Book review: Kashshaf Ghani,Sufi Rituals and Practices: Experiences from South Asia,1200–1450

Kashshaf Ghani, Sufi Rituals and Practices: Experiences from South Asia, 1200–1450, 2024, 288 pp., Oxford University Press, ISBN: 978-0-19-288922-5 (Hardback)

The study of Sufism in South Asia has been enriched in recent decades by the effort to undo long-standing habits of dis-embedding Sufis from their cultural and political settings. Important corrections to the essentialising of ‘Islamic spirituality’ have come through interrogating the colonial and orientalist roots of such thinking; working to situate South Asian Sufi practice in relation to legal, literary and cultic traditions; exploring the shared and sometimes competing embodied worlds of Sufi, yogic and tantric religion; and providing detailed explorations of particular Sufi orders [silsilas] in their relation to ruling authorities and the ulama.

Kashshaf Ghani’s excellent new book is driven by the same set of concerns, and it bears noting at the outset that despite its title, Sufi Rituals and Practices is neither a broad nor a generalising overview of South Asian Sufism; rather, it is a focused investigation of two particular Sufi orders within which the spiritual exercises of zikr [recollection] and sama [audition or listening] found special emphasis in premodern South Asia, the Chishtis and the Suhrawardis. While the former order originated in Central Asia and the latter in Baghdad, both had penetrated South Asia by the twelfth century ce, and by that time, both had also embraced ‘the spiritual practice of remembering God’ [zikr] as central to devotional life (3). However, more than the Suhrawardis, the Chishtis were also ‘passionate’ in advocating the practice of listening as the chief means to ‘stir an intense desire for the Divine beloved in the heart of the listener’ (4). As Ghani notes, this put the Chishtis at the ‘eye of a legal storm’ (4), since the association of sama with both music and dance had led many thinkers to question its appropriateness. This was already a concern for the great intellectual Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali, who thought audition should be practised only by the most pious, God-directed of individuals. Among South Asian Sufi orders, the legitimacy of the practice was questioned by the Qadiris and Naqshabandis. However, the Chishtis remained committed to the practice, right down to the present day. Indeed, the book’s jacket copy refers to the widespread recognition today of the celebrated qawwali singer, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

While the devotional practices of zikr and sama have received important scholarly treatments, including both the translation of key texts and ethnomusicological studies of performance, the strength of Ghani’s book lies in its effort at contextualising these Sufi religious practices in an era when the Delhi Sultanate was expanding southward into the Deccan. In detailing the articulations and contestations around zikr and sama in both Delhi and the Deccan, Ghani attends closely to a range of hagiographical, doctrinal and expository texts. His special attention to the records of oral teachings [malfuzat] places the expansion of Sufi lineages in useful juxtaposition with the agendas of ruling courts and competing normative frameworks shaping South Asian Islam at the time. Scholars of Sufism are sure to welcome Ghani’s translation in Chapter 2 of the Usul al Sama (‘Principles of Listening to Music’) by the fourteenth-century Sufi scholar, Maulana Fakhr al-Din Zarradi (91–115). As Ghani shows, the very origin of this text speaks to the contested character of sama; its author originally made his name as a legal scholar and only came over to the practice of audition through the force of the great Delhi Shaykh, Nizam al-Din Awliya. In the Usul al Sama, Zarradi expresses his newfound commitment to the practice while promoting its legitimacy.

While the word ‘experiences’ features in its subtitle, Sufi Rituals and Practices is less an exploration of the subjectivities and spiritual outpourings of Sufi practitioners and more a thematic and historical overview of the disciplining and defence of these key practices as evidenced in the textual record. The book begins with an Introduction that situates patterns of practice and debate within the broader history of Sufism. Chapter 1 takes up the arrival of Sufism in South Asia and the enduring influence of Muin al-Din Chishti, who settled in Ajmer sometime in the twelfth century. In Chapter 2, Ghani turns to the influence of the ‘greatest patron saint of sama in South Asia’, Nizam al-Din Awliya (67). Here we meet Zarradi, whose Usul al Sama defends Sufis as following the sunnah of the Prophet even more than scholars of law and Hadith (88).

Chapter 3 commences with the death of Nizam al-Din in 1325 ce and the passing of a grand era of Chishti efflorescence in North India. The scene shifts to the Deccan, and Ghani marks the shift by noting that just prior to his death, Nizam al-Din had instructed his follower Burhan al-Din Gharib to follow the expansion of Muhammad bin Taghluq’s empire southward. Ghani then outlines sama within Burhan’s circle at Khuldabad, not far from the Deccan court of Daulatabad. With the death of Burhan al-Din in 1337, attention shifts to yet another arrival from Delhi, Gisu Daraz (Sayyid Muhammad Husayni), who Ghani reckons to be ‘the Deccan’s most charismatic Chishti Sufi’ (135). The practice of sama under Gisu Daraz is detailed, including the practice of ‘closed assembly’ [bandh sama] maintained by followers at his shrine in Gulbarga.

In Chapter 4, Ghani takes up both zikr and sama as shared practices among Chishtis and Suhrawardis. His purpose in stressing this point is to challenge what he takes to be the normative rather than historically accurate view that Suhrawardis were disinterested in sama. Contesting what we might call presentist understandings of Suhrawardi spiritual exercises, the author warns against projecting essentialised notions of bounded religious communities onto a premodern situation characterised by ‘deep respect and compassion among masters of different orders’ (169). One takes away from this chapter a sense for the fluid, interactive spaces of Sufism, wherein Suhrawardis in Delhi joined in Chishti sama, while under Gisu Daraz, the Deccan Chishtis helped propagate the practice of zikr.

The fourth chapter ends with a review of the norms of etiquette [adab] that Chishtis viewed as essential prerequisites for the proper practice of zikr, including repentance [tauba], calmness [eitmenan] and purity [taharat]. This sets the stage for Chapter 5, ‘Etiquette Is Key’. Like the translation of Zarradi’s Usul al Sama, this chapter marks another valuable contribution of the book, calling attention less to mystical ecstasies and more to the carefully regulated ‘sober self’ (208) necessary for appropriate spiritual practice. Exploring adab in this way allows Ghani to address issues like the need for proper reverence towards the shaykh, epitomised by the figure of Nizam al-Din. When Ghani turns to such Deccani teachers as Burhan al-Din and Gisu Daraz, he allows us to appreciate the care with which rules for conduct were framed and the proper expression of emotion managed; thus, for Burhan al-Din, weeping was considered the only acceptable display of emotion. Turning to Suhrawardi adab, Ghani speaks eloquently about the embrace of sobriety among advocates of sama. In so doing, he helps us remain alert to the framing of boundaries: while none other than Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi promoted sama, he also maintained a ‘measured proximity’ to assemblies that featured music and dance (247).

In his Conclusion, Ghani reviews the main objectives of the book, emphasising his goal to bring into view the rich, multilayered history of zikr and sama within two major Sufi orders. One might well read this short chapter early on, since it usefully maps the book’s objectives against its overall thematic structure. The utility of the book is amplified by the provision of spiritual genealogies for the Chishti and Suhrawardi orders, as well as a comprehensive glossary of terms. Overall, this is a tightly focused and illuminating book that should be welcomed by students and scholars eager to appreciate the historical development, regional localisation and textual contestations of Sufi spiritual disciplines in premodern South Asia.