Devotion, Religious Authority, and Social Structures in Sindh

Khojas, Vanyos, and Faqirs
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-90-04-53992-1
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 60, 272 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 627 g

Reihe: Brill's Indological Library

In a context of rigidification of religious boundaries, especially between Hinduism and Islam, the book argues that many physical and non-physical sites of religious encountering are still at work, both in Pakistan and in India. In India, the Hindu Sindhis worshipped a god, Jhulelal, who is also venerated in Pakistan as a saint. In Sehwan Sharif, in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, there are Hindu Sufi masters who initiate Muslims to Sufism.

This study is the first to involve both Muslim and Hindu communities in a comparative perspective, and to underscore that the process of constructing communities in South Asia follow the same social pattern, the patrilineal lineage (baradari or khandan).

The study is based on an array of sources collected in three continents, such as manuscripts, printed and oral sources, as well as artefacts from material cultures, most of which was never published before.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Boivin, Michel

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Hinduismus Hinduismus: Leben & Praxis, Soziale Aspekte
• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Islam: Leben & Praxis

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

List of Maps, Tables and Figures

Abbreviations

Transliteration

Notice

Maps

Introduction

1 Setting the Scene

2 Social Structure and Sindh

3 Religious Authority and Devotion

4 Three Case Studies

1 The Making of the Ismaili Jamat

1 The Khojas, Karachi and the Khojisation Process

2 The Aga Khan and the Establishing Myths: Jherruk and Amir Pir

3 The Eviction of the Sayyids

4 The Institutional Pillars

5 Creation of a New Elite and Intra-community Rivalries

6 Reinforcing the Jamat

7 Conclusion

2 The Road to Islamization and the Partition of India

1 The Standardization of the Satpanth

2 The Stages of the Islamization of the Dua

3 Other Islamization Processes and the Extinction of Dissent

4 The Rites of Passage

5 The Liturgical Calendar and the Religious Rituals

6 Conclusion

3 The Karachi Cosmopolis, The Vanyos, and Jhulelal

1 Introduction

2 The Making of Modern Hinduism and the Domination of Merchant Castes

3 Frere’s Impulse and the “Cosmopolitanizing” Process of Karachi

4 The Failure of the Khudawadi Project

5 The Issue of the Social Structure of the Lohanas

6 The Bhaibands-Amils Divide and Its Consequences

7 The Darbar of Uderolal and the Jhulelal Tirathdham in India

8 Conclusion

4 Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s Baraka and the Rise of the Ritual City

1 The Emergence of the Saint

2 Capturing the Baraka in Buildings

3 The Baraka as an Ethnographic Object

4 Authority and Baraka: Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s Mazar

5 The Extension of Baraka beyond Sehwan: The Maqams

6 The System of the Kafis

7 The Economy of Devotion: The Bazars

8 Conclusion

5 Devotion and Competion: The Sehwan System

1 The Succession to Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s Baraka

2 The Domination of the Sayyids and the Nationalization of the Mazar

3 The Faqirs, the Murids, and the Other Professionals of Charisma

4 The Sajjada Nashini Muridi Relationship, the Linchpin of the Exercise of Authority

5 The Ziyarat, and the Dhammal

6 The Relics

7 The Festive Calendar

8 The Processions for Gridding the City to Strengthen Allegiances

9 Conclusion

General Conclusion

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Michel Boivin, PhD (1990), University of Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris) and HDR (2005), University of Paris X-Nanterre, is Emeritus Research Director at CNRS. Former director of the Centre for Indian and South Studies (CNRS-EHESS), he is currently member of the Centre for the Study of South Asia and the Himalayas (CESAH). His last books are The Hindu Sufis of South Asia. Partition, Shrine Culture and the Sindhis of India, London, I. B. Tauris, 2019, and The Sufi Paradigm and the Makings of Vernacular Knowledge in Colonial India: The Case of Sindh (1851-1929), New York, Palgrave McMillan, 2021.