App for the Ancients ‘Alif the Unseen,’ by G. Willow Wilson

'Alif the Unseen'
The New York Times Sunday Book Review By PAULS TOUTONGHI Published: August 10, 2012 
  In her 2010 memoir, “The Butterfly Mosque,” G. Willow Wilson told the story of her conversion to Islam, charting her transformation from child of atheist parents to Boston University-­educated undergraduate to faithful Muslim with an Egyptian husband and an apartment in Cairo. Wilson wrote of the contrast between East and West, and of feeling compelled to keep her religious beliefs secret. “In the West,” she observed, “anything that must be hidden is suspect; availability and honesty are interlinked. This clashes irreconcilably with Islam, . . . where the things that are most precious, most perfect and most holy are always hidden: the Kaaba, the faces of prophets and angels, a woman’s body, Heaven.”

It is thus unsurprising that secret identities form the axis of Wilson’s fast-paced, imaginative first novel, “Alif the Unseen” — a book that defies easy categorization. Is it literary fiction? A fantasy novel? A dystopian techno-thriller? An exemplar of Islamic mysticism, with ties to the work of the Sufi poets? Wilson seems to delight in establishing, then confounding, any expectations readers may have.

Alif, her hacker protagonist, is a 21st-­century cyber-gun-for-hire. He provides technical services to pornographers in Saudi Arabia, Islamic revolutionaries in Turkey and bloggers in Egypt, concealing their identities and hiding their locations from the authorities in Riyadh and Ankara and Cairo. He doesn’t discriminate politically: “Alif was not an ideologue; as far as he was concerned, anyone who could pay for his protection was entitled to it.” His greatest allegiance, at least initially, is to the freedom of information.

But Alif lives in a place — known only as “the City” — plagued by significant social ills. It has “one of the most sophisticated digital policing systems in the world, but no proper mail service”; “princes in silver-plated cars,” but “districts with no running water.” This is not a young Ameri­can novelist’s Orientalist perspective on a foreign other, however — Wilson has lived on and off in Cairo for nearly a decade. Though the City explicitly isn’t Cairo, it also clearly is, with its sweet tea vendors, its streets edged with hibiscus bushes, its insistent sprawl.

Within this megacity, Alif must hide from an authoritarian state that wants to hunt him down and do him harm. This might seem enough to drive a novel. But Wilson adds several layers of complication. Alif has a doomed love affair with an aristocratic woman — a relationship made more difficult by his social status and his mixed Arab-Indian ethnicity. He also ends up in possession of the “Alf Yeom”: a text ostensibly dictated by an enslaved demon to a Persian mystic hundreds of years ago, which the state wants because it may (or may not) contain the secret to creating a quantum-bit-powered supercomputer.

When a betrayal reveals Alif’s location, he is taken into custody, beaten and tortured. But at last he is rescued, and as he goes on the run, we are shuttled into the world of the jinn. Wilson’s tone alternates between serious and playful. In her funniest set piece, a shadowy creature called an effrit asks Alif to fix its “two-year-old Dell desktop,” which has picked up some kind of malware online. Alif is astonished to find Internet access in jinn-land. “Cousin,” the effrit says, “we’ve got Wi-Fi.”

For all its playfulness, “Alif the Unseen” is also at times unexpectedly moving, especially as it detours into questions of faith. In an expansive moment, a secondary character — an imam who like Alif has been tortured by the state — describes a hard-earned revelation: “I have had much experience with the unclean and uncivilized in the recent past. Shall I tell you what I discovered? I am not the state of my feet. I am not the dirt on my hands or the hygiene of my private parts. If I were these things, I would not have been at liberty to pray. . . . But I did pray, because I am not these things. . . . I am not even myself. I am a string of bones speaking the word God.” For those who view American fiction as provincial, or dominated by competent but safe work, Wilson’s novel offers a resounding, heterodox alternative.

Pauls Toutonghi teaches literature and fiction writing at Lewis & Clark College and is the author of the novels “Red Weather” and “Evel Knievel Days.”

Sufis and Scholars of the Sea

Sufis and Scholars of the Sea - Book ReviewYemen Post Staff 28th July 2012
There is a need to understand the Indian Ocean area as a cultural complex which should be analyzed beyond the geographical division of Africa, the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent, and South-East Asia, as its coastal population intermingled constantly. Family networks in East Africa (1860 – 192, originating in the South Yemeni region of Hadhramawt, the Alawi tariqa, mainly spread along the coast of the Indian Ocean. The book discusses the renowned scholar, Ahmed b. Sumayt. The "Alawis" are portrayed as one of several cultural mediators in the multi-ethnic, multi- religious Indian Ocean world in the era of European colonialism.

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Indian Ocean had a profound influence on the lives of the people who lived on its shores. Fishermen, sailors, and merchants traveled its waters linking the world`s earlier civilizations from Africa to East Asia in a complex web of relationship.
Trade under-pinned these relationships but the Ocean was also a highway for the exchange of religions cultures and technologies, giving the Indian Ocean an identity as a largely self-contained world. It was the expansion of Hinduism Buddhism, and Islam helped to define the boundaries of the "world" which by the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was one of the most prosperous and culturally complex regions on earth.
By the sixteenth century, Europeans were part of this "world" as partners in trade with the indigenous peoples. But from eighteenth century this economic relationship changed as the economies of the Indian Ocean "world" integrated with the capitalist economies of the West. The change from commercialism to capitalism ended the insularity of the Indian Ocean "world" and began its integration, as region, into the global economy and its territorial division among various European powers. This transition altered the ancient web of regional cultures. The Ocean was no longer a major force binding the peoples on its shores in a self-conscious entity, but the legacy of the past is still evident in their common religious, cultural and historical experience.
Mwambao is the Swahili name for the East African Coast, the chosen habitat of the Swahili people. The Swahili were called Coast People by the Arabs, and the Swahili Coast was being referred to as "Murudi al Dahab" or Golden Pastures. Numerous bays, creeks, and inlets resulting from coral rock being eaten away by the sea, providing excellent harbors e.g. near Mtwapa, Kilifi, Mombasa and Vanga while the majority of the rivers are in Mozambique. The entire coast is composed of coral rock and most of it provides soft beaches, useful for landing of small crafts. The presence of water in Lamu, for example, helped to cool the hot coast climate; the choice of site ensured a maximum of fresh breeze from the sea upon the sandstone rock.
Regular rainfall has given the coast and the islands south of Equator rich vegetation, unlike the arid Somali coast north of it. Regular trade winds brought sailors and traders in search of resins, and gums for carpentry furniture making, cosmetics, perfume etc. Mangrove poles growing abundantly in the Lamu archipelago were used for ship building and roof beams. Of the animal products, ivory, rhino horn and tine cat perfume were the most sought artifacts already in antiquity. Of mineral products it has been export market for gold, while Ethiopia exported gems such as emeralds, and after year 1100 also coffee.
Arabs were traveling to East Africa with the monsoon from South Arabia and Gulf even in pre-Christian times. The earliest inscriptions were found on the island of Zanzibar c. 1070 AD. There is also the oldest datable discovered mosque in East Africa. Arabs continued to visit the Coast and to settle there throughout the centuries as individual traders, or as empire builders accompanied by large families, or establishing themselves as independent rulers. The Arab were known by their family names, some of which they have planted in African soil. They were identified by the region, Yemen, Oman, Hadhramawt or even by the name of towns, Muscat, Shihr, Mukelle, Aden from which they sprang, even though they may have lived in Africa for generations. They made Pate, Lamu, Malindi, Mombasa and other towns their home.
Mombasa, in the land of the Zanji, boasted wonderful orchards, which contained lemons and banana trees, all of which still grow, and rose apples. Carpets lay on the floors of the guest house. The meal consisted of rice, cooked or fried in butter, dishes of meat, fowl, fish and vegetables, pickles, lemons, bananas, ginger, and mangoes. Similar meals are still served in the Swahili tows today. There were mosques built in coral stones. The Arabs functioned as teachers and preachers, traders or rulers on all parts along the Swahili Coast bringing their own Arabic textbooks for prayer sessions, and hymns to be sung in the mosques.
The numerous elegant dhows connected the colorful ports of the Swahili Coast. Then the creeks were filled with dhows blown down by the monsoons, dhows of all shapes and rigs from Lamu, Bombay, Persian Gulf and from Arabia, some high and dry, some in repair. The dhows, known also as the Silent Wanderers of the sea, were patiently awaiting the southern breezes to blow them back to their homes.
Long ago before petroleum was discovered in the Middle East, incense, fragrant resins, spices and perfumed wood dominated Arab trade. Southern Arabia as the centre of trade prospered and its maritime history is the subject of tales. The talk would be incomplete without mentioning "the Yemeni era", which was an intensely human and cultural civilization that promoted and enriched various facets of social, economic and political life of East Africa. They participated actively in various dimensions of the emerging civilization, including domestic and international trade, underpinned by their vast experience in traveling the world seas.
"Sufis and Scholars of the Sea" is an important text which synthesizes chronological and historic graphical range into its compact frame. The work researches the directly relevant histories of Hadhramawt, Oman and East Africa during 1860 – 1925 through the life of one of the most influential Hadhrami East African scholar of that period Ahmed B. Sumayt.
Zanzibar`s future, an island off the coast of present day Tanzania, thus was shaped by its geographical position, right in the middle of the Indian Ocean trade routes. It is a place of winding alleys, bustling bazaars, mosques and grand Arab houses, whose original owners viewed each other over the extravagance of their dwellings. It boasts not only natural beauty, rich culture, and breathtaking architecture. Zanzibar during Ibn Sumayt`s time emerged as an important centre of learning in East Africa eclipsing previous centers such as Lamu and Mombasa.
Today Zanzibar is also the name of a town in southern Yemen while Yemeni jewelry is sold in the shops of Zanzibar. Unlike Oman, Hadhramawt (a governorate in the present Republic of Yemen) does not have a history of a colonial power in the Indian Ocean. Hadhramawt is known for its continuous export of people to the land of the Indian Ocean, including the East African coast. They were religious scholars, traders, cultural brokers, whose impact on both recipient and home country is a topic which has aroused much interest in recent years.
To them, the Ocean was no barrier rather a long established arena for cultural and intellectual exchange. With them traveled goods and ideas, word of mouth, and word in writing, fashion, habits, linguistic patterns, and seeds for new agricultural crops. They left their imprint on the place, the most notable being the religion of Islam, and absorbed cultural elements that were not Arab in origin. The Indian Ocean ports were not distant exotic cities but actual real places, and where the human chain, the "silsila", extended through space and time. This is the "world" into which we enter with A.K Bang`s "Sufis and Scholars of the Sea".
The topic of this fine scholarly study is the scholarly exchange of ideas between Hadhramawt and East Africa. It is the history of Islam during the nineteenth and early twenties century. The study beautifully reconstructs the channels through which "Alawis", a Sufi tariqa, originated in the South Yemeni region of Hadhramawt spread along the coast of the Indian Ocean. It discusses and focuses on life of one of the most influential Hadhrami – East African scholars of the period Ahmed B. Sumayt. Thru Ibn Sumayt`s life, it explores how links were maintained, reinforced, and how their "world" related to other ideas emerging at the same time. How they formed a tight knit, a transoceanic network of individuals linked together by blood, and common experience, which remained open until well into the twentieth century when colonial frontiers came to be decisive factors, when the peoples actually transformed themselves into nations.
It researches what the "Alawis" actually thought in East Africa, what inspired their teachings, its explores their scholarly links, and further the impact of Hadhrami Alawis on nineteenth century East African scriptural Islam. It places the highly scriptural widely traveled and deeply learned tradition of Hadhramawt in East Africa in the frame work of Islamic learning.
The Alawis were traveling widely for seeking out knowledge beyond their local communities, and in Ibn Sumayt`s case, in his mature years he traveled equally wide to spread knowledge. As result families became not only transoceanic, but also trans-regional. Time flies and things change: as nineteenth century drew closer, the Alawis in East Africa, like their fellow residents in the Indian Ocean shores, were exposed to European colonialism.
The central figure of this research, Ahmed B. Abo Bakr b. Sumayt (1860– 1925)-
was one of the most prominent Hadhrami-East African scholars of that period. Born in the Comoro Islands, to a father who had immigrated from Hadramawt, Ibn Sumayt returned to his father’s homeland. But he achieved his greatest fame in East Africa, as a pious man, a scholar, and qadi in Zanzibar. As East Africa came under colonial rule he earned great respect from those British administrators who came into contact with him. It was he - who made them appreciate the true Arab reactions - to foreign rule.
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Through focusing on the life of Ibn Sumayt and his life within a network, it presents the life "in the middle", of a "man in the middle". Ibn Sumayt is the link between sail ships and oil tankers, between the empires of the monsoon, via the period of European imperialism, and the ear of the notion states. Especially the later half of the nineteenth century when he saw European influence in East Africa and British influence in Zanzibar.

