This book looks at the study of ideas, practices and institutions in South Asian Islam, commonly identified as 'Sufism', and how they relate to politics in South Asia. While the importance of Sufism for the lives of South Asian Muslims has been repeatedly asserted, the specific role played by Sufism in contestations over social and political belonging in South Asia has not yet been fully analysed.

Deepra Dandekar is an Associate Member of the Asia and Europe in a Global Context Cluster of Excellence at Heidelberg University, Germany , and works on Gender and Religion in Maharashtra.

Torsten Tschacher is Junior-Professor of Muslim Culture and Society in South Asia at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. His research focuses on the history of Tamil-speaking Muslim societies in South India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Malaysia.

Introduction: Framing Sufism in South Asian Muslim Politics of Belonging

Part 1: Producing and Identifying Sufism

1. Sufis, Dervishes and Alevi-Bektasis: Interfaces of Heterodox Islam and Nationalist Politics from the Balkans, Turkey and India

2. Who's the Master? Understanding the Religious Preceptors on the Margins of Modernized Religions

3. Islamic and Buddhist Impacts on the Shrine at Daftar Jailani, Sri Lanka

4. Longing and Belonging at a Sufi Saint Shrine Abroad

Part 2: Everyday and Public Forms of Belonging

5. The Politics of Gender in the Sufi Imaginary

6. The Everyday as an Enactment of the Trauma of Being a Muslim Woman in India: A Study of Two Artists

7. Who Is In? Who Is Out? Social vs Political Space in the Sufi Shrines of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai and Syed Pir Waris Shah in Sindh and Punjab, Pakistan

8. The Survival of the Syncretic Cults of Shirdi Sai Baba and Haji Ali despite Hindu Nationalism in Mumbai

Part 3: Sufi Belonging, Local and National

9. Abdul Kader Mukadam: Political Opinions and a Genealogy of Marathi Intellectual and Muslim Progressivism

10. From 'Rational' to 'Sufi Islam'? The Changing Place of Muslims in Tamil Nationalism

11. "Sindhis are Sufi by Nature": Sufism as a Marker of Identity in Sindh

12. The Politics of Sufism on the Ground: The Political Dimension of Pakistan's Largest Sufi Shrine

Part 4: Intellectual History and Narratives of Belonging

13. A Garden of Mirrors: Retelling the Sufi Past and Contemporary Muslim Discourse

14. "Islamic Renaissance", Sufism and the Nation-State: A Debate in Kerala

15. Mulla Vajhi's Sab Ras

16. Sufism in Bengali wa'z mahfils