Indian Sufi Research Articles

Voices from the African Diaspora in India

The Islamic devotional tradition of Sidis, Indians of East African ancestry, in Gujarat and Mumbai in western India involves the performance of devotional songs. These songs constitute an oral archive that the Sidi community has preserved over generations. This article examines the lyric poetry of the Sidi devotional song corpus, contextualizing the corpus with reference to genres of premodern and early modern Indian Sufi poetry composed in regional registers of the lingua franca, Hindavi. The article analyzes Sidi devotional songs and their ritual performance contexts to characterize the Sidi devotional tradition as Sufi. At the heart of this tradition is the Sufi practice of remembrance of God, the Prophet, and Sufi saints, especially the Sidi ancestor-saints. In Sidi ritual contexts, remembrance engenders ecstatic states through which devotees mediate the blessings of the ancestor-saints. Sidi women, as saints or ritual musicians, specialists and participants, play a critical role in this process.

Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawi (d. 1762): The Hajj Journey and Intellectual Scholarship Between India and Arabia

Rather than simply claiming the “unorthodox” or “pluralistic” mindset of an early modern Muslim thinker, this intellectual micro-history aims to show the complexity of Shāh Walī Allāh’s (d. 1762) thought-world. This article follows him to Mecca and Medina for the Hajj pilgrimage. While pilgrimage is traditionally included in the fundaments of Islamic practice, it is also important to realize that the majority of Muslims have not historically participated in this pilgrimage. Due to the physical limitations of travelling as the Muslim community rapidly expanded in the 7th century onwards, we have nearly a thousand years until the 18th century where only a select few Muslims, usually wealthy enough to make the arduous journey, participated in the yearly practice. This created a complex culture of pilgrims in the Holy Cities with the cities functioning as informal circles of scholarship. Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawī engages in this knowledge production process while carrying out the mandatory rituals associated with the Hajj pilgrimage. Thus, this article shows that the complex interplay of Walī Allāh with Meccan and Medinan scholars is a highly dynamic process with unexpected outcomes as specific sacred geography interacts with the conceptual (and genealogical) categories that scholarly pilgrims bring with them to this intellectual encounter. In doing so, we catch a glimpse of the 18th century through a very particular set of Indian Sufi eyes.

Sülûk-ü Tarîkat: Erken Modern Hindistan’dan Bir Nakşbendî Metni

This article presents the first complete English translation of a major Persian text on Sufi meditation and cosmology: the towering eighteenth century Naqshbandī Indian Sufi master and poet Mirzā Maẓhar Jān-i Jānān’s (d. 1781) Sulūk-i Ṭarīqa (The Conduct of the Sufi Path). Composed in 1760, at the centerpiece of this text is the encounter between the realm of divine reality, prophetic authority, and the practice and conduct of the Sufi practitioner, especially in relation to the journey through the subtle spiritual centers or laṭā’if.

Examining The Doctrine of Seven Grades of Being (Maratib Sab’ah) in Tuhfah al-Mursalah; An overview toward Quranic’s Perpective

The seven grades (Marataib al-Sab’ah) very closed associated with Muhammad Fadhl Allah al-Burhanpuri, an Indian Sufi scholar through his Tuhfah al-Mursalah ila Ruh al-Nabi. Written di Arabic Tuhfah al-Mursalah’s circled around India and also popularize in Mecca Madina and Malay word afterward. Burhanpuri and Tuhfah al-Mursalah many times mention in numerous manuscripts written in Arab Jawi, which identified from his principles mostly from ‘alam jawi (Nusantara) around 16-17 century. Some of them Shams al-Din al-Sumatra’i, Hamzah al-Fansuri, Nur al-Din al-Raniry and ‘Abd al-Ra’uf al-Singkili. Afterward, these principles, identically Maratib al-Sab’ah in Malay world known as Martabat Tujuh. The main point suggested by Burhanpuri, an explaration toward Ibn ‘Arabi’s idea wahdah al-wujud. Maratib al-Sab’ah considered as the proper medium to attain Ibn ‘Arabi’s Oneness of Being and relate it with the Qur’an perspective and as well as Hadits point of view on certain explanation in his Tuhfah al-Mursalah.