Ibn Sumayt was also a reformer and teacher, at the same time fully aware of developments in the Middle East. We meet him as propagator of improved agricultural methods, and even discussing new breed of crops with friends. However, Ibn Sumayt`s importance lays in his work as qadi and how the Ulama found their place in the "colonial space" as active partners. Ibn Sumayt is presented here as pious and learned man - yet intensely human, who possessed a reputation which extended far beyond the limits of Zanzibar.
"Sufis and Scholars of the Sea" is well researched, focused in excellent presented. It will be of interest to scholars, researchers, students but also as general reading to all those interested in the role and contribution of the Yemeni Hadhrami Arab scholars to the history and culture of the Indian Ocean.
Book Reference
Anne K Bang – Sufis and Scholars of the Sea, Published by RoutledgeCurzon
ISBN 0-415-31763-0
About Anne K Bang
Is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Bergen, Norway. Historian of Islamic societies with a special focus on Arabia and the Muslim communities of Eastern Africa as well as the wider Indian Ocean rim. Her research has primarily focused on factors that cause ritual and devotional life, intellectual discourses and political ideologies to change in different Muslim societies. Focusing on the Muslim societies of the Indian Ocean (east/southeast Africa) and Southeast Asia her research has mainly focused on migration and cosmopolitan Muslim societies and the ensuing family- trade- and scholarly networks. She has also worked on Islamic education and on the transmission of scriptural cultural heritage in Africa. In addition, she has worked on the role of Norwegian traders in during the colonial era. She has published several books and articles on these topics.
Irena Knehtl, Sana`a, Yemen

Full of Life and Joy

By Mahmoud El-Wardani, *Book Review: Journey to the Egyptian Sufi desert* - Ahram Online - Cairo, Egypt; Sunday, June 3, 2012

Book Review: Journey to the Egyptian Sufi desert. Abu-Khunayger visits the shrine of Sufi leader Abul-Hassan Al-Shazly and discovers a world of spirituality, love and common humanity deep in the Egyptian desert.

Fi Rehab Al-Saharaa (In the Bliss of the Desert) by Ahmed Abu-Khunayger, Cairo: General Organisation for Cultural Palaces, 2012. 160pp.

It’s unusual for Egyptian novelists to venture into non-classified genres, and even less common for them to write about their own spiritual experiences with so much purity and depth.

Together with Abu-Khunayger’s other novels in his unique style, this latest book about the Sufi leader Abul-Hassan Al-Shazly adds to his experience as a writer.

Al-Shazly was born in the Hijri year 593, roamed around the Islamic cities of the east and west, fought the Crusaders, and when he felt near death, departed to the Egyptian desert and died there, buried now in the place he chose.

After his death, his followers started an annual festival celebrating him in this remote location, and this festival is held annually just before Bayram.

Egyptian festivals of Christian and Muslim saints are important because they are the common thread for farmers throughout Egypt, and are an important economic component in the livelihoods of many people, especially for the major holy men like Al-Sayed Al-Badawy, Al-Sayeda Zeinab, Ibrahim Al-Desuki and for Christians, Saint Demyna and Saint Mary, which are attended by both Christians and Muslims. They’re mostly linked with the crop cycle and are a significant element in the process of buying and selling goods.

However, Al-Shazly is a special case, being situated in the middle of the desert, unreachable except by driving hundreds of miles on unpaved roads among the mountains and valleys, with his admirers making the difficult trip once a year.

Abul-Khunayger lives in Upper Egypt, and makes the trip every year. His testimony is the result of many trips, but most importantly, it’s not the result of a prior judgment or biased point of view, but rather the result of watching, learning, asking and facing the world that is miraculous in nature. Millions of Egyptians believe in this world and come faithfully and dutifully for the trip, both Muslims and Christians.

Al-Shazly’s festival is full of life and joy; thousands come together, and the common factor is love for Al-Shazly, and willingness to serve others: eating, drinking, celebrating.

Abu-Khunayger writes:

Outside the shrine, some people sat down to become part of the general crowd that never ends across the whole area. One woman sat there combing her hair and adding touches of eyeliner, blush and lipstick in front of everyone. A barber was shaving a man while others waited their turn. Some were drinking tea in a little corner, and sitting on the rocks or a small mat. Booksellers, perfume sellers and herb sellers were next to stands selling cheap toys and books and pictures about saints, but the majority were beggars.

Most interestingly, Abu-Khunayger doesn’t act like a tourist who is amazed by what he sees, but rather he keeps a high degree of honesty, not acting like a ‘dervish’ involved emotionally with what he sees.

He tells of a dance during the Zikr (Sufi ritual of whirling or dancing), where the large, long-haired dancer was holding long nails in his hands and dancing on his toes with ecstasy and lightness, making Abu-Khunayger wonder how such a huge body could be so agile and light. He would stick the nails in the bodies of audience members and dancers and bring it out without a drop of blood or a scream of pain. During the sword dance, visitors, some of them children, sleepwalk over them without pain or a scar.

The masses act like a huge family, sharing whatever they have, serving and volunteering to help each other, preparing food and drink for everyone. A man could be a university professor, a rich businessman or a retired general, but at the festival of Al-Shazly, he’s a servant for the admirers of the holy man and for those who made the trip to pay him their respect.

A Delicious Mystic Feast

By Ms. Junaid Shabir, *In the realm of spirituality* - Greater Kashmir - Srinagar, India; Sunday, May 27, 2012

In the Realm of Spirituality: The negation of self and assertion of Divine is the only way to moral uprightness

Book: Allah-O-Akbar (God is Great).
Author: Syed Habib.
Publisher: Shifa Publications, Zabarwan.
Year: 2010

Allah-O-Akbar is a self-published book by an erudite writer Syed Habib. The deep knowledge of the esteemed author about the realms of spirituality inform the book.

