanding of relational dynamics within working- and middle-class households. Thus, relationality more broadly, and the term “khidmat” in particular, encapsulates these social dynamics from an emic perspective, offering an analytical tool that could resonate beyond its situated context of Patna.

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Notes

1 Throughout this article, I have used pseudonyms for people and also changed some identifying details. My interlocutors spoke in Urdu, English, and Hindi. All translations are my own.

2 In this context, “understanding” (used by Amina in English within her Urdu speech) refers to a form of mutual recognition and trust that emerges through everyday practices of care. Rather than simply denoting comprehension, it encompasses an embodied knowledge of familial reciprocity, where domestic labor and caregiving generate forms of social capital and relational authority within the joint family structure. This understanding manifests as both an affective bond and a practical arrangement that helps maintain domestic harmony, or as Amina puts it, “peace of mind.”

3 The theological foundations of khidmat are deeply embedded in Islamic scripture and prophetic traditions. The Qur’an establishes this ethical framework in multiple passages, most notably in verse 5:2, which commands: “Help one another to virtue and God-consciousness and do not help one another to sin and transgression.” This imperative of service is further elaborated in verses 76:8–9, which characterize the righteous as those “who feed the poor, the orphan and the captive for the love of God, saying: “We feed you for the sake of God Alone; we seek from you neither reward nor thanks.” These scriptural injunctions establish a theological paradigm wherein acts of service are understood not merely as social obligations but as expressions of divine devotion, performed without expectation of material or social recompense. Emblematic of this ethos of khidmat is the khidmatgar, the noble servant, whose role extends beyond mundane tasks to encompass a sacred commitment to care and nurture. In exploring the essence of khidmat, one inevitably encounters its parallel in the Hindi lexicon—“seva.” This linguistic affinity is not merely coincidental; rather, it underscores a shared ethos of selfless service prevalent across South Asia. However, khidmat is different from seva in that, seva frequently connotes engagements in tasks characterized as menial, demeaning, or polluting (Srivatsan 2015) something that I did not encounter in the context of khidmat.

4 With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the school shut down in 2021. Based on my earlier research, the curriculum of the school included texts such as Ladkiyon ka Islamic Course that promoted the image of girls as generous and accommodating (see also Jeffery, Jeffrey and Jeffrey 2004; Metcalf 1992; Pernau 2003), which was however generative of a pious agency as suggested by Saba Mahmood (2005). In their everyday lives, however, women followed the pristine teachings of the Quran, Hadith, and the Sunnah (teachings of the Prophet), rather than the more restrictive and worldly teachings of the Ladkiyon ka Islamic Course.

5 Maqsood (2021) finds a similar trend of urban piety in Lahore.

6 Nikita Simpson (2022) also highlights an emphasis on respectability in the context of the Gaddi women of Uttarakhand.

7 See Zarin Ahmad’s “Delhi’s Meatscapes,” for exposition of caste within Muslim communities.

8 I draw inspiration from Todne Thomas’s seminal exploration of the Black Evangelical church (2021), wherein she illuminates the nuanced contours of ethnographer-participant relationships. Contrary to conventional typologies that cast ethnographers as mere observers, strangers, or friends, Thomas elucidates her own deep rapport with her research subjects, characterized by a kinship akin to familial bonds, sustained through enduring intersubjectivity. These profound affiliations further empower her to interrogate and subvert the prevailing power dynamics inherent within traditional researcher-participant paradigms.

9 Many Muslim women confront the disquieting specter of racial and religious stigmatization within professional spaces in India, such as hiring bias and harassment (Jain 2024) https://thewire.in/communalism/everyday-struggles-of-indian-working-muslim-women

10 The Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) administers a rigorous, multi-stage teacher recruitment examination that serves as the primary pathway for permanent teaching positions in Bihar’s government schools. The highly competitive nature of these examinations is evidenced by their low selection rates. This reflects both the limited number of available positions and the large pool of qualified candidates with B.Ed degrees seeking stable government employment in the education sector.

11 Sylvia Vatuk (2017) argues that even in cases of extreme marital discord, Muslim women do not initially reach out to civil courts to settle matters. Instead, the first recourse for resolving marriage-related disputes is family members and kin. I found similar reliance on networks of kin relations, in which women would often seek counseling and refuge.

12 Arlie Hochschild’s seminal contribution to this burgeoning literature on emotional labor (1983) resides in her conceptualization of emotion management, or emotion work, delineating the active agency through which individuals sculpt and channel their affective states. This thematic inquiry has garnered increasing interest among scholars, as a burgeoning recognition of the pivotal role emotions play within professional environments, especially in the service sector.

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References

Electronic reference

Shahana Munazir, Khidmat as Understanding: Muslim Women, Marriage, and Ethics of Care in Muslim HouseholdsSouth Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal [Online], 32 | 2024, Online since 19 December 2024, connection on 16 February 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/samaj/9554; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/136kg

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About the author

Shahana Munazir

University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Anthropology

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