Arguing Sainthood: Modernity, Psychoanalysis, and Islam

328 Pages·1997·19.73 MB·English

by  Katherine Pratt Ewing

Arguing Sainthood

Arguing Sainthood
Modernity, Psychoanalysis, and Islam
Katherine Pratt Ewing
Duke University Press Durham and London 1997
2nd Printing, 2006
© 1997 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
00
Typeset in Sabonby Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
appear on the last printed page of this book.
All photographs are by the author.
I dedicate this book to my parents,
Edith Pratt Ewing and Scott Ewing

Contents
List of Illustrations lX
Preface xi
1. Hegemony, Consciousness, and the Postcolonial Subject I
Part I
The Tradition-Modernity Dichotomy as a Hegemonic Discourse
2. Sadhus and Faqirs: The Sufi Pir as a Colonial Construct 4 I
3. The Plr, the State, and the Modern Subject 65
Part II
The Modern Subject amid Conflicting Ideologies
4· Everyday Arguments 93
5. A Plr's Life Story 128
6. Stories of Desire: Reclaiming the Forgotten Pir 163
Part III
Modern Respectability and Antinomian Desire
7. The Qalandar Confronts the Proper Muslim 201
8. The Qalandar as Trope 230
9. The Subject, Desire, and Recognition 253
Afterword 268
Glossary 271
Notes 275
References 293
Index 307

Illustrations
A turn-of-the-century "Dream of Hashish" (from Somerville r929) 5 r
A microcephalic beggar associated with the shrine of Shah Daula Shah
of Gujrat 79
The khalifa of Mian Nasir Ahmed Suhrawardi preparing an amulet 86
Interviewing a pir roo
The shrine of Sufi Ghulam Rasul under construction r6r
The shrine of Sufi Ghulam Rasul's father in Mianl Sahib graveyard,
Lahore r6r
Dancing in a trance state r69
Malangs under a makeshift tent 202
Malangs dancing through the streets of Lahore 202
Portrait of a malang 204
A nanga biibii at the shrine of Mian Mlr in Lahore 207
A small shrine in Mianl Sahib Graveyard, Lahore no
Bengali Baba's shop 223