Syed Habib tries to find the answers of the questions which frequently perturb the truth seeker and he comes up with the sound answers quite magnificently. Not only this, each argument is supported outstandingly with the Quranic verses. The doctrine of Sufism is preached through the medium of Quran. Habib says:

Hazrat Junaid Baghdadi (God be pleased with him) who laid the foundations of mysticism or Sufism in Islam held that the ultimate concern of man is to enter the kingdom of God well-pleased and well-pleasing.

This return is achieved when the soul is at rest and is attended by all the spiritual blessings which in the Quran are metaphorically described as paradise. Some of these descriptions are: A garden whose width is that of the heavens and the earth.
[The Quran 89:27:30]

The general masses find Sufism a far-fetched concept. But Habib writes in simple words so that even a layman comprehends that Sufism is the essence of Islam. He doesn’t allow his discourse to fall in the quagmires of one-sided projection of mysticism but supplies us with the argumentation from western mystics like Louis Massingnon, Kenneth Cragg and so on.

The acknowledgement from the various mystics like Rabia Basra (RA), Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani (RA), Mewlana Jallal Din Rumi (RA), Allama Iqbal (RA), Syed Hamadani (RA), Junaid Baghdadi (RA) and so on, is a delicious mystic feast. Besides, the splendid verses from renowned poets have blessed the book with an enigmatic lyricism.

As Habib strikes on the note of didactism in the book, the reader does not feel the want of escape from the drudgery of sermonizing but wants to listen and act because the advice is followed by a cool wisp of breeze which runs in the shape of couplet from Faiz Ahamd Faiz:

Greed has devoured all
The plaintiff, the jurist
The pleader, the judge
Where to go and why
To seek justice but how? [108]

The aesthetic dimension serves as the USP for the book. Almost all chapters begin with carefully chosen pieces of melodic verses. The chapter four “God man and the Spectacle” opens heralding the beauty of Divine which is taken from Yusuf and Zulaykha of Maulana Jami:

Each speck of matter did he constitute
A mirror, causing each one to reflect
The beauty of His visage. From the rose
Flashed forth His beauty and the nightingale
Beholding it, loved madly.[p. 118]

Again Habib Sahib astounds the reader with his minute observation which makes him to see Allah (SWT) in each and every spectacle of world as Blake saw it in a granule of sand. The Divine manifests Himself in almost all the dimensions of cosmos in the form of Beauty whether animate or inanimate. He establishes the affectionate bond of love between seeker and maker by addressing the former as lover and the latter as beloved.

"No one has power to assert ‘I’ unless it means standing upright and awareness to probe in order to expand in knowledgeability and consciousness".

The negation of self and assertion of Divine is the only way to moral uprightness and eternal bliss; this idea echoes throughout the book. The last chapter contains a message that Islam has placed woman respectfully in the society. It stresses that even in “modern jahiliyah”, female feticide is rampant and it is the need of the hour to understand that there had been great saints and mystics like Umm Haram, Rabia bint Ismail, Muadha al Adawiyya, Ishi Nili, Fakhr al-Nisa, Zainab Naisapuri, Aisha Bint Mohammad and so on.

The book ends at an instructive note:

"Those who love him [beloved Prophet] should follow his Sunnah and honour and revere womankind!"

Ms. Junaid Shabir is Research Scholar, English Department, Kashmir University

Another Way of Seeing

By Keri Rursch, *Augustana professor authors book on Sufi poetry* - Augustana College - Rock Island, IL, USA; Friday, May 18, 2012

Augustana professor authors book on Sufi poetry: Professor's book helps clear up misunderstandings about Muslim poetry

Rock Island, Ill. – University of South Carolina Press has published Dr. Cyrus Zargar's book Sufi Aesthetics: Beauty, Love, and the Human Form in the Writings of Ibn 'Arabi and 'Iraqi.

Dr. Zargar, an assistant professor of religion at Augustana, offers an approach to understanding Muslim mystics and perceiving divine beauty and human beauty as one reality.

Dr. Zargar specializes in Islamic studies. His new book helps readers better interpret the love poetry of classical Muslim society. In fact, he wrote this book as a response to misunderstandings of Sufi love poetry.

According to Dr. Zargar, Sufism is a mystical expression of Islam that has been far more popular and influential historically than most people think. Despite the popularity of Sufi love poets such as Rumi, the poetic expressions of Sufi's have often been misunderstood as allegorical or a system of codes waiting to be translated.

"I hope that people who read this book can appreciate another way of seeing the physical world; physical beauty, including the beauty of human beings, can have divine meaning," said Dr. Zargar. "It is not about codes. Rather, it is about seeing the divine in things themselves."

For Dr. Zargar, the appeal of Sufi poetry stems from the fact that it never loses relevance. "If you can take pleasure in thinking deeply about God, the soul or the relationship between the two, then you will find much in Sufi writings," he said. "Sufi writings can be like rooms filled with treasures for thought."

Dr. Zargar received his bachelor's from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and his doctorate from the University of California Berkeley. He has had articles published in the Journal of Arabic Literature and the Encyclopedia Iranica.

For more information, please contact Keri Rursch, director of public relations, at kerirursch@augustana.edu or (309) 794-7721.

Image from Amazon.

The Dream Still Exists

By Terry Gross/WHYY, *Creating A New Vision Of Islam In America* - Vermont Public Radio - USA; Thursday, May 10, 2012

Creating a New Vision of Islam in America

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a leading moderate Muslim leader in the U.S., was once the lead cleric associated with the proposed Islamic community center some critics called the "ground zero mosque."

In late 2010, a debate over the location of the community center, now called the Cordoba House, became a contentious issue during the midterm elections.

During the debate, Rauf was called a "radical Muslim" and a "militant Islamist" by critics of the proposed community center. He was accused of sympathizing with the Sept. 11 hijackers and having connections to Hamas.

"For those who actually know or have worked with the imam, the descriptions are frighteningly — indeed, depressingly — unhinged from reality," political reporter Sam Stein wrote last August for The Huffington Post. "The Feisal Abdul Rauf they know spent the past decade fighting against the very same cultural divisiveness and religious-based paranoia that currently surrounds him."

In his new book, Moving the Mountain, Rauf details the events in his own life that have shaped his religious philosophy. He also recounts the struggle to build the Lower Manhattan community center, which was designed to bring together Muslims with people from other religions.

"That was my goal," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross, "because the world needs that today. Now, what happened at that time clearly wasn't the perfect solution, and what happened did not reflect my dream or my purpose in the right way. But the dream still exists and continues to exist."

A Moderate Voice In America

Rauf was born in Kuwait to Egyptian parents and spent his early childhood in Malaysia. At 16, he moved with his parents to New York City, where his father had been asked to establish an Islamic center of worship. It was the middle of the 1960s, when the counterculture was in full swing and the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and neighboring Arab states had created a growing divide between Jews and Muslims.

Rauf, who was attending Columbia University at the time, recalls it being a difficult time for young Arabs in New York City.

"Many of my schoolmates at Columbia were Jewish. I made many good friends among them, but we had moments of difficulty in those discussions," he says. "And [it made me realize] how the politics in the Middle East had poisoned and continued to poison, to this day, the relationship between Muslims and Jews. It was a painful aspect of that period of my life, but it also shaped it in important ways in terms of wanting to understand it and seeing how we can be a factor for positive change."

After leaving Columbia, Rauf became a public high school teacher in the New York City school system for several years. But he couldn't shake the thought that he was missing his calling.

"I even knew, when I was coming on the ship from Egypt to the United States — I had this interior voice in my heart telling me that my role would be to introduce Islam to America in an American vernacular, in an American vocabulary," he says.

Rauf served as the imam of the al-Farah mosque in New York City from 1983 to 2009. For the past two decades, he has argued that Islam supports both religious tolerance and equality for women, and has worked to strengthen moderate voices with the Muslim world.

"I believe we are part of a growing global chorus," he says. "And I know for a fact that moderates exist everywhere, in every tradition and in every political environment. There are moderates in Israel. There are moderates in Iran, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party. And what we need to do is link all of these moderates together and figure out a way that this coalition can speak to important issues to marginalize the voice of the extremists."

[Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
Moving the Mountain: Beyond Ground Zero to a New Vision of Islam in America
Publisher: Free Press (May 8, 2012)
Click HERE to look Inside the book]

Music Beneath the Words

By H. Talat Halman, *Book Review: “Celebrating Divine Presence: Journeys into God” (Laurent Weichberger, ed.)* - The American Muslim - Bridgeton, MO, USA - Sunday, May 6, 2012

“Celebrating Divine Presence: Journeys into God”: A Happy Blending of the Head and the Heart

“Celebrating Divine Presence” is a book that aims to—and in so many ways succeeds at—revitalizing our experience of all religions by bringing them together as “beads on one string,” to quote the words of the twentieth-century spiritual master Meher Baba. In these chapters, the authors, all practitioners, and many scholarly, invite you into their personal faith journeys. The tone of this book is personal and conversational, while also featuring in-depth studies of ten religious traditions. This book represents a happy balance of the heart (personal experience and autobiographical narrative) and the mind (rigor in fidelity and creativity in insight).

“Celebrating Divine Presence” begins with an excellent chapter on listening, a fulfillment of Martin Buber’s ideal of the “Life of Dialogue.” This is a book born of the “Beads on One String” project to create an Interfaith context for dialogue. Brilliantly, Laurent Weichberger shows us how the great religious founders are “exemplars of listening.” (And of course. The Jewish creed is called, and begins with, the word “Listen!” [*Shema*] And listening involves learning to appreciate others’ differences.) Rumi began his great *Mathnawi* with the word “Listen,” and similarly, this is a book to be listened to for the music beneath the words.

