This book explores the organic lives of popular Sufi shrines in contemporary north-west India. It utilizes a combination of analytical tools and new theoretical tropes to understand and situate popular Sufi shrines so that they become historicized and spatialized.
'This richly illustrated and densely argued book offers a historically informed social anthropology of popular Sufi shrines and practices in contemporary Punjab, the history of some of which goes back to medieval period. It is a fine contribution to Punjab studies, especially on history and current practices relating to popular forms of Sufism, addressing larger concerns in religious traditions, questions of identity and political contestations using religious symbols. In doing so, the author has moved out of the usual comfort zones of armchair academics to ascertain and report on the actual situation on the ground in political contexts fraught with communal tensions.'
Raziuddin Aquil, University of Delhi, India
'Focusing on as yet little studied and even lesser understood phenomenon of Sufi shrine worship in contemporary Indian Punjab, Yogesh Snehi makes a significant contribution to understanding the everyday religiosities of Punjabi peoples. In a state dominated by Sikhism, where Muslims are a miniscule minority, Snehi endeavours to understand the piety of the ordinary and the everyday through observing and interacting with the guardians and the followers of a surprising proliferation of Sufishrines and their ever-renewing traditions in Punjab. Rejecting the dominant scholarly tendency to study the apparently mainstream, established religions through the lens of origins, conflict, secularism and syncretism, Snehi makes a case for comprehending the quotidian religiosities through deploying methods of historical anthropology. In taking cognizance of the worship of "Muslim" pirs and shaikhs by the non-Muslim populace of Punjab, in many cases the more recent burnishing of their pirkhanas and tombs, Snehi analyzes the place of dreams, cultural memory, orality, dissent and meaning-making in the exhilarating folk religions of Punjab today. Snehi's book is a must-read for those baffled by Punjab's popular religiosities, as by those mesmerized by the region's dominant Sikh idiom.'
Anshu Malhotra, University of Delhi, India
