The Powerful Ephemeral

Bellamy, Carla:
The Powerful Ephemeral : Everyday Healing in an Ambiguously Islamic Place / Carla Bellamy. - Berkeley [u.a.] : University of California Press, 2011. - xxi, 282 S. : Ill., Kt. - (South Asia Across the Disciplines)
ISBN 978-0-520-26280-5
US$ 65,00 / £ 44,95 (Hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-520-26281-2
US$ 26,95 / £ 18,95 (Paperback)
DDC: 297.43554

Beschreibung
The violent partitioning of British India along religious lines and ongoing communalist aggression have compelled Indian citizens to contend with the notion that an exclusive, fixed religious identity is fundamental to selfhood. Even so, Muslim saint shrines known as dargahs attract a religiously diverse range of pilgrims. In this accessible and groundbreaking ethnography, Carla Bellamy traces the long-term healing processes of Muslim and Hindu devotees of a complex of dargahs in northwestern India. Drawing on pilgrims’ narratives, ritual and everyday practices, archival documents, and popular publications in Hindi and Urdu, Bellamy considers questions about the nature of religion in general and Indian religion in particular. Grounded in stories from individual lives and experiences, The Powerful Ephemeral offers not only a humane, highly readable portrait of dargah culture, but also new insight into notions of selfhood and religious difference in contemporary India. [Verlagsinformation]

Inhalt
List of Illustrations. ix
Acknowledgments. xi
Note on Orthography. xv
Prologue. xvii
Introduction. Ambiguity: Husain Tekri and Indian Dargah Culture. 1
1. Place: The Making of a Pilgrimage and a Pilgrimage Center. 31
2. People: The Tale of the Four Virtuous Women. 49
3. Absence: Loban, Volunteerism, and Abundance. 94
4. Presence: The Work and Workings of Haziri. 129
5. Personae: Transgression, Otherness, Cosmopolitanism, and Kinship. 172
Conclusion. The Powerful Ephemeral: Dargah Culture in Contemporary India. 215
Appendix A: Tarikh e Yusufi. 221
Appendix B: Husain Tekri Kya Hai? 223
Notes. 227
Glossary. 257
Bibliography. 259
Index. 269

Autorin

CARLA BELLAMY is Assistant Professor of South Asian Religion at Baruch College, New York. Profile page.

Quellen: University of California Press; Kinokuniya Bookweb; Library of Congress; Amazon; WorldCat