Foundational exemplars of listening appear throughout this book’s pages in different contexts—a dynamic which enlivens the book. This is a book with insights into (the elsewhere grossly understudied) Zoroaster, as well as Abraham, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, St. Catherine, Muhammad, and Meher Baba. Each of these figures are treated in detail and with feeling. (Along the way we are even granted the rare experience of reading a Zoroastrian prayer. [p. 41]) In a number of chapters, we glean perspectives also on contemporary seminal spiritual teachers, especially: Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and Meher Baba. One of the great strengths of this book is that it exquisitely and precisely articulates an understanding of the much over-used and little-understood—though perhaps James Cameron’s film has helped—archetype of the Avatar. Levels of sainthood and God-Realization are clearly explained. A very beautiful interlude section describes what I take to be a one-page answer to the question, “What would Saint Francis do—in this day and age?”

This book teaches us how we can stop derogating religions and stop exercising prejudice toward people of other faiths, by showing the commonalities of the “one string” among all people and all faiths. In Laurent Weichberger’s chapter on “Ancient Mysticism,” he creates a new paradigm for thinking about the differences and interrelationships between various religious traditions and he diagrams his creative insights brilliantly in three dynamic charts. This chapter is a wonderful orientation to the World’s Religions and their interrelationships.

The chapter on Sufism is a masterpiece. Written by a practicing Sufi with deep and extensive personal, community, and global experience, Karl Moeller, surveys the vast range of types of Sufism as well as the vast ranges of phenomena and traditions—both in Islamic Sufism and in Universalist Sufism. Moeller clearly explains Sufism’s roots in the Prophet Muhammad’s mission and his teachings and practices. It includes sufficient information on the foundations of the Prophet’s example and the Qur’an for the novice to proceed into this survey of Sufism. Passages from Qur’an and hadith have been deftly selected. Moeller discusses the relationship of Sufism to Islam. He explains the model of spiritual psychological transformation, the seven levels of the soul. Moeller explains the role of saints (*Wali*) and of Axial Saints (*Qutb*. The chapter also explains the attributed spiritual blessing-power (*baraka*) that saints are sought out for. Moeller explains the practice of seeking intercession through saints. The very popular, wide-spread practice of visiting (*ziyara*) saints’ tombs is discussed and described. A beautiful feature of this chapter is the explanation of the dynamics of lineage and the samples of actual lineage-succession lists (*silsila*). The teacher-student or master disciple relationship, so central to Sufism, receives extensive analysis. Sufi meditational practices (*zikr*) and the spirituality of listening (*sema*) to sacred music are discussed. A great number of Sufi-lineage traditions (*tariqa*) are discussed in depth and others are listed. Moeller also comprehensively surveys contemporary expressions of Sufism, both globally and in Europe and America. Delightfully, Moeller includes the Sufi wisdom-humor stories of Mulla Nasruddin Hoja. There is even a sort of “FAQ” included. Copious quotes from Sufis, including Rumi, appear.

The Judaism chapter rang true for me when I saw that its author Yaakov Weintraub immediately highlights the Friday-dusk-to-Saturday-nightfall Shabbat that for many Jews defines or sets a standard for being Jewish. Its topics include God, Torah, the Holocaust, Halakha (“the Law”), and the Chaggaim, the holidays. This chapter’s exposition is enriched by personal narrative and poetry.

Two chapters on Hinduism treat all the basics of the family of Hindu traditions: Veda, Vedanta (in its varieties), meditation (and brain research on its effects), and all the yogas of devotion (*bhakti*), knowledge (*jnana*), action (*karma*), and topics such as liberation (*moksha*), or God-Realization (*jivanmukta*). Spiritual paragons, their lives and teachings are also discussed: Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekanada, Swami Shantananda. Worship of the Mother Goddesses, idols (*vigraha*), and Avatars are also explained. Detailed instructions are provided for practice of each of the four major forms of yoga.

A beautiful “Images” section extends the beauty of this book. Other chapters survey Jainism in detail, Tibetan Buddhism in a way that brings to life the Budddha’s teaching, Christianity in full scope. Through a combination of personal witness and diligent scholarship, Mary Esther Stewart makes Jesus Christ very real and relevant. She provides creative analogies for the Trinity. She explains liturgy, sacraments, saints, monastic orders and Church hierarchies. In the course of a personal narrative, she gives a beautiful summary of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of “world justice, dialogue, and peace” (p. 293) and explains Vatican II. She then creates a moving portrait of Saint Francis. Then follows “If Saint Francis Were Here,” a wonderful one-page summary of what Saint Francis would say and do today, with a beautiful illustration of Saint Francis.

The Punjabi-based Sikh religion (*Khalsa*) is also beautifully explained with wonderful quotes from its founder Guru Nanak’s prayers, its rich tradition of Hindu and Muslim devotional poetry. Guru Nanak comes to life in these pages.

Then editor and coordinator of the “Beads on One String” project, Laurent Weichberger then proceeds to survey “Modern Mysticism.” Here he discusses Sri Ramakrishna, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Rabia Martin, and Avatar Meher Baba. Meher Baba’s life and teachings—at least in terms of a 32-page summary—are given extremely insightful, detailed, extensive, and expert treatment. Weichberger even succeeds in explaining in accessible terms one of Meher Baba’s most elusive of paradigms, the “Ten States of God,” from Meher Baba’s magnum opus, “God Speaks.” Weichberger describes these in a down-to-earth way that complement the more formal explanations of Meher Baba and many of his interpreters. In these pages Weichberger shares many important Meher Baba quotes and presents Meher Baba’s Universal Prayer, the O Parvardigar prayer, laid out in a poetic verse form that is the easiest to read of any printed version I have seen. Weichberger follows with a section on “Sacred Places,” detailing all the various holy sites of all the world’s religions featured in the book that Meher Baba himself visited, made pigrimage to, or at which he meditated.

