The continued vitality of Sufism as a living embodied postcolonial reality challenges the argument that Sufism has 'died' in recent times. Throughout India and Bangladesh, Sufi shrines exist in both the rural and urban areas, from the remotest wilderness to the modern Asian city, lying opposite banks and skyscrapers.
This book illuminates the remarkable resilience of South Asian Sufi saints and their cults in the face of radical economic and political dislocations and breaks new ground in current research. It addresses the most recent debates on the encounter between Islam and modernity...

Rituals combining healing with spirit possession and court-like proceedings are found around the world and throughout history. For example, a person suffers from an illness that cannot be cured, and in order to be healed he performs a ritual involving prosecution and defense, a judge and witnesses. Divine beings give evidence through human oracles, spirits possess their human victims and are exorcized, and local gods intervene to provide healing and justice.

Such practices seem to be the very antithesis of modernity and many modern, secular states have systematically attempted to...

Rituals combining healing with spirit possession and court-like proceedings are found around the world and throughout history. For example, a person suffers from an illness that cannot be cured, and in order to be healed he performs a ritual involving prosecution and defense, a judge and witnesses. Divine beings give evidence through human oracles, spirits possess their human victims and are exorcized, and local gods intervene to provide healing and justice.

Such practices seem to be the very antithesis of modernity and many modern, secular states have systematically attempted to...

Diese Studie untersucht die Konstituierung von lokaler indischer Kultur in der Gegenwart im Sinne einer gegenseitigen Durchdringung von Religion und kulturellem Gedachtnis. Die Halbinsel Kacch im Nordwesten des indischen Subkontinents war Sitz eines Konigreichs, dessen Geschichte auf mannigfache Weise mit der mittelalterlichen Kultur der Rajputen von Saurashtra und Rajasthan verbunden ist. Im Kontext des Rajput-Konigtums wird den Kunsten von nicht-brahmanischen Barden nach wie vor eine hohe Wertschatzung entgegengebracht: In Dichtung, Gesang und der Archivierung von Stammbaumen manifestiert...