Defeat and Glory: Social Media, Neoliberalism and the Transnational Tragedy of a Divinized Baba

This essay addresses the intersection between the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tik-Tok and Pinterest social media platforms and a contemporary religious leader/teacher who exploited them to rise from subalternity to the status of a deified celebrity. It examines his underprivileged disciples and followers and rival formal and informal levels, within Indian Sufi circles. Employing a combined perspective of ethnography, media studies and textual analysis, I discuss the transformations engendered by this social media celebrity and the impact of neo-liberalism on religious teacher–disciple (peeri–mureedi) relations. I show that this transformation involved a commodification of peeri–mureedi relations, leading to a neoliberal morphing of religious practices into marketable products. In so doing, I provide a critical reading of Mazzarella’s social media as “re-enlightened” or “inclusive capitalism” that gives voice, agency and new economic possibilities to capitalism’s most marginal subjects, who aspire to break the grip of what I term the “economies of despair”.

Beyond the normative: Ambiguity in the making of a South Indian Sufi

AbstractThe overemphasis in recent anthropological scholarship on self‐cultivation through normative discourses has resulted in largely neglecting explorative discourses that have also been key to the formation of religious subjectivities. The relationship between these discourses has tended to be that of ambiguity, given that various groups have sought to establish clear boundaries regarding what is morally acceptable. In this article, I look at how ambiguity is played out in a small town in Malabar, South India, with the figure of a mad saint whose actions and demeanor embodied such ambiguities. Analyzing anthropological studies of Islam probing such ambiguities in the lives of Muslims, I argue that considering the figure of the majzūb—an eccentric saint—offers key insights for understanding how normative and explorative discourses constitute contemporary religious lives. It also reveals how ambiguity is used to reconcile the tensions between the two discourses in both practice and discourse.

La Vie en Rouge

La Vie en Rouge

Gender Constructions in the Theological Dimension of the Sufi Premakhyans

Through the analysis of the Citravali (1613 ce) by Usman, this article explores the interrelation between aesthetics, gender and religion within the Indian Sufi romances (premakhyans) in Avadhi language. These narratives reinterpret the Sufi semantics of love, narrating the quest of the hero in yogic disguise in search of the heroine, portrayed as a divine woman. Usman creatively reimagines the heroine of his romance as an artist, drawing on this motif to trace the allegory of creation as divine art. Therefore, this article identifies conventional aesthetic patterns in Usman’s narrative reproducing relevant gender dynamics, such as the eroticized and yet idealized image of the heroine in relation to the hero’s spiritual growth, contrasting with the escalation of the villain’s sexual desire. The traditional Hindu setting of the story broadly reflects the socio-cultural norms of the North Indian world in early modern times, and implies gender hierarchies established by the local society. The intersection of these points in the Citravali suggests further reflections on the articulation of gender in a rich branch of Sufi literature composed in a regional language of India, which may open new perspectives in the interpretation of the relationship between mysticism and eroticism.

The Hajj and the Hindi: The ascent of the Indian Sufi lodge in the Ottoman empire

AbstractThis article charts several historical paths, hitherto underexplored, through the Hindi or ‘Indian’ Sufi lodges of the Ottoman empire. Focusing on the ‘long eighteenth century (circa1695–1808)’, it tracks their remarkable ascendance as an institutional network for mobile and migrant Indian Sufi pilgrims. From Istanbul to the provinces, the article demonstrates how Naqshbandis and Qadiris on the Hajj circuit drew on local channels of social communications, legal petitioning strategies, and state and inter-state linkages to forge unique identities as ‘trans-imperial subjects’ in an age of decentralization in the Ottoman world. I argue that central to their social success was the creation of new corporate regimes of itinerant piety. But first, I place the little-known lodges at the heart of a specific shift in early modern attitudes to identity, as the story behind ‘Hindi’ beckons wider inquiry into emergent differences among Sufi pilgrims in the Ottoman empire.