“Celebrating Divine Presence: Journeys into God” is an invigorating, inspiring, instructive read and also a great research resource. I salute Laurent Weichberger and the “Beads on One String” project for this ripe fruit of their seminars, dialogues, and communion. This book is a model for Interfaith dialogue, global citizenship, and the study of World Religions. This comprehensive and insightful book on 10 spiritual traditions helps to address Islamophobia—and other less pronounced phobias—by contributing to an experience and understanding of spiritual sharing, commonality, and kinship among the *people* who practice the religions, and even, ultimately extending to a kinship among all the faiths themselves brought “together as beads on one string.”

~~~ H. Talat Halman, Assistant Professor, Religion, Central Michigan University, U.S.A. ~~~

Superb Sculpting

By Dr Mahjabeen Islam, *Book Review: An emotional pendulum — By Dr Mahjabeen Islam* - Daily Times - Lahore, Pakistan; Tuesday, March 1, 2012

Book Review: An emotional pendulum

American Dervish
Author: Ayad Akhtar
Publisher: Little, Brown and Co. (January 2012)
357 pages

I have always preferred non-fiction. Ayad Akhtar’s entrancing novel American Dervish has caused me to shift a bit toward fiction. The protagonist, like the author, grows up in the US’s Midwest and the passion and certitude in the pages makes the reader consider that perhaps, the novel is a bit of an autobiography.

The charms of the book are many. Akhtar is a maestro of language; his style flows despite the usage of several words that one does not come across generally. One feels superb sculpting of the story without a hint of verbosity, just a draw to pick up the book again quickly.

The incredulity and innocence of a ten-year-old is another winner. The simplicity with which Hayat Shah reports arguments and events in his family underscores the very convoluted nature of adults. The small Midwestern Pakistani-American family’s life changes rather dramatically with the arrival of Mina, Hayat’s mother’s best friend. Hayat’s mother for some reason has a masculine name — Muneer-- and interestingly, his father’s is a unisex one too: Naveed. It might have been less jarring to have transposed the names, but it is of no matter.

Akhtar depicts the culture well, but behta is phonetically incorrect; the word for child is beta or baita in Urdu. Initially, I found bhaj confusing and then realised that he was using the short form for baji or older sister. It should have been abbreviated baaj and not bhaj for the latter spelling sounds like a short form for a vegetable.

Hayat’s infatuation with Mina and how a ten-year-old deals with its turbulence is poignantly portrayed. Akhtar is deft at this and the reader acquiesces in what would be classified as an unnatural relationship. What is more, in the detail of this relationship, all others that we have had, however odd and unconventional, find a strange vindication.

The story does not build up, the book is a veritable pendulum of emotions; taking the reader from one crisis to another storm. Perhaps that is why it does not drag.

Besides the language, Akhtar is grounded in his knowledge of the Quran and in page after page, events in Hayat’s life are correlated with the Quranic verses smoothly. The reader senses Hayat’s tender wonderment vicariously. The verses appear, sometimes in such profusion and detail though that it almost has a proselytizing feel.

The spectrum of opinion with regard to Jews is delivered very aptly. Muneer typifies Muslims that love and respect the Jews, especially Jewish men, and then there is the venom that Imam Souhef and Dr Ghaleb Chatha spew. This is palpable in the American-Muslim community; rarely are people indifferent, they follow the all or none law — effusively awed by the Jews or tightly wound with antipathy. The ill logic is even starker when seen through the eyes of a child.

Patriarchy, male chauvinism and domestic violence are alive and practised with impunity by Chatha and Mina’s first and second husbands. Dr Chatha’s wife pulls in a literal interpretation of a Quranic verse to become not just a willing victim but desirous of a beating, for in her mind she “needs it”.

Mina’s God-centred view of life and her capsules of Sufism provide for the deep joy in the narrative. “To be a Sufi means to depend on nothing, to want nothing and to be nothing. A Sufi is a day that needs no sun, a night that needs no moon, no stars. A Sufi is like the dust on the ground that no one knows is even there.”And amazingly, “This is what life is behta. It grinds us to dust. The Sufi is just someone that does not fight it. He knows that being ground to nothing is not bad. It’s the way to God.”

American Dervish is one of those books in which the end is essentially disclosed at the start of the book. The narrative is magnetic and yet before you are quite ready, it’s done. Every chance I got, I found myself reading the book, loving the roller-coaster feel, and suddenly one feels like a giant wall accordions you, and it’s over. The languid feel of the book should have been carried right to the end. I didn’t like the wall. Yet I know that my mind is spinning from the story and not the sudden end.

Ayad Akhtar is an actor, playwright and novelist and American Dervish is his debut work of fiction. He is working on his second novel while he continues to direct plays in New York City. Until his second novel appears, I just might go for a second helping of American Dervish. So much for not liking fiction!

The reviewer is a columnist, family physician and addictionist with a practice in Toledo Ohio. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com

Layers of Meanings

By Merve Büşra Öztürk, *Arab poet Nawwab presents her Sufism-themed book of poems in Turkey* - Today's Zaman - Istanbul, Turkey; Sunday, April 29, 2012

Arab poet Nawwab presents her Sufism-themed book of poems in Turkey

Nimah Ismail Nawwab, known as the voice of Arab women and youth, was in İstanbul last week to launch her latest book of poetry, “Canvas of the Soul: Mystic Poems from the Heartland of Arabia,” in Turkey.

Nawwab, an internationally published poet and photographer, a Young Global Leader and keynote speaker, descends from a long line of scholars from Mecca, Saudi Arabia. She was the first female Saudi Arabian poet to be published in the US and is heavily engaged in critical and emerging issues involving women and youth empowerment, seeking to build bridges of understanding to establish global peace and rapport.

“Canvas of the Soul,” which comes eight years after Nawwab’s pioneering work “The Unfurling,” features Islamic art and calligraphy and is a spiritual volume similar to the works of Rumi and other mystic poets.

Speaking in an interview with Sunday’s Zaman during her recent book tour here, Nawwab noted that her poetry does not aim to convey one certain meaning or give a specific message; it urges the reader to find their own meaning. “I am an artist; not just a poet, writer or photographer. And the beauty of art for an artist is to convey meanings through different layers of meanings. Whether you are a writer or a photographer, the mission of an artist is to convey deep meanings through short, brief works. Every time you look at a work, you should get another meaning. I can write a lot of works. I am a writer -- I can write 500 works. But the hard thing is to carefully put the meaning in a short but precise and concise work.”

When asked if her book was a painting what the canvas would be, Nawwab said: “I prefer to leave it to the reader to discover. The main idea is really peace, tranquility and the connection with the One, our Beloved. And a lot of things [in the book] are dream-like attempts of seeking, questioning, looking for something. So the messages in the poems vary on the thing the reader seeks.”

Nawwab’s poems have been reviewed many times by prominent Muslim figures, including Seyyed Hossein Nasr, writer and professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University; singer Sami Yusuf; writer Shems Friedlander; and Professor James Morris of the department of theology at Boston College and president of the Rumi Institute’s international advisory council.

Nasr described Nawwab as “a female Saudi Arabian poet expressing her deep spiritual yearnings in Sufi-inspired poetry that is indeed a rare but also precious experience amidst all the din of strife and anger that surrounds so many Muslims today. This voice recalls that Islam emphasizes not only Divine Justice but also Divine Mercy and that the Blessed Prophet reflected not only Divine Majesty (Jalal) but also Divine Beauty (Jamal), the latter possessing a female dimension that is so evident in classical Sufi poetry.”

Friedlander wrote: “Nimah Nawwab was born into the lineage of a family of scholars in Makkah [Mecca]. Her poems unfold the living landscapes, the horizons that hold the signs spoken of in the Quran, the calligraphy of the mountains dipping into the desert, the inkwell of God’s words, reflecting the signs before us into the secrets within the Book of Man.”

Nawwab says it is a blessing to be able to get these reviews. “All of these artists are of different fields, different segments of society, and they are people having different interests in life. Yet they are all spiritual people; that’s what brings them all together. This is what makes it special. Each reviewer noticed something. That’s what is great about different reviewers. Each one noticed something else and hooked on to it.”

Regarding her sources of inspiration, Nawwab has underlined her interest in world religions and the significance of knowing more about other cultures and religions. “Knowing more about other cultures is one of the things I want to have in my life, but it is not easy to have in Saudi Arabia. We can’t have it in our schools or system. We need to study the Bible, the Torah in order to understand because there are similarities and there are differences. Every time I am in a hotel in the US or in other countries, there is always a Bible at the hotel and I always take it up and read. I also get inspired by them. I have some poems in ‘Unfurling’ that refer to the Bible. Also, what I enjoy doing is to talk with people from other religions and exchanging ideas with them. This makes you think more of your own religion and appreciate the depth of it. But you also appreciate others’. And we shouldn’t think of those as others, though. I don’t like the word … ‘others.’ And I don’t like the word … ‘tolerance.’ The word ‘tolerance’ itself means that you don’t like it but you are tolerating, there is no dignity to it. It should be respecting, accepting, instead. These are the words we should use.”

Nawwab’s poetry mostly focuses on Sufism, a mystical Islamic belief and practice in which Muslims seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God.

We think we do, but we don’t actually know much about Sufism, Nawwab said. “I learned Sufism through Shems. [A] few years ago, I met him in Cairo and he gave me some books: a book he wrote about Mevlana [Rumi] and a DVD of him called ‘The Circles of Remembrance.’ He did not say anything about Sufism or that he is a Sufi. He did not want me to have any positive or negative ideas beforehand and he just gave me the books. When I read them I got interested in Mevlana’s works so much. And last year I went to Konya [where Rumi’s tomb is located]. I felt like I was at home.”

Nawwab’s poems, which are written in English, have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese and Arabic and will soon be translated into French, German and Urdu. We need someone who is good with poetry to translate them into Turkish, too, she said.

Picture: Nimah Ismail Nawwab offers a collection of spiritual poems similar to the works of Rumi and other mystic poets in her book of poetry, “Canvas of the Soul: Mystic Poems from the Heartland of Arabia.” Photo: Sunday’s Zaman.

