This book is about Pakistan's most popular Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar whose shrine in Sehwan Sharif is one of the most fascinating sanctuaries in the Muslim world. At the time of pilgrimage, this flourishing cult centre becomes a vibrant place of ecstatic religiosity marked by intense forms of devotion. The present ethnographic study is organized around three themes: piety, pilgrimage, and ritual. Thus, its focus is first on visual culture and 'material religion' as well as various aspects of religious aesthetics which highlight how sacred spaces are constructed and shaped. Secondly, it deals with the year-round pilgrimage, mainly investigating pilgrims from Punjab (including a unique life history of a female 'Sufi lineage' from Lahore), but also discussing remarkable ritual agents in the cult. The third theme is the spectacular trance dance known as dhamal. On February 16, 2017, a suicide bomber executed a horrible massacre among the dancing devotees.
This work, which is the fruit of the author's field-research between 2003 and 2015 in Sindh and Punjab, aims to contribute to a 'Sufism observed' which often seems to be neglected in mainly text-based Sufi studies. It is an academic companion to his earlier At the Shrine of the Red Sufi (OUP, 2011).
Rezensionen / Stimmen
"We are Lovers of the Qalandar" is a vital addition to the scholarship of Pakistani Sufism and the anthropology of Islam. Frembgen's meticulous, granular ethnography is nuanced by his attention to broader historical, literary, and theoretical source materials...this book will serve as a useful resource for graduate and undergraduate courses in cultural anthropology, Islamic studies, Sufism, South Asia, and material culture and religion. It will also appeal to a broad readership searching for a more informed account of Islam and Sufism beyond the reductive, one-dimensional caricatures that too often (mis)inform journalistic and mass media reporting. * Robert Rozehnal, Lehigh University, Journal of Sufi Studies * We are Lovers of the Qalandar is a profoundly rich contribution to the field of South Asian Sufism, Anthropology of Art, and Islam. It is a novel addition to the visual material theory of Sufi tradition in Islam. * M. Rafique Wassan, Anthropos *
Sprache
Verlagsort
Produkt-Hinweis
Broschur/Paperback
Klebebindung
Illustrationen
90 illustrations (40 pages of coloured plates)
Maße
Höhe: 216 mm
Breite: 141 mm
Dicke: 15 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-969-734-015-6 (9789697340156)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Dr Juergen Wasim Frembgen is Adjunct Professor emeritus at the Institute of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich; he retired as senior curator (Hauptkonservator) at the Museum Fuenf Kontinente in Munich. He taught Cultural and Social Anthropology as well as Islamic Studies at different universities in Germany and Austria. He has written extensively on the cultures of the Eastern Muslim World between Iran and India, focusing primarily on Pakistan. Since 1981 he conducts ethnographic fieldwork in the Karakoram, Indus Kohistan, Punjab, and Sindh. In addition, he has been a visiting professor at the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad (National Institute of Pakistan Studies), National College of Arts in Lahore, and Ohio State University in Columbus, USA. Dr Frembgen has more than 180 English and German language publications to his credit.
Autor*in
Adjunct Professor emeritus, the Institute of Near and Middle Eastern StudiesAdjunct Professor emeritus, the Institute of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich
