Jerusalem is the third holiest city in Islam and home to some 300,000 Muslims, but due to Israel’s occupation, Muslims in the city live difficult and disrupted lives. What might it mean for them to practice their faith—on the ground, day by day—in such a conflicted place? One way religion becomes a meaningful category is through ritual. Scholars of Muslim religious practices have been attuned to this insight and observed it in various communities and places. But their analyses have often been predicated on an implicit and unquestioned assumption—that those who desire to perform rituals have the means to act on their intention in regular and routine ways. Scholars have also shown that when societies are in rapid transition—be they weakened or threatened—their rituals often evolve with them. This project, therefore, asks: what happens in Jerusalem when Muslims’ ability to routinely perform religious rituals cannot be assumed? The study argues that when rituals are disrupted, Muslims are forced to improvise. Religious rituals—like the performances of skilled jazz musicians—are spontaneous and dynamic but also practiced and deliberate. They are spontaneous in that they respond to the occupation’s disruptions, making physical and discursive adjustments. They are practiced in that Muslims in Jerusalem draw from a repertoire of themes that includes Islam and sacred space, history and eschatology, nationalism and resistance, local culture and geography. This practiced yet spontaneous dynamic becomes, what I call, the “improvisation thesis.” This paper explores the comparative utility of the improvisation thesis for theorizing processes of meaning-making through ritual performances within other religious traditions. That is to say, how might the notions of disruption, improvisation, and resonance give analytical purchase to the ways Judaism, Christianity, or Hinduism transform on the communal level in other contexts experiencing rapid transition and change.