Canvas of the Soul

By Ahmet Idil, *The First Saudi Female Poet to be Published in the US* - PRWeb - Clifton, NJ, USA; Friday, April 27, 2012

Writer and activist Nimah Nawwab is currently on tour in the US East Coast as she addresses issues related to challenges which form the basis for her art and activism, spirituality and women in times of transition in the Middle East.

The first Saudi female poet to be published in the US, writer and activist Nimah Nawwab is currently on tour in the US East Coast as she addresses issues related to challenges which form the basis for her art and activism, spirituality and women in times of transition in the Middle East.

She will combine readings, book signings and lectures at various organizations.

Her newly released book, Canvas of the Soul: Mystic Poems from the Heartland of Arabia, published by Tughra Books, encompasses poems of fiery love and peace from the spiritual heartland of Islam composed by a modern-day female poet descended from a long line of Meccan (from Mecca) scholars.

Reflecting the pulsing, indivisible bridge of the works of great Sufi mystics and poets to modern times, these spiritual pieces recall the beloved works of Rabi‘ah Al ‘Adawiyyah, Rumi and Hafiz.

Drawing on a rich religious legacy and led by the Sufi tradition seeking Unity, the poems cover aspects related to spirituality and present-day challenges. The inspiring combination of the traditional and modern in these compositions will touch the inner souls and captivate the hearts of those interested in Higher Love in these turbulent times of transition and frantic search for peace.

Nawwab’s book tour includes lectures and book signing at Middle East Institute, Washington, DC (April, 26); Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University (April 30); East-West institute, Chicago, IL (May 16); The Brecht Forum/ASMA, New York, NY (May 22); and Book Expo America, New York, NY (June 5).

Author Bio:
Nimah Nawwab is a poet, writer, photographer, lecturer and activist in Saudi Arabia. Born to a scholarly Meccan family, she has been dubbed a "voice for Arab women and youth."

She often works with established and emerging filmmakers, musicians, calligraphers, and artists of various genres through mentorship projects. As an activist, Ms. Nawwab has been involved with numerous women's issues, including the forced divorce petition and legal case, and the guardianship of women.

Ms. Nawwab has spoken at international events including the World Economic Forum, the Japan Expo, and the UN Pavilion, and has lectured at the Smithsonian, American University, Rice University, Ghalib Academy in India, and London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

Nawwab's best-selling book and work have been featured in numerous media outlets including BBC World News, Newsweek International, MSNBC the Japanese Yomiuri Shimbum, GEO France, India’s Asian Age, Malaysia’s Berita Harian, Britain’s Hello magazine, as well as numerous Arabic media.

Reviews:

"The voice of a female Saudi Arabian poet expressing her deep spiritual yearnings in Sufi- inspired poetry is indeed a rare but also precious experience amidst all the din of strife and anger that surrounds so many Muslims today. This voice recalls that Islam emphasizes not only Divine Justice but also Divine Mercy and that the Blessed Prophet reflected not only Divine Majesty (Jalal) but also Divine Beauty (Jamal), the latter possessing a female dimension that is so evident in classical Sufi poetry. The present book is significant in that it reflects something of that classical expression of spiritual beauty in a contemporary language expressed by a female poet who hails from the land where the Blessed Prophet was born, carried out his prophetic mission and died".
-Seyyed Hossein Nasr

"Nimah is a talented writer and poet who isn't afraid to speak her mind and address issues that, quite frankly, are often ignored as a result of timidity. I commend her efforts in this noble initiative where the arts combine in powerfully written poetic compositions and a showcasing of Islamic arts".
-Sami Yusuf

"Nimah's poems unfold the living landscapes, the horizons that hold the signs spoken of in the Qur’an, the calligraphy of the mountains dipping into the desert, the inkwell of God’s words, reflecting the signs before us into the secrets within the Book of Man".
-Shems Friedlander

Nimah Nawwab
Canvas of the Soul: Mystic Poems from the Heartland of Arabia
Available May 2012
$19.95 Cloth ISBN-13: 978-1-59784275-4
120 pp. 6 x 8 inches

Contact: Ahmet Idil, 973-777-2704
agi(at)tughrabooks(dot)com

Making Space

By A. Faizur Rahman, *Sufis as architects of Muslim spaces in India* - The Hindu - India; Monday, April 23, 2012

Sufis as architects of Muslim spaces in India

Sufism (tasawwuf in Arabic), the esoteric physiognomy of Islam, is probably the only school of thought which has remained above suspicion in the post 9/11 Islamophobic onslaught. And if any reason could be attributed to this unimpeachability it is its inherent pacifism.

Although Sufism has several etymological denotations the simplest and best explanation was given by Al-Hujwiri, the famous 11th century mystic of Lahore. In his renowned treatise, Kashf al-Mahjub, Hujwiri quotes a Prophetic tradition to define a Sufi as the one who adopts safa (purity) and gives up kadar (impurity).

Such straightforward renditions have contributed to the immense popularity of Sufism across the globe. In India too it is believed that a huge percentage of Muslims have historically been the adherents of the inclusive Sufi traditions.

It is this Sufi history which happens to be the theme of Prof. Nile Green's latest tome Making Space wherein he explores the role of itinerant “saints” and “blessed men” in the emergence of Muslim communities in early modern India.

Most of these saints, according to Green, sought refuge in India after the sacking of “the great Sufi cradle of Khurasan” by the Mongols, and the mass persecution of Iranian Sufis under the Safavids.

Green's thesis is that Sufi shrines serve as “gates through time” (dargah means gateway) where the past is recounted in narrative and rendered visible in architecture and ritual, and therefore, have been crucial to the making of Muslim space on Indian soil.

These dargahs, or “the death spaces” as Green calls them, helped define Muslim identity by linking community to territory and territory to hagiographic texts of memory known as tazkirat. In other words, a mausoleum that immortalised a saint was kept alive through the stories and rituals that surrounded it, and the resulting “architectural embodiment of collective memory” helped create a Muslim space by acting as a bridge between the past and present.

Interestingly, Green does not go into the “intellectualized doctrinal abstraction” of Sufism. He confines his research to a dispassionate analysis of the historical role of the Sufis as social actors — both during their lifetime and after their death — in the creation of Muslim settlements in India.

But he does mention quoting Hujwiri that Sufism should not be talked about in a different breath from Islamic law or the study of Hadith. For, to the likes of Hujwiri the notion of a discrete ‘Sufism' at even a step's removal from ‘Islam' would have been “a troubling and unfamiliar idea.”

Rise of shrine cults

And, even while treating them as purely historical events, Green drops enough hints to suggest that most of the rituals that have come to be associated with the shrines today did not have the approval of the buried Sufis. For instance, he speaks of how “shrine cults” rose to a high degree of importance a few centuries after Hujwiri's death.

Even today many shrines in India are said to facilitate the exorcism of jinns in clear violation of the teachings of the very saints in whose name it is done.

Green feels that such commemorative rituals extolling the miraculous powers of the buried saints were meant to attract the more material forms of investment required to maintain and preserve the sacred space. This argument is substantiated by the huge monetary contributions some South Asian Muslim shrines regularly get, the most recent example being the donation of a million dollars by the President of Pakistan to the Ajmer dargah.

A substantial part of Green's research is devoted to the Mughal imperial expansion into the Deccan (1640-1690) and their policy of co-option and creation of Sufi shrine complexes in south India which was continued by Aurangzeb's successors, the Nizams. Green recounts the story of how Aurangzeb himself came to be buried at the shrine of Zaynuddin Shirazi (d.1369) in Khuldabad on the advice of Sufi Shah Nur as expiation for killing Sarmad, the free thinker and close associate of Dara Shukoh.

Mention is also made of the migration of Sufis to Arcot where they were patronised by the Nawabs of Carnatic, especially Sadatullah Khan and Muhammad Shah who built shrines in their honour.

One of the most significant findings of Making Space is the absence of communal overtones in the Sufi narratives. Extracting from the works of leading Deccan litterateurs, Azad Bilgrami and Sabzawari, Green highlights the presence of numerous Yogis at the shrines in Khuldabad and says that if at all there was rivalry during those times it was not between Hindu and Muslim power centres but between the Muslim saints and the sultans. The saints refused to bow down to the kings.

In short, Making Space is a chef-d'oeuvre which expertly weaves together various aspects of Muslim cultural history to produce a coherent account of how Muslims carved out a space for themselves in India. It is essential reading for anyone who has a dispassionate interest in the ethno-history of early modern India.

MAKING SPACE — Sufis and Settlers in Early Modern India;
Nile Green;
Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001.
Rs. 795.

A Genuine Understanding

By Sadia Dehlvi, *‘Sufism isn’t a fashion statement but a quest for union with God’* - Tehelka - India; Friday, April 20, 2012

‘Sufism isn’t a fashion statement but a quest for union with God’: Jashn-e-Khusrau unearths facets of Sufism that make the tradition dynamic, says Sadia Dehlvi

Jashn-e-Khusrau: A Collection
Roli Books & Agha Khan Trust For Culture
Pages: 221

The last decade has witnessed innovations such as Sufi Yoga and Sufi Kathak. Bare-chested men have been dancing at Sufi festivals marketed in the name of Khusrau.

New age gurus continue to recycle selective writings of Mevlana Rumi and Amir Khusrau to produce what I call “bubble gum spirituality”. Such innovations make mockery of both Sufism and Hazrat Amir Khusrau, one of the great poets of the region.

Sufism is not a fashion statement but a serious quest for union with God. Much like other religions, Islam too has a mystical dimension. This spiritual current, known as tasawuff, later came to be called Sufism. It represents the vibrancy of Islam in adapting to different cultures, allowing for diversity of devotional expressions while affirming unity of faith.

In the subcontinent, this plurality is exemplified by the life of the towering 13th century Sufi Master Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya and his beloved disciple Amir Khusrau.

Produced by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Jashn-e-Khusrau: A Collection does not succumb to popular notions of Sufi traditions.

It presents a genuine understanding of Sufiana Qawaali and its pivotal role in Zikr, remembrance of the Divine at sama mehfils, collective gatherings held to induce spiritual experience.

The text focuses on how the Hindawi Kalaam of Khusrau, who venerates his mystic master, celebrates local language and cultures, defines the essence of Qawaali and gives it a universal appeal.

Jashn-e-Khusrau, both the festival and the book, take Amir Khusrau to the place where he lies entombed, the Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti, a place at the core of Delhi’s history and culture.

