The annual festival celebrated in honour of Pakistan's most popular Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar is full of spiritual rapture, ecstasy, trance, magic and devotion. In his vividly written narrative the renowned anthropologist and Islamologist, Jürgen Wasim Frembgen, takes the reader along with him to experience this unique ritual event and spectacle with all the senses. Stefan Weidner, a renowned writer and expert on Islam, has judged this book [German language version] as "one of the most exciting reports we owe to German cultural anthropology in recent decades".

Foreword Preface: Two Fables 1. Introduction 2. The Cunning Women 3. The Question, the Journey and the Field The QuestionThe JourneyThe Field4. Mira Datar Dargah ArrivalThe Tomb and its Order5. The Women's Stage Cult and Cure at the Mira Datar Dargah IDramatis Personae IDramatis Personae IIThe Body, its Demon and the Hair: the BallaThe ConfessionThe Curse, the Spirits and their MagiciansThe Female Anthropologist's DreamA Drama: Concerning Bees, Ethnographers andtheir SpiritsThe Goddess and the Human SacrificesThe Punishments: On the Reversal of TimeThe Contest of the DemonsThe Battle: the Sain.

The Sunni saint cult and shrine of Ahmad-i Jam has endured for 900 years. The shrine and its Sufi shaykhs secured patronage from Mongols, Kartids, Tamerlane, and Timurids. The cult and shrine-complex started sliding into decline when Iran's shahs took the Shiʿi path in 1501, but are today enjoying a renaissance under the (Shiʿi) Islamic Republic of Iran. The shrine's eclectic architectural ensemble has been renovated with private and public funds, and expertise from Iran's Cultural Heritage Organization. Two seminaries (madrasa) that teach Sunni curricula to males and females were added. Sunni and Shiʿi pilgrims visit to venerate their saint. Jami mystics still practice ʿirfan ('gnosticism'). Analyzed are Ahmad-i Jam's biography and hagiography; marketing to sultans of Ahmad as the 'Guardian of Kings'; history and politics of the shrine's catchment area; acquisition of patronage by shrine and shaykhs; Sufi doctrines and practices of Jami mystics, including its Timurid-era Naqshbandi Sufis.

An unparalleled exploration of Sufism as it is practised around the world, describing meetings with today's enlightened teachers as well as including wonderfully inspiring translations of the great Sufi masters of the past. Ultimately, this book acts as a guide to the Sufi path and offers wise insight into the meaning and purpose of life. A compelling view of Sufi history together with vivid personal remembrances of living mystics. This is an inspiring and at the same time beautifully subtle book, with light-filled insights on every page." – Saadi Shakur Chishti, author of The Sufi Book of Life The Sufi path described in this book leads the seeker past ordinary states of consciousness towards a new experience of infinitude that is the source of the universe. In this stage there is no duality or otherness, but instead infinitude, the Original Oneness, from which all dualities and attributes emanate. The book is at once an autobiography, a didactic treatise and a literary opus full of wonderful translations of the words of earlier Sufis, as well as the author's own poetry. It describes Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri’s life quest to connect today’s world with classical times, especially through his meetings with enlightened Sufis all over the globe. Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri also addresses profound Sufi teachings concerning the nature of humankind, the cosmos and God, using clear and simple language to address difficult doctrinal issues as only a master who has digested fully such knowledge could do. The book also reveals much about the present-day Islamic world where, despite the tragedies that are to be seen everywhere, tradition and spirituality survive. This is a metaphysical and spiritual guide to the Sufi path that ultimately offers insight into the meaning and purpose of life.

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 dhamāl. 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).

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.

The most broadly accepted explanation of Sufism is the etymological derivation of the term from the Arabic for “wool,” ṣūf, associating practitioners with a preference for poor, rough clothing. This explanation clearly identifies Sufism with ascetical practice and the importance of manifesting spiritual poverty through material poverty. In fact, some of the earliest “Western” descriptions of individuals now widely associated with the larger phenomenon of Sufism identified them with the Arabic term faqīr, mendicant, or its most common Persian equivalent, darwīsh. Sufism, as presented here embraces a host of features including the ritual, institutional, psychological, hermeneutical, artistic, literary, ethical, and epistemological. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Sufism contains a chronology, an introduction, a glossary, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1,000 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, major historical figures and movements, practices, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Sufism.