Appealing to Sufi Orders and Shrines: The Case of Government Sufi Advocacy in Pakistan

Abstract

The history of Sufism in the Indian subcontinent spans centuries, and continues to be influential both in the spiritual and the political realm of society. Historically, as well as today, various groups are vying for “political authority” in the state (Rozehnal, 2007: 21). These political differences have also extended to the religious groups. For example, three of the main historical influences of most modern-day religious groups in Pakistan are the Deoband, the Ahl-e- Hadith, and the Sufis (Lieven, 2011). Anatol Lieven (2011) explains that “all the Sunni Islamist groups … are drawn from one of two traditions: the Deobandi, named after a famous madrasa founded in Deoband (now in Uttar Pradesh, India) in 1866, and the Ahl-e-Hadith (‘People of the hadiths’, or tradition attributed to the Prophet), a branch of the international Salafi… tradition, heavily influenced by Wahhabism, and with particularly close links to Arabia dating back to the original foundations of this tendency in the sixteenth century CE” (128). The Deoband message often rests on a notion of “a return to the pure teaching of the Quran and the Prophet” (Lieven, 2011: 128). Its influence can be seen with the Tablighi Jamaat and with Jamaat-Islami (JI) (Lieven, 2011: 129–130). The Ahl-e-Hadith (or the “Salafis”), while they also desire a return to the conditions that existed during the time of the Prophet Muhammad, do not have a major following in Pakistan, even though they trace their history back to the late 1900s (Zahab, 2009).