This essay examines modern states’ strategic destruction and patronage of Muslim shrines to consolidate majoritarian power. Drawing on Rian Thum’s notion of shrines as “durable sacred geography,” it conceptualizes shrines as active historical agents embedded in expansive transnational networks. Their extensive sacred geography enables shrines to persist as generative fulcrums that sustain meaning by bridging heterogeneous times and spaces despite tumultuous change. Challenging prevalent views of shrines as passive symbols, the essay delineates how the flexible reassembly of tradition across far-reaching networks empowers shrines to endure as pivotal arenas of ritual contestation from the medieval era into modernity. Their astounding continuity relies on mobilizing expansive geographies to creatively reconfigure tradition across eras.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Maharana Pratap Sena demands archaeological survey of Ajmer Sharif Dargah saying it was built on a Hindu temple. Opindia. Accessed August 15th, 2023. https://www.opindia.com/2022/05/ajmer-hindus-claim-moinuddin-chishtis-dargah-originally-a-temple/.
Rajapaksa pays ‘surprise visit’ to restored Buddhist stupa as nearby mosque remains under threat. Tamil Guardian. Accessed August 15th, 2023. https://www.tamilguardian.com/content/rajapaksa-pays-surprise-visit-restored-buddhist-stupa-nearby-mosque-remains-under-threat.
Meeting of the sovereign hearts at Ajmer Sharif. Financial Express. Accessed on 15th August 2023. https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/travel-tourism/meeting-of-the-sovereign-hearts-at-ajmer-sharif/2659682/.
Amin, Shahid. 2016. Conquest and Community: The Afterlife of Warrior Saint Ghazi Miyan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bigelow, Anna. 2010. Sharing the Sacred: Practicing Pluralism in Muslim North India. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burman, J.J. Roy. 1996. Hindu-Muslim Syncretism in India. Economic and Political Weekly 31: 1211–1215.
Carse, Ashley, Townsend Middleton, Jason Cons, Jatin Dua, Gabriela Valdivia, and Elizabeth Cullen Dunn. 2023. “Chokepoints: Anthropologies of the constricted contemporary.” Ethnos 88(2): 193–203.
Chaiwat Satha-Anand. 2005. The Life of This World: Negotiated Muslim Lives in Thai Society. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Academic.
Eaton, Richard M. 2019. India in the Persianate Age: 1000–1765. London: Penguin UK.
Green, Nile. 2004. Oral Competition Narratives of Muslim and Hindu Saints in the Deccan. Asian Folklore Studies 63/2: 221–242.
Habib, Irfan M. 1960. The Political Role of Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi and Shah Waliullah. In Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 23: 209–223.
Ho, Engseng. 2006. The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility Across the Indian Ocean. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Liow, Joseph Chinyong. 2008. Iron Fists without Velvet Gloves: The Krue Se Mosque Incident and Lessons in Counterinsurgency for the Southern Thai Conflict. In Treading on Hallowed Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations in Sacred Spaces, ed. C. Christine Fair, and Sumit Ganguly. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 177–199.
McGilvray, Dennis B. 2004. Jailani: A Sufi Shrine in Sri Lanka. In Lived Islam in South Asia, ed. Imtiaz Ahmad and Helmut Reifield. New Delhi: Social Science Press: 273–290.
McKinley, Alexander, and Merin Shobhana Xavier. 2023. The Deconstruction of Dafther Jailani: Muslim and Buddhist Contests of Original History in Sri Lanka. History of Religions 62/3: 254–283.
Moin, A. Azfar, and Alan Strathern 2022. Sacred Kingship in World History: Between Immanence and Transcendence. In Sacred Kingship in World History: Between Immanence and Transcendence, ed. Azfar A. Moin and Alan Strathern. New York: Columbia University Press: 1–31.
Moin, A. Azfar. 2015. Sovereign Violence: Temple Destruction in India and Shrine Desecration in Iran and Central Asia. Comparative Studies in Society and History 57/2: 467–496.
Pandey, Gyanendra. 1994. Modes of History Writing: New Hindu history of Ayodhya. Economic and Political Weekly 29: 1523–1528.
Pandey, Gyanendra. 2006. Routine Violence: Nations, Fragments, Histories. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Pollock, Sheldon. 2006. The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sayyid S. and AbdoolKarim Vakil. 2011. Thinking through Islamophobia: Global Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press.
Thum, Rian. 2014. The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Yolacan, Serkan. 2017. Order Beyond Borders: The Azerbaijani Triangle Across Iran, Turkey, and Russia. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Duke University, Durham.
Ziad, Waleed. 2021. Hidden Caliphate: Sufi Saints Beyond the Oxus and Indus. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 583 | 133 | 13 |
| Full Text Views | 70 | 14 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 245 | 38 | 0 |
This essay examines modern states’ strategic destruction and patronage of Muslim shrines to consolidate majoritarian power. Drawing on Rian Thum’s notion of shrines as “durable sacred geography,” it conceptualizes shrines as active historical agents embedded in expansive transnational networks. Their extensive sacred geography enables shrines to persist as generative fulcrums that sustain meaning by bridging heterogeneous times and spaces despite tumultuous change. Challenging prevalent views of shrines as passive symbols, the essay delineates how the flexible reassembly of tradition across far-reaching networks empowers shrines to endure as pivotal arenas of ritual contestation from the medieval era into modernity. Their astounding continuity relies on mobilizing expansive geographies to creatively reconfigure tradition across eras.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 583 | 133 | 13 |
| Full Text Views | 70 | 14 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 245 | 38 | 0 |