The first essay by Sunil Sharma, who teaches Persian literature at Boston University, details the vast and diverse nature of Khusrau’s work. Regula Qureshi, the sole ethnomusicologist to work on genre of Qawaali, pens an insightful history of the popular genre. The third and final essay by Irfan Zuberi on art, artists and patronage of the Qawaals in Basti Nizamuddin, outlines the close symbiosis between the Qawaals and their patrons at the dargah. It rightfully calls for the conservation of the 700-year-old settlement, its traditions and monuments.

The illuminated manuscripts in Jashn-e-Khusrau are sourced from museums around the world. Rather than just serve as decorative miniature paintings and calligraphies, these folios illustrate the literary work of Amir Khusrau and Amir Hasan, a fellow poet and disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin.

The three CDs, elegantly cased within the folds of the book, are a compilation of the six Qawaali performances held by the Agha Khan Trust.

The collection from the festival Jashn-e-Khusrau includes some of the best Qawaals from India and Pakistan, including Meeraj Nizami, Ghaus Muhammad Nasir Niazi, Muhammad Ahmed Warsi Naziri, Farid Ayaz and Abu Muhammad. Khusrau’s poetry is sung in the traditional style as across the dargahs of South Asia.

The rendition and choice of poetry, both in Hindawi and Persian, are amongst the finest I have heard.

The second part of the book has around 25 pages devoted to Kalaam, where the complete poetry of the recitals rendered in the CD are inscribed in Urdu with a transliteration in the Roman script, along with English translations by scholars like SM Yunu Jaffery, Saleem Qidwai, Paul Losensky and Sunil Sharma.

Jashn e Khusrau: A Collection recounts Amir Khusrau’s contribution to India’s contemporary identity and continuing traditions. The wonderful pictures, essays, and Qawaalis make Jashn-e-Khusrau: A Collection, a treasure for lovers of Sufism and Qawaali.

Tanhai

By Rauf Parekh, *What is the true theme of poetry?* - Dawn.Com - Pakistan; Sunday, April 8, 2012

What is the true theme of poetry? Faiz Ahmed Faiz is reported to have once said that “the true subject of poetry is the loss of the beloved”.

Explaining this statement in the preface to her book The true subject: selected poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Naomi Lazard writes that the quotation that says the true subject of poetry is the loss of the beloved is in fact a Sufi tenet, a teaching of Sufism.

Then she says that ‘the beloved’ in the phrase may “refer to a person, a home, a country — anything that is beloved, whose meaning is love”.

It may seem a bit strange to some that despite referring to Sufism she has conveniently forgotten to mention God, the true beloved of a Sufi. The reason perhaps is that it would not have fit in properly, since the philosophy Faiz believed in did not have much room for metaphysical concepts such as God.

But the Sufi tenet may work well both for Sufis and the Marxists — and even for those who believe in other kinds of love — and help understand all kinds of poetry, be it love poetry or metaphysical or progressive, if taken in the broader sense.

But she is right when she says that to Faiz the Sufi teaching came to have many meanings and “loss encompasses many losses — loss of home, family, livelihood, country”, because for Faiz, his country and his people were, of course, among the beloved ones and he suffered a lot while in exile.

Later in the preface, Lazard refers to God as well but in a different perspective. She thinks that Faiz used the classical Urdu, Arabic and Persian metaphorical lyrics and songs of yearning for love and yearning for God with a different connotation and “the time-honoured metaphorical yearning for God becomes something new, a vital living poetry that speaks of the struggle to survive against the crushing weight of colonialism, imperial war, against the injustice that strangles our lives every day”.

The book contains the translations of Faiz’s 45 poems along with the original Urdu text. Naomi Lazard, the translator, is an American poet and playwright and she had met Faiz in 1979 at a writers’ conference in Honolulu. Lazard quoted a line from Robert Graves, which he had received in a letter from the Welsh poet Alun Lewis. And the line was, of course, the one quoted above: the true subject of poetry is the loss of the beloved. Faiz laughed and said that he was the one who had given that Sufi teaching to Lewis, with whom he had worked in the British Indian army in Burma during the Second World War. The next day both Faiz and Lazard began work on the English translation of Faiz’s poem. It went on till Faiz’s death.

Now a word about the translation: as Lazard has described in the intro, the method of translating the text into English was very peculiar: First Faiz dictates the literal meanings to her.

Then she asks questions about the words, metaphors and cultural nuances. And then she works on the poem until, as she puts it, “the English version works in the same way that a poem I have written myself works. It must be faithful to the meaning Faiz has given it. It must move in his [sic] own spirit, with the same feeling and tone. It must have the same music, the same direction, and, above all, it must mean the same thing in English that it means in Urdu.”

Well, sounds interesting, as it gives the impression that she does not know Urdu. It also reminds one of a saying popular among the academics that poetry cannot be translated. But by it they mean it is very difficult to capture the essence of poetry in translation, that is, even if one knows both the languages very well.

She then adds: “I have learned how crucial it is to find the verb, the active verb to its highest degree, to find the most active verb for the occasion”. But then comes the more interesting part when a few pages later she adds: “In the poetry of Faiz this problem is intensified because his language in Urdu is singularly devoid of active verbs. Images and passives constructions abound”. What worries a student like me is that it is evident that Lazard knows very little Urdu, if at all, yet she is so judgmental about Faiz’s diction.

First published by Princeton University in 1987 under the same title, this edition of The true subject is published by Oxford University Press with a new preface.

One feels that the book can serve as an introduction to Faiz’s poetry and might be helpful to the readers who cannot read, for one reason or another, Faiz’s poetry in the original. For westerners it does open up a new world of themes and expressions, faithfully rendered into English by someone who worked closely with Faiz and is a poet herself.

What is important is that Faiz himself dictated the essence of the poems. Some of the shorter poems convey the message emphatically as is evident from the following translation of Faiz’s famous poem Tanhai (solitude):

Someone is coming at last, sad heart! No. I am wrong. / It is a stranger passing on the way to another place. / Night falters; stars are scattered like clouds. / The lamps in the hallway droop; they want to go out./ All roads are asleep after their long work of listening. / Alien dust has come to cover the traces of the footsteps everywhere. / Snuff out the candles, clean away wine, flask, and goblet. / Lock up your sleepless doors, my heart. / No one, no one will ever come here now.

Reborn in Translation

By Aarefa Johari, *Shakespeare of Sindh, reborn in translation* - Hindustan Times - India; Monday, March 26, 2012

Shakespeare of Sindh, reborn in translation

When Anju Makhija was growing up in Mumbai, no Sindhi community gathering she attended was complete without some elder quoting or referring to 16th century Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif.

Years later, after building a career as a playwright, poet and freelance writer, and living abroad for nearly a decade, she decided to seek her cultural roots, and found herself returning to Latif, known as the ‘Shakespeare of Sindh’.

In Adipur, a town in Kutchh, she met 80-year-old Sindhi poet Hari Dilgir, and the two spent five years translating selected works from Shah Jo Risalo, Latif’s most famous collection of poems.

Their book, *Seeking the Beloved*, won the Sahitya Akademi’s 2011 prize for English Translation last month.

“Sindhi literature has not been translated enough. Even Latif, who is revered as a Sufi saint in Sindh, has been translated mainly by Pakistanis and Germans,” says Makhija, who believes that she is one of many post-Partition Sindhis who lost touch with their language after their families migrated to India.

Makhija’s book is now one of the first comprehensive translations of Latif coming from an Indian author.

In the Sufi tradition, Latif was known as the people’s poet for being able to draw from both Islamic and Vedantic traditions. Poems in the Shah Jo Risalo are divided into 30 surs based on Indian classical ragas, and were originally meant to be sung.

“Latif’s verse has complex symbolism and he often transformed folk tales of his time into spirited allegories to explain divine love,” says Makhija. “Our challenge as translators was to take that oral tradition and make it contemporary.”

Makhija now wants to translate 17th century Sindhi Sufi poets Sami and Sacchal and is looking for co-translators. “Most experts in old Sindhi — the language that Latif wrote in — are now very old and dying,” she says.

(Anju Makhija will read from her book, Seeking the Beloved, at Kitab Khana, Fountain, on March 28 at 6 pm. The event will include singing of Sufi songs by Asiya Hamdulay.)

[Visit the Sahitya Akademy of India.

Book cover from Amazon.]

Delhi Sufis

By Staff Writer, *Chillah courtyard plays host to launch of book on dargahs* - The Indian Express - India; Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Chillah courtyard plays host to launch of book on dargahs

New Delhi: That Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya (Delhi’s iconic 14th century Sufi saint) was against any kind of state powers and preached the message of Sufism — which is that of peace, love and harmony... That he was anti-establishment and was never himself the head of a state, but still a government unto himself...

This is how Sadia Dehlvi justified the absence of Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit for the launch of her second book The Sufi Courtyard: Dargahs of Delhi on Monday. “No doubt, politicians are never to be trusted. The Chief Minister told me she was caught up with work as it was the last day for filing of nominations for the MCD polls,” Dehlvi said.

Beyond the initial hiccup, however, the book launch was a success for several reasons. One being the venue itself — the lesser-known courtyard of the Chillah and Khanqah of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya — a place, Dehlvi says, from where she began writing her book. “ It is also the place where Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya lived and began his mission of Sufism from,” she said.

“I feel very lucky that I got permission to launch my book on the dargahs of Delhi from this place where Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya lived. I started writing my book from this very courtyard — with the most beautiful and peaceful neighbourhood — the lesser-known, but most important, centre in Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya life, where he lived, meditated and died,” Dehlvi said.

In the absence of the Chief Minister, the book was launched by Syed Altamash Nizami and Farid Ahmed Nizami from the Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya Dargah. The launch was followed by a Sufiana Kalam — a qawwali rendition by Dhruv Sangari and his group.

Like Chillah and Khanqah of Nizamuddin, The Sufi Courtyard journeys through the famous and lesser-known dargahs of Delhi.

