TY - JOUR
AU - Haroon, Sana
AB - This well conceived and presented collection of essays conveys that states (primarily the United States, India and Pakistan although one essay looks at the case of Indonesia) have engaged with South Asian Sufis in a variety of ways since the 1950s and influenced the trajectories of Sufism. Each of the four sections, ‘Sufism in global contexts’, ‘Sufism, sharia and reform’, ‘Sufism and politics in Pakistan’ and ‘Sufism in Indian national spaces’, is followed by a reflective essay. Historians, anthropologists and Islamic studies specialists, among the most consequential in their respective fields, contribute essays on their approaches to the study of Islam. An outstanding introduction identifies and traces the history of North American academic and political discourses about Sufis and the problem that this volume is tackling, that Sufis are widely understood to be proponents of moderate Islam. Each essay shows us the interplay of Sufism and politics that produced this view and reveals the underlying complexities of Sufism, its place in networks of intellectual exchange and political movements related to Sufism. In the opening essay Rosemary Corbett reveals that the Rockefeller Foundation’s personnel shaped its agenda for Islamic studies and created a preference for the idea of Sufism as the most moderate of Islamic traditions. She places Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Fazlur Rahman and others in this intellectual history. Verena Meyer offers an engaging intellectual biography of the Indonesian Sufi Nurcholish Madjid, situating the influence of his doctoral advisor, Fazlur Rahman, as only one of many intellectual traditions that Madjid was part of. However, Meyer argues, the Western academy did eventually influence Madjid sufficiently that he also expressed a preference for Fazlur Rahman’s neo-Sufism (Sufism which acknowledged the precedence of Islamic legal scholarship and engaged with society and politics). Marcia Hermannsen’s illuminating essay on Tahir-ul-Qadiri’s Barelwi movement in Pakistan closes out this section on Sufism in global contexts. She explores the links between Barelwi and Sufi while also providing a thorough and compelling account of Tahir-ul-Qadiri’s rise to influence in Pakistan, culminating in a march of thousands on the capital Islamabad in 2014. Part 2 looks at the interplay between Islamic scholarship and Sufism in South Asian teaching and learning traditions. Brannon Ingram explores Pakistani Haqqani scholars’ discursive critiques of shrine worship and distinguishes these from Taliban militancy against Sufis. Brian E. Bond looks at Sufi engagement with a fatwa declaring dancing singing, clapping and playing certain instruments impermissible in Indian Kachchh. Sanyal characterizes girls’ comportment in an Indian Barelwi madrasa as a Sufi practice. Sanyal’s ethnographic work is showcased here as a productive inroad into the study of Islamic traditions. The lines between Sufism and orthodoxy are obscured in these discussions: Pakistani Deobandis regard Sufism as an essential part of Muslim piety, Sufis are concerned with moral degradation, and Barelwi reformists actively participate in Sufi teaching and learning traditions. Shariʿa and Sufism are anything but antithetical to one another, Muhammad Qasim Zaman reflects in the conclusion to this section. Parts 3 and 4 afford a closer focus on Sufism in Pakistan and in India. The three essays in Part 3 demonstrate, as Sher Ali Tarin points out in his concluding comment, the Pakistan state’s expectation of Sufi ‘moderation’. Sarah Ansari’s essay shows us that from the 1950s Sindhi nationalists associated the Sindhi identity with mystic Sufi traditions and successive Pakistani regimes sought to recast Sufism for federal purposes. Alix Philippon reveals that Pervez Musharraf enlisted Sufi shrine-keepers and advocates of a liberal, tolerant Sufi culture in the fight against extremism during the War on Terror. Noor Zaidi’s study of the shrine of woman saint Bibi Pak Daman in Lahore tracks unsuccessful state efforts to manage competing sectarian claims to memory and ritual associated with the daughter of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. The state turned to Sufism for legitimation. These essays taken together serve as an important counterpoint to the narrative of the Pakistan state engagement with immoderate Islamists. Part 4 brings together three studies of everyday Islam in India. Carla Bellamy demonstrates that the recognizability (as opposed to anonymity) of visitors at a small neighbourhood shrine in Mumbai catalyzed religious difference. Official markers of identity, Hindu and Muslim, were discernible where these identities should have been subsumed by the commonality of visitors’ reverence for the saint buried at the shrine. Helen Basu demonstrates that Hindu and Muslim difference catalyzed at a shrine in Gujarat after the pogroms of 2001 when a government sponsored program providing psychiatric services at this site failed owing to the lack of toleration of the Hindu medical staff for the Muslim shrine-keepers. In both cases the Indian state expressed the expectation that Sufis are Muslims who practice moderation and toleration and are primed for civic participation. This aspiration is amplified by the imaginarium of Bollywood in Rachana Umashankar’s essay on ‘Sufi sound, Sufi space’. Bruce Lawrence reflects that work focused on local practices, maps activity, the valence of the shrine, and affective elements of Sufism that transcend politics. This rich, dense volume is an excellent resource on modern South Asian Sufism. It is unequalled in its attention to the production of the idea of moderation in Islam. © The Author(s) (2021). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Modern Sufis and the State: The Politics of Islam in South Asia and Beyond
JF - Journal of Islamic Studies
DO - 10.1093/jis/etab062
DA - 2021-09-30
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/modern-sufis-and-the-state-the-politics-of-islam-in-south-asia-and-pt5VeeN0pp
SP - 119
EP - 121
VL - 33
IS - 1
DP - DeepDyve
ER -