Winged Messengers, Feathered Beauties and Beaks of Divine Wisdom

This article intends to investigate the role played by different kinds of birds in the narrative scheme of the mediaeval love romance (premakhyan or mathnawi), a literary genre used by Indian Sufi poets aimed at conveying an esoteric message through the allegorical language of war and love. Although the principal actors of these poems are human, the functional role played by different animals such as birds (e.g. parrot, peacock, red-finch etc.) appears both as symbolically illustrative and intrinsically didactic. Works such as the Padmavat of Malik Muhammad Jayasi and the Madhumalati of Sayyid Manjhan Rajgiri are credited with successfully charging the adopted imagery and figurative language of their native Indian environment with the sophisticated teachings of Islamic esotericism (Sufism). The role of birds emerging from these works will be illustrated by and compared against their description in the literary productions of the Deccan where the mathnawi, an important literary genre imported from Persia, featured as one of the predominant expressions of early Urdu literature. The aim of the investigation is to show how through the channel of animal characters, the cross-cultural symbiosis operated in the Indo-Islamic environment appears through the language of symbolism that demonstrates the potential of unification inherent in the realm of imagination.

Nile Green. Making Sense of ‘Sufism’ in the Indian Subcontinent: A Survey of Trends

This text summarizes the main theoretical and methodological developments in the study of Sufism in southern Asia. It explores how scholars in recent decades have used the categories of Sufism and mysticism, and points out the shortcomings of these categories as explanatory tools. While surveying scholarly approaches to Sufism, the areas neglected and those investigated, this article seeks to provide an overview of the academic literature on Indian Sufism. In a final section, the author addre...

Attaining the mystical body: Indian Sufi ascetic practices

While anthropologists have carefully documented various Sufi orders, the bulk of these studies focus on socio-historic and organisational aspects of Sufism. This has been especially the case of Sufis in India. There is an apparent lack of examining experiential aspects Sufi mystical practices. In India, many Sufi orders are intrinsically linked with Muslim shrines. Muslim shrines are viewed by Sufi as being invested with barkat (divine blessedness, sacred power), a power generally assumed to be a gift conferred upon the saint by Allah. Consequently, Sufis often engage in their mystical practices in the proximity of Muslim shrines. The shrine of the Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya, located in Delhi, is a renowned thaumatological shrine which is a centre for Sufi activities. Sufis spend many years engaged in a rigorous regimen of ascetic and mystical practices. These form a central part of their daily lives at the Nizamuddin shrine. In this article, I explore the notion of mystical mastery among Indian Sufis and ways in which their ascetic practices seek to attain a mystical body. I contend that mystical mastery is a form of re-authoring the self, in that Sufis’ mystical complexes permit them to transform and modify themselves through various operations on their bodies.

A Twentieth Century Indian Sufi Views Hinduism: The Case of Khwaja Hasan Nizami (1879-1955)

This article explores how an early twentieth century Indian Sufi Muslim, Khwaja Hasan Nizami (1879-1955), treated various aspects of Hinduism in multiple Urdu publications. During the 1920s Nizami was identified as a primary activist in a “tabligh” campaign to counter Arya Samaj efforts to draw neo-Muslim populations back into the Hindu fold. Despite these politically charged activities, Nizami’s engagement with devotional and spiritual aspects of Hinduism suggests a willingness to continue the Hindu-Muslim cooperation of the Khilafat movement period (1919-1924) in order to embrace a national Indian identity based on mutual religious respect and tolerance.