From the first Sufi centre established in Mehrauli by Khwaja Qutub Bakhtiar Kaki — during the early days of the Delhi Sultanate — to the late 19th century Sufi retreats, the book explores the spiritual, cultural and historical legacy of Delhi Sufis.

Dehlvi has attempted to recreate the ethos of Delhi to give an unusual perspective on the multiple influences which went into shaping the country’s Sufi traditions.

[Picture: Book cover from HarperCollins Publishers India.]

Sufism and Indian Mysticism

By W. Rorrkychand Singh, *Book on Sufism and Indian Mysticism Released* - International Business Times - UK/India; Friday, February 24, 2012

Book on Sufism and Indian Mysticism Released

The Vice President of India Hamid Ansari released a book titled "Sufism and Indian Mysticism" edited by Prof. Akhtarul Wasey and Farhat Ehsas (Farhatullah Khan) at a function in New Delhi.

The Vice President said that Sufism in Islamic tradition has for centuries been a source of inner peace, spiritual awakening and enlightenment for millions of human beings.

It has also been a matter of debate among scholars regarding the questions related to its origin, nature and external manifestations, he added.

He applauded the editors of the book for bringing out views of renowned scholars and experts on different aspects of Islamic Sufism and Indian Mysticism.

This volume, which has 29 well-researched papers, seeks to present a wide spectrum of perspectives and in-depth studies on different aspects of Islamic Sufism and Indian Mysticism and their interface that has manifested itself through the history of Islam's interaction with India, spread over a time-frame of more than a millennium.

The contributions in this volume are made by some of the most renowned scholars and experts in the fields of philosophy, Islamic, studies, comparative religions, psychology, sociology, history and journalism.

Picture: The Vice President, Hamid Ansari releases a book titled “Sufism and Indian Mysticism,” edited by Prof. Akhtarul Wasey and Farhat Ehsas, in New Delhi on Feb. 23, 2012. Photo: PIB.

A Thought-provoking Work

By Mumtaz Ahmad Numani, *Sufis in India* - Greater Kashmir - Srinagar, India; Monday, February 13, 2012

Sufis in India: Qadiri Order received a wider acceptance in the valley of Kashmir

Based on her doctoral dissertation submitted to the Department of History, AMU, Aligarh, the present book is a wonderful study of the 16th and 18thc Sufis of the Qadiri order in India.

Bilgrami accepts the notion that every mystic concept derives its strength from the following two precepts:
1) The faith and conviction that there is one Reality behind this phenomenal world and that (2) man is a part of that Reality, direct communion with ultimate Reality is possible through a deep devotion to it.

Thus she, as many, too defines Sufism as: a tendency directed towards the realization of Divine love, a mode of thinking and feeling based on inward purification and Divine contemplation. To further she motivates us that, this kind of intuition enables a person to exercise his/her emotional and spiritual faculties.

Bilgrami also draws our attention to look at the controversy and misunderstanding that is about the origin of Islamic mysticism. Different scholars, as she writes, have attributed its rise and growth to different foreign influences on Islam. But she clearly shows her understanding with Massignon and Nicholson, [the two outstanding scholars of modern age], who have pointed out that, only the teachings of ‘Quran’ and ‘ Hadith’ form the real basis of Sufism in Islam.

Bilgrami’s work comprises five chapters that weave together an incisive textual analysis of Persian and Urdu sources, short readings on biographical sketches of the Qadiri Sufis in India and fieldwork, all that shows her extended effort to keep her Doctoral dissertation in good accuracy without oversimplifying the matter.

In her Doctoral dissertation, Bilgrami purposefully addresses one particular subject of Sufism, that is, the history of Qadiri order in India [During 16th and 18thc]. More than this, Bilgrami also shows her typical comprehension of the different Sufi Silsilahs other than Qadiri. To add it more, she has been finalizing that the three characteristics which distinguish Qadiri Sufis from the Sufis of other Orders were: (1) Religious orthodoxy, (2) Urbanism and (3) Distinct Arab character.

In the very Introduction, Bilgrami introduces us with the source material she has used for her Doctoral dissertation. According to her, the literature produced on Qadiri Silsilah, can be divided into three categories: (a) Biographical accounts of the Saints, (b) works on mystic Ideologies and Practices, and(c) Poetical works.

Chapter 1 introduces us with the biographical accounts of the earliest Sufis who played their selfless role in promoting and establishing the Qadiri Order in India. The Order, we go on now, know that, sprung from the Khanwada Tartawsiyya, and it traces its origin to ‘Abdu’l-Qadir Jilani, who is also called Hasanu’l-Husayni, on account of his descent, on his mother’s side Husayn and on his father’s side from Hasan, Muhammad’s grandsons.

Jilan was a district south of the Caspian Sea, where ‘Abdu’l-Qadir was born in 1078 A.D. At the age of eighteen he went to Baghdad and became a disciple of Abu-Sa’id Mubarak Mukharrami. Abdu’l-Qadir lived in Baghdad till he died in 1166 A.D. He had been given more than 99 titles, the chief and the best are: Pir-i-Piran [or Chief of the Saints], Pir-i-Dastgir [or The Saint my helper], Ghawsu’l-A’Zam [or The Great Refuge] and Mahbub-i-Subhani [or The Beloved of Allah]. Thus, as Bilgrami says, he had been projected by his admirers as a superman possessing miraculous powers and a great source of blessings for those who wished success in their mundane affairs, and of inspiration to those who yearned for communion with Allah.

Bilgrami shifts our attention to bring us know that, in India, the life story of Delhi Sultanate and the History of Chishti and Suharwardi Silsilah run parallel.

It is surprising [to know] that these two Salasil declined almost simultaneously with the disintegration of Delhi Sultanate. Thus she too, as other, admits that the fifteenth century can be fixed as the date of Introduction of the Qadiri Silsilah in India. But as we, she too is disappointed to express that, due to the paucity of authentic information, it is difficult to determine as to who was the original founder of this Silsilah in India. The names of Saiyid Ahmad Baghdadi, Shah Nimatullah Wali, Saiyid Yusufuddin and Saiyid Muhammad Ghaus, are mentioned by most of the writers’ writes she. Despite this, she verily accepts that, in Northern India, the Qadiri Silsilah was organised by Makhdum Muhammad Ghaus [the founder of Uchch Branch of Qadiri Silsilah], and in South, the Silsilah spread through the Multani branch whose founder was Shaikh Ibrahim Multani, the son of Shaikh Fatullah.

Chapter 2 develops a well detailed account of the Qadiri Silsilah in Deccan, which Bilgrami does mention, [that] was the first and the earlier centre of the Qadiri Silsilah in India. Like 1st, this Chapter too, contains the biographical sketches of the Sufis of Qadiri Silsilah who lived and worked in various parts of the Deccan.

Chapter 3rd and 4th produces a good detailed account of the Qadiri Silsilah in Sind, Punjab, Delhi, Agra, Malwa and Gujarat. The biographies of Qadiri Sufis who established themselves in these places throw light on their proselytizing activities and the progress of the Silsilah in their respective regions.

Chapter 5 is a devout of completely devoted to the teachings and attitude of the Qadiri Sufis in general in India and particularly in Kashmir.

Islam in Kashmir was introduced by Muslim missionaries and Sufis. Its Sufi roots are syncretic, reaching back not only to the Prophet of Islam but to the ancient rishis and the Buddhist tradition that preceded them. The truth is that, even if, the Qadiri Order descended late in Kashmir, yet in short time, it was able to establish its profound roots as according to Bilgrami, no other Silsilah could do it in the valley of Kashmir.

In other words, she moves with the notion that, Qadiri Order received a wider acceptance in the valley of Kashmir. And, it won’t be incorrect to say, Mughals were fond of visiting Kashmir. We had Shahjahan, Dara Shukoh, Jahan Ara and several courtiers of the Imperial court who were deeply devoted to the famous Qadiri Sufi Mulla Shah in Kashmir, writes she.

It is reported in Nuskha-i- Ahwal-i Shahi says Bilgrami, Dara Shukoh and Jahan Ara, erected a Mosque, a Khanqah and a residential school of Sufism for their spiritual mentor and maser, known as Mulla Shah Badakhshi, in Kashmir.

This Chapter shows a special attention of what Bilgrami is giving the biographical sketches of the Sufis of Qadiri Order who lived in different parts of Kashmir between sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The teachings of the Qadiri Sufis were based on some fundamental doctrines and concepts of religion, which constitute the whole structure of Islamic mysticism, like: Wahdat (Divine Unity), Ruyat (Beautific vision), Shariat (Law), Tariqat (Path), Haqiqat (Truth), Iman (Faith) and Ishq (Love).

The Sufis of Qadiri Silsilah ardently followed the doctrine of Wahdat-ul-Wujud (Unity of Being), which Bilgrami writes, forms the core and kernel of Islamic mysticism.

In India, the attitude of the Sufis toward the State differed not only from Silsilah to Silsilah, but also from Sufi to Sufi. In this changing motion, the Qadiri Sufis could not go on developing a constant attitude towards the state and rulers of the day. Some of them maintained the accuracy of their founder [of the Order] by keeping aloof from the court politics and did not accept any financial help from the rulers, and depended solely for their livelihood on Futuh (Unasked for charity).

In view of this background, Bilgrami divides the Sufis of the Qadiri Silsilah into two broad categories: (1) one set of Qadiri Sufis remained aloof from din and noise of materialistic world and spent their time in devotion and prayers. And (2) the other set received favours from the kings and officers and maintained cordial relations with them.

In conclusion, Bilgrami is sure to put that, in the eighteenth century, even if the Mughal Empire started declining, yet the Qadiri Silsilah continued to flourish and played an important role in stabilizing the society. She argues that, the Sufis of this Order infused a new spirit of harmony and mutual understanding among the discordant elements of the society and worked for reducing social and religious differences.

My criticism, if at all, is only that, though the contents of the book reveals to have only five chapters, but in reality, the book comprises seven separate full chapters besides conclusion, which perhaps, I assume is partly an error of miscalculation and partly is something misleading...? Perhaps, Bilgrami also escapes to mention in detail about the founder [Abdu’l-Qadir Jilani] of Qadiri Order, what I suppose: is needed to be reproduced at length.

And my handful appreciation is that, at the end of each chapter, we do have a long detailed list of foot notes, not only this, at the end, a powerful bibliography is in itself a sign of making this work an indispensable starting point for further study of the Qadiri Order in India. Though, the overall text is written in lucid language, yet, indeed it is more pioneering.

Briefing it, needless to say that, in India, the literature on Sufism of this [Qadiri] Order is richer and more textured as a result of this thought-provoking work.

Mumtaz Ahmad Numani is Research scholar, A.M.U., Aligarh, India. Email: mumtaz_numani08@rediffmail.com

Author: Fatima Zehra Bilgrami
*History of the Qadiri Order in India [During 16th & 18thc]*
Publisher: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli, 2005 - Religion - 398 pages