A biography using the early version of Dr. Ghani as a framework. The author has often said that the brevity of this work was obligatory in view of the scarcity of reliable data. An Afghan Pathan by blood, Hazrat Babajan (d. 1931) was an unorthodox Sufi who lived under a tree at Poona, India, in the days of the British Raj. Some have viewed her as a second Rabia. Her case history is a significant addition to the meagre data on female Sufis. She gained an inter-religious following, reflecting her tolerant attitude. She was reputed to be over a century old at her death. This monograph is annotated, with reference to the work of scholars like Schimmel, and has an introduction defending aspects of traditional mystical psychology.

In Sufi Women of South Asia. Veiled Friends of God, Tahera Aftab, drawing upon various sources, offers the first unique and comprehensive account of South Asian Sufi women, from the eleventh to the twentieth century.

This book focuses on women’s important contribution to Sufism by analysing the lives and seminal contributions of six mystic Sufi women to Islamic spirituality. To help reverse the sidelining of Sufi women in the recorded academic literature, the author has selected a representative sample of figures from diverse Islamic dynasties with varying backgrounds, social status, and devotional contributions. Taking a historical approach attentive to specific political contexts, readers will be introduced to the contributions of Umm Ali al-Balkhi and Fātima of Nishāpūr in the ninth-century Khurāsān, Aisha al-Mannūbiyya of the Hafsid dynasty in Afriqya, Aisha al-Bā‘únīyya of the Mamlūk dynasties of Egypt and Syria, the Mughal princess Jahan Ara Begum, and the daughter of the Caliph of Sokoto, Nana Asma’u. It is argued that these ascetic and Sufi women were recognized by their male and female peers, became political leaders in their communities, and were honored as examples of sanctity and erudition. Their works influenced mystical discourse, hagiographical writings, religious language and models of religious authority to secure legacies of Islamic orthopraxis. The book will appeal to anyone interested in Sufism and Sufi history, as well as to those wishing to delve into the understudied topic of Muslim women’s spirituality.

Offers an annotated source for the study of the public and private lives of South Asian Muslim women.

"These poems deal with longing for union with God, the desire to know the Real from the false, the inexpressible beauty of creation when seen through the eyes of Love, and the many attitudes of heart, mind and feeling necessary to those who would find the Beloved, The Friend, in this life."--BOOK JACKET.

The book examines the range of roles the Arab world has been playing to various audiences on the modern and post modern stage and the issues which have arisen as a result.

The Muslim shrine is at the crossroad of many processes involving society and culture. It is the place where a saint – often a Sufi - is buried, and it works as a main social factor, with the power of integrating or rejecting people and groups, and as a mirror reflecting the intricacies of a society. The book discusses the role of popular Islam in structuring individual and collective identities in contemporary South Asia. It identifies similarities and differences between the worship of saints and the pattern of religious attendance to tombs and mausoleums in South Asian Sufism and Shi`ism. Inspired by new advances in the field of ritual and pilgrimage studies, the book demonstrates that religious gatherings are spaces of negotiation and redefinitions of religious identity and of the notion of sainthood. Drawing from a large corpus of vernacular and colonial sources, as well as the register of popular literature and ethnographic observation, the authors describe how religious identities are co-constructed through the management of rituals, and are constantly renegotiated through discourses and religious practices. By enabling students, researchers and academics to critically understand the complexity of religious places within the world of popular and devotional Islam, this geographical re-mapping of Muslim religious gatherings in contemporary South Asia contributes to a new understanding of South Asian and Islamic Studies.