Recently, various actions involving the states in the Muslim world heightened the tension surrounding the scope and limits of the state’s role in public morality. In Iran, the police arrested in November 2020 a group of young people for drinking alcohol and taking off the headscarf.1 In early 2021, Turkey decided to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention, a European treaty on violence against women. The decision was justified by reference to the need to protect family values.2 Also in early 2021, the Saudi police arrested a medical doctor who became involved in practices judged as unlawful, including abortion and hymen reconstruction.3 At the same time, the Moroccan police detained a group of young people who broke their fasting during the month of Ramadan, sparking a new debate in the country.4 During the same period, the researcher Saïd Djabelkhir was detained in Algeria for denigrating Islam after he criticised the feast of ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā and other practices in Islam.5 More recently, in Egypt, a court in Alexandria sentenced a TikToker to three years of prison and a fine of 200,000 Egyptian pounds for indecent exposure, namely erotic language and obscene gestures.6