Smoking is Good for You: Absence, Presence, and the Ecumenical Appeal of Indian Islamic Healing Centers

Abstract

Fans of the 1977 Indian film Amar Akbar Anthony will perhaps recall the scene in which the blind mother of the three separated-in-childhood sons miraculously regains her vision in a S?? B?b? shrine while her Muslim son, Akbar, leads a remarkably unanimated crowd in a song in praise of the B?b?.2 While the devotees' general lack of interest in the miracle is a bit surprising, it is not surprising that this healing happened in an ambiguously Muslim space. Ambiguously Muslim places of healing?darg?hs, rauz?s, and im?mb?r?s?are ubiquitous features of the Indian landscape, and they attract pilgrims from every major religious tradition of the subcontinent. The ambiguously Muslim space of healing analyzed in this article is a place named Husain Tekr?, which commands a fairly wide-ranging reputation in the healing circuit of northern India, attracting Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and Jain pilgrims from Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, and Maharashtra,