-
2. An Other’s World: Healing at Husain Tekri Sharif
- Syracuse University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
≈ 57 2 An Other’s World Healing at Husain Tekri Sharif Carla Bellamy In contemporary India, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs commonly seek healing and intercession at the thousands of structures built in memory of notable Muslim individuals, chiefly Sufis and, to a lesser extent, martyrs. The most common Hindi/Urdu term for these structures is dargah, a word derived from the Persian noun meaning both “portal” and “court,” and Indian dargahs are indeed recognized by pilgrims as conduits of a divine power that can be accessed through rituals steeped in the language and symbolism of royal and legal courts. Non-Muslim patronage of dargahs begs the question of why Hindus in particular visit and venerate these dargahs in such high numbers, given that there exist Hindu shrines and temples—in particular those built to honor Hanuman and certain forms of the Goddess—that are widely recognized to offer relief from the same sorts of afflictions commonly treated at dargahs (Dwyer 2003; Kakar 1982; Nabokov 2000). In short, if Hindu venues exist for the treatment of illness, financial ruin, and familial problems, why do Hindus seek healing in Islamic venues? Peter Gottschalk (2000) has shown that some Hindus patronize dargahs because Hindus possessed by a malevolent Muslim spirit believe that the Muslim spirit will recognize only Muslim authority; Peter van der Veer (1992) has similarly speculated that Hindus in particular find dargahs effective places of healing because they see the shrines as polluted and therefore 58 | Attractive Boundaries (dangerously) powerful. In contrast to this view, the mainstream media and some scholars have suggested that a shared ritual vocabulary encourages cross-tradition patronage of these shrines (Bigelow 2004; Burman 2002); devotional religion in particular is often cited in this context (Jackson 1989). Alternatively, as the work of Tony Stewart (2004) has demonstrated, narratives about powerful religious figures such as Satya Pir, a Bengali saintly personage with both Hindu and Muslim aspects, reflect a worldview in which the malleable nature of narrative and the realities of everyday life have rendered exclusive, doctrine-based religious identities largely irrelevant; in such a world, the very question of why Hindus would patronize a Muslim institution does not take the local meaning of these categories into account. Along these lines, Joyce Flueckiger’s (2006) study of a female Muslim healer in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad has shown that in the context of religious healing gender divisions are often more meaningful and operative than the distinction between Hindu and Muslim. Several ethnographic studies of dargahs have supported the idea that mutually exclusive categories of Hindu and Muslim are not operative in dargah culture. Defending the idea of a sense of communitas in which pilgrims are united by the desire to challenge socially sanctioned collective identities, Shail Mayaram (1999) has suggested that dargahs are “microcosmic public spaces” in which individuals negotiate new identities (see also Lambek 1981). Jackie Assayag’s (2004) study of Hindu and Muslim participation in the ritual and everyday life of a Karnataka-based dargah makes a similar point, arguing in particular against the use of the term syncretism to explain Hindu–Muslim patronage of dargahs and proposing instead that adherents of both traditions have such extended histories of mutual influence and cooperation that the impermeable categories of “Hindu” and “Muslim” cannot reflect the reality of the practice of these two traditions. In this way, the argument implies, it is not accurate to categorize dargahs as Islamic institutions. The list of explanations for non-Muslim use of Muslim shrines as places of healing is, it seems, both extensive and varied, with scholars arguing that non-Muslims patronize dargahs because only Muslim saints can deal with Muslim spirits; because a ritually polluted place is the most effective place to combat a ritually impure invasive spirit; because shared ritual grammars and beliefs encourage non-Muslim participation in dargah life; and, [3.89.163.120] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 11:11 GMT) An Other’s World | 59 finally, because the rigid, impermeable categories of Hindu and Muslim are not operative on the level of local, lived religion in India. Dargah culture is highly complex owing to the diversity of its pilgrims and its participation in both local culture and subcontinental and global Islamic networks, and it is therefore not surprising that reasons for Hindus’ relationships with dargahs reflect a wide range of beliefs, practices, and worldviews. My ethnographic research at the northern Indian pilgrimage center of Husain Tekri does not disprove any of these arguments...