AT THE SHRINE OF THE RED SUFI

Erscheinungsjahr 2012
ISBN: 978-0-19-906307-9
Verlag: OXFORD UNIV PR

Buch, Englisch, 350 Seiten, Format (B × H): 143 mm x 222 mm, Gewicht: 374 g

Refuge for the Taliban, nuclear power, terror camps, sinister secret police and assassinations-this is what everyone, who follows the media, associates Pakistan with. But how different is the country?

Munich cultural anthropologist, Jürgen Wasim Frembgen, shows us in one of the most exciting reports we owe to German cultural anthropology in recent decades. Frembgen's visit to the shrine of the "Red Sufi" Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in the little town of Sehwan in southern Pakistan shows a side of Islam which-translated into its western equivalent would closely resemble the carnival in Rhineland or the anarchic potential of Flower Power. At the same time, the event abounds in superstition,
asceticism, and spirituality-the kind which have long since disappeared in the West.

At one point, Frembgen describes this annual pilgrimage as Dionysian-but not in the sense of opulent-the poverty, whether chosen or of necessity, is conspicuous everywhere-but in its exuberance and ostensible disorderliness.

Zielgruppe

The narrative combines ethnographic "thick description" with a literary approach. This book is recommended for people interested in Islam, the lived Sufi tradition, Pakistan in general as well as literature reflecting quotidian Pakistani life.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Frembgen, Jürgen Wasim

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Islam & Islamische Studien

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface
1. Encounter at the Mountain of the Enraptured
2. Preparations in Lahore
3. Journey to Sehwan Sharif
4. Arrival in Sehwan
5. The First Day
6. The Second Day
7. The Third Day
8. The Fourth Day
9. Fifth Day and Return Journey
Glossary

Über Autor(innen)

Frembgen, Jürgen Wasim
Jürgen Wasim Frembgen is Chief Curator of the Oriental Department at the Museum of Ethnology in Munich as well as Privatdozent (Private Lecturer) in Islamic Studies at the University of Munich. Since 1981 he has been teaching anthropology and Islamic Studies at different universities in Germany; in addition he had been a visiting professor at the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad (National Institute of Pakistan Studies), National College of Arts in Lahore, and Ohio State University in Columbus, OH/USA. He has been conducting ethnographic fieldwork in Pakistan (for instance in Nager and Hunza/Karakoram, Indus Kohistan, Punjab and Sindh) on an annual basis since 1981. He has written extensively on cultures of the Eastern Muslim world between Iran and India, focusing particularly on Pakistan. Many of his books and articles deal with Islam, Sufi tradition, veneration of Muslim saints, art and material culture, the anthropology of the body, social outsiders and facets of popular culture.

Jürgen Wasim Frembgen is Chief Curator of the Oriental Department at the Museum of Ethnology in Munich as well as Privatdozent (Private Lecturer) in Islamic Studies at the University of Munich. Since 1981 he has been teaching anthropology and Islamic Studies at different universities in Germany; in addition he had been a visiting professor at the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad (National Institute of Pakistan Studies), National College of Arts in Lahore, and Ohio State University in
Columbus, OH/USA. He has been conducting ethnographic fieldwork in Pakistan (for instance in Nager and Hunza/Karakoram, Indus Kohistan, Punjab and Sindh) on an annual basis since 1981.

He has written extensively on cultures of the Eastern Muslim world between Iran and India, focusing particularly on Pakistan. Many of his books and articles deal with Islam, Sufi tradition, veneration of Muslim saints, art and material culture, the anthropology of the body, social outsiders and facets of popular culture.