Women Mystics and Sufi Shrines in India

264 Pages·2010·2.171 MB·English

by  Kelly Pemberton

Womn Mystics
andSufi Shriss
in India
Studies in Comparative Religion
Frederick M. Denny, Series Editor
Womn Mystics
and Sufi Shriss
in India
(cid:0)
Kelly Pemberton
The University of South Carolina Press
© 2010 University of South Carolina
Cloth edition published by the University of South Carolina Press, 2010
Ebook edition published in Columbia, South Carolina,
by the University of South Carolina Press, 2013
www.sc.edu/uscpress
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition as follows:
Pemberton, Kelly.
Women mystics and sufi shrines in India / Kelly Pemberton.
p. cm. — (Studies in comparative religion)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-57003-919-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Sufism—India—Rituals. 2. Sufism—India—Customs and practices.
3. Women mystics—India. 4. Women in Islam—India. I. Title.
BP188.8.I4P46 2010
297.4'460820954—dc22
2010013179
ISBN 978-1-61117-232-4 (ebook)
To Jack, who got me started on this journey,
and
to the women of the Gudri Shah Chishti and
Firdausi silsilas, for showing the Way
Gently, she walks, yet the anklet jingles with her beloved’s love;
she looks at herself in the mirror and feels shy.
Embracing the female form,
the entire world throbs.
Excerpt from “She Adorns Herself,” by Parveen Shakir
(translation by Sydra Raza Junaid)
. Contents .
List of Illustrations . viii
Series Editor’s Preface . ix
Preface . xi
Acknowledgments . xxvii
Note on Transliteration . xxix
Introduction: Women’s Activities and
Sufi Shrines–Some Perspectives . 1
1 . Perceptions of “Women’s Religion”
in Colonial India . 30
2 . Piri-Muridi . 67
3 . Singing and Reciting . 105
4 . The Work of Petitioning . 128
Conclusion: Reconsidering Women’s
Experiences at the Intersection of
Discourse and Practice . 158
Notes . 179
Glossary . 207
Bibliography . 213
Index . 229
. Illustrations .
1.1. The dargahcomplex of Mu‘in al-din Chishti . 58
2.1. Women at the shrine of Yahya Maneri in Maner Sharif . 86
2.2. The Sufi Saint School and ‘Usmani chilla . 88
2.3. The chilla gahof Mu‘in al-din Chishti . 88
3.1. The dargah complex of Sharaf al-din Maneri . 119
3.2. Women outside the mahfil khanain the dargahof Mu‘in
al-din Chishti . 125
3.3. View from above the tomb of Mu‘in al-din Chishti . 125
4.1. The mausoleum of Sharaf al-din Maneri within the
dargahcomplex . 134
. Series Editor’s Preface .
Sufism, the richly diverse mystical-devotional dimension of Islamic reli-
gion, is one of the most popular and appealing fields of discourse and prac-
tice in both global spirituality and the comparative study of religion. This
new book in the Studies in Comparative Religion series is the eighth to
address some significant topic pertaining to Sufism, 25 percent of all the
titles that have been published in the series since its founding in 1985.
Women Mystics and Sufi Shrines in India is the substantial and original
product of Kelly Pemberton’s intensive, multiyear, field-based and histori-
cal research. She describes her “central focus” for the study as “how Mus-
lim women’s participation in the world of Sufi shrines in North India
challenges but also sustains prevalent ideals of Islamic womanhood.” Her
richly detailed, theoretically discerning, and multilayered accounts of
Muslim women’s participation in quite diverse Indian Sufi communities is
an important contribution to our understanding of their lives in today’s
developing social, political, economic and cultural landscapes. These ac-
counts also help us to comprehend more fully how important women’s
participation in the diverse and complex local contexts of Sufi, as well as
general Muslim life, has been in past centuries.
Frederick M. Denny