North Indian Sufi Popular Music in the Age of Hindu and Muslim Fundamentalism

Research Article| October 01 2008 North Indian Sufi Popular Music in the Age of Hindu and Muslim Fundamentalism Peter Manuel Peter Manuel Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Ethnomusicology (2008) 52 (3): 378–400. https://doi.org/10.2307/20174605 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Peter Manuel; North Indian Sufi Popular Music in the Age of Hindu and Muslim Fundamentalism. Ethnomusicology 1 January 2008; 52 (3): 378–400. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/20174605 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressEthnomusicology Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2008 Society for Ethnomusicology2008 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Indian Sufism since the Seventeenth Century

Based on his doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of London,the present book is a wonderful study of the Sufis ofAurangabad (and, moregenerally, in the Deccan realms of Hyderabad’s Nizams) and their consequentlegacy in independent India. Green builds upon earlier research on theMuslim Deccan undertaken by Carl Ernst (Sufism at Khuldabad, which isadjacent to Aurangabad) and Richard Eaton (Sufis of Bijapur) and brings tothe fore insights from religious studies on the nature of holy men and theirinteraction with politics, words, and worlds.The Deccan has a rich Muslim heritage: Persianate from the fourteenthcentury and then dominated by the Mughals and their successor states fromthe end of the seventeenth century. This heritage also accounts for the significanceof Sufis and their shrines in the region: theAurangabad shrines are animportant facet of this landscape, and this book is a welcome introduction tothem. Green also furthers the theoretical position of Ernst and Eaton: the centralityof the cult of saints for Sufism means that the studies should focus onshrines as “realms of the saint.” Sufism is thus not merely about masters anddisciples or obscure and metaphysical arguments about gnosis, enlightenmentand themarvellous; rather, it concerns sacred spaces and geographies ofspiritual vitality and currency centered on the saints’ shrines.Starting fromAurangzeb’s conquest of the Deccan and establishment ofhis capital at Aurangabad (the former Khirki of the Nizam Shahs) and followingthrough to the legacy of the Panchakki shrine in the 1990s, Green’swork comprises five chapters that weave together an incisive textual analysisof Persian and Urdu sources, readings of architecture as repositories ofSufi text, and fieldwork among Aurangabad’s Sufis ...

Enchanted Landscapes: Sensuous Awareness as Mystical Practice among Sufis in North India

Sufi studies in India have become increasingly popular in the last fifteen years, which has provided insight into Sufi thought and practice. However, many of these studies tend to deal with political and social issues in relation to Sufi movements and shrine culture. My analysis presents an innovative way of understanding how Sufis experience sacred landscapes, and differs markedly from other studies on Indian Sufism. My aim is to analyse how Sufis at the Nizamuddin shrine sensuously engage with the sacred landscape.

Indian Sufism since the Seventeenth Century: Saints, Books and Empires in the Muslim Deccan

Indian Sufism since the Seventeenth Century: Saints, Books and Empires in the Muslim Deccan

Indian Sufism since the Seventeenth Century: Saints, Books and Empires in the Muslim Deccan * By NILE GREEN.

Indian Sufism since the Seventeenth Century: Saints, Books and Empires in the Muslim Deccan * By NILE GREEN.

The “Deep Secret” and Dangers of Kar?mat: MiraculousActs, Revelation, and Secrecy in a South Indian Sufi Tradition

In classical Islamic traditions, miraculous deeds are identified by two words: mujizat and kar?mat, words distinguishing the miraculous deeds of prophets and imams from those of the saints. Mujizat are public acts that confirm the identity of the prophets, whereas kar?mat are not intended to be public, for fear of witnesses misunderstanding the source and nature of the miracle. However,in contemporary Indian Sufi practice, kar?mat are often public acts through which the religious authority of the saint/p?r is identified. Nevertheless, the“deep secret” of how kar?mat “work” can be understood only by the spiritually adept. This article analyzes the ambivalent nature of the secrecy of kar?mat in the practice and narrative performance of a South Indian Sufi female healer, a pir?nim?, and her p?r husband.

Indian Sufism since the Seventeenth Century: Saints, Books and Empires in the Muslim Deccan. By Nile Green. pp. xxvi, 210. Routledge, Abingdon, 2006

Indian Sufism since the Seventeenth Century: Saints, Books and Empires in the Muslim Deccan. By Nile Green. pp. xxvi, 210. Routledge, Abingdon, 2006