Sufi Women, Embodiment, and the ‘Self’: Gender in Islamic Ritual 9780367374006, 9781032430737, 9780429353574

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Salikun journey begins
Chapter 2 From theory to practice
Chapter 3 The inner Islam: An overview of Sufism and Sufi notions of the body
Chapter 4 Dancing with God: Hadra as sacred dance and cultural embodiment
Chapter 5 ‘De-code’ hadra: Body movement analysis of the ritual practice
Chapter 6 Symbolic embodied practice: The Sufi ‘mystical body’ and women’s religious identity
Chapter 7 ‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice and hadra performance, the embodied experience
Chapter 8 The salikun journey ends
Bibliography
Glossary of terms
Index

Citation preview

Sufi Women, Embodiment, and the ‘Self’

This book is an ethnographic case study of Sufi ritual practice and embodied experience amongst female members of the Naqshbandi community. Drawing on fieldwork in Cape Town, South Africa, and Lefke, Cyprus (2013/2014), the author examines women’s experiences within a particular performance of Sufi tradition. The focus is on the ritual named hadra, involving the recital of sacred texts, music, and body movement, where the goal is for the individual to reach a state of intimacy with God. The volume considers Sufi practice as a form of embodied cultural behaviour, religious identity, and selfhood construction. It explains how Muslim women’s participation in hadra ritual life reflects religious and cultural ideas about the body, the body’s movement, and embodied selfhood expression within the ritual experience. Sufi Women, Ritual Embodiment, and the ‘Self’ engages with studies in Sufism, symbolic anthropology, ethnography, dance, and somatic studies. Contributing to discussions of religion, gender, and the body, the book will be of interest to scholars from anthropology, sociology, religious ritual studies, Sufism and gender studies, and performance studies. Jamila Rodrigues is a dance anthropologist currently working in Japan. She was awarded a JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) fellowship to conduct research on Japanese women and well-being during times of crisis hosted by the International Research Centre in Kyoto (Nichibunken).

Sufi Women, Embodiment, and the ‘Self’ Gender in Islamic Ritual Jamila Rodrigues

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Jamila Rodrigues The right of Jamila Rodrigues to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 9780367374006 (hbk) ISBN: 9781032430737 (pbk) ISBN: 9780429353574 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9780429353574 Typeset in Sabon by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction 1 The Salikun journey begins

vi vii 1

2 From theory to practice

26

3 The inner Islam: An overview of Sufism and Sufi notions of the body

45

4 Dancing with God: Hadra as sacred dance and cultural embodiment 67 5 ‘De-code’ hadra: Body movement analysis of the ritual practice 78 6 Symbolic embodied practice: The Sufi ‘mystical body’ and women’s religious identity

94

7 ‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice and hadra performance, the embodied experience

114

8 The salikun journey ends

139

Bibliography Glossary of terms Index

149 167 169

Acknowledgements

This book was possible due to the financial support provided by a full Vice Chancellor scholarship. I am truly thankful to the Graduate School at the University of Roehampton for conceding this award and to my supervisors Stacey Prickett and Ann R. David at the Department of Dance for supporting my project. I am thankful to the Centre for Contemporary Islam at Cape Town University and to Prof Tayob and Prof Sadi’yya Shaikk for their support and allowing me to access other sources of literature material that helped with this research. I owe my deepest gratitude to the Naqshbandi Tariqa and the Sufi women in Cape Town and in Cyprus who made part of this research project. Their patience, kindness, generosity, and willingness to answer my questions enabled the conclusion of this investigation. I would like to express my very special thanks to the following people: To Melina Scialom for her friendship, to help see through my stubbornness, and for helping me in many aspects of my academic life. To Stacey Prickett who motivated me to apply for a scholarship and pursue this research. Without her initial support, I would have not been able to succeed. To Johanna Higgs for her help with editing. Without her input, this book would have been much narrower. I would like to thank the kind reader who opens the pages of this book. Thanks for giving me the chance to share my thoughts with you.

Introduction

I will begin this Introduction by positioning my personal interest in Islam, Sufism, and Muslim women’s bodies. My name is Jamila Rodrigues. I was given the first name in Arabic, but my surname is Portuguese. I was born in Portugal, and in my early twenties I moved to South Africa. My ancestry is Moroccan (from my mother’s side) and Portuguese (from my father’s side). I was raised based on Christian rules, mainly to do with the predominant Christian side of my family and social integration in the Portuguese mainstream community. By the age of 14, I went to Morocco for the first time with my parents and felt emotionally connected to a part of my familial ancestry that I knew little about. My interest in Islam was formulated not only due to my family background but also due to the socio-political context of the country where I was raised, and my professional life as a dancer. Let me unpack this idea. In current times, Islam in Portugal is still often regarded as socially closed, violent patriarchal, and oppressive towards women, and receives little attention from mainstream Portuguese society. I see this idea of ‘Islamic extremism’ as an expression of a modern political movement, particularly influenced after the aftermath of the terrorist attack of 11 September or the Paris attacks in 2015, for example. Muslims in many parts of the West still face discrimination, which is portrayed in Western media, and mostly connected to negative propaganda. Thus, what resonated most with me in confronting this distorted reality was the fact that Islam spoke to humankind that wanted human agency in the quest for social justice and women play an important role within Muslim communities. I had trouble accepting that many societies, particularly Western societies, saw Muslims as socially marginalised, and assumed that all Muslim women were submissive and uneducated. However, the focus of this book is not on Islamic feminism, neither on patriarchy notions within Islamic or Sufi tradition as I will discuss later. Rather, I am interested to unpack and explore concepts of gendered embodied selfhood and body movement expression in Sufi rituals. As a dancer I was trained to use my body as a tool of expression and learned how to analyse body movement and interpret it in several contexts,

viii Introduction i.e. in a dance performance, or a dance therapy session, with my dance students, watching a ritual practice that involves movement and so on. I wanted to apply my dance skills in the context of Sufism ritual practice, particularly in the ritual of hadra. I wanted to know how the body movement in ritual practice is meaningful or valid, according to the Sufi women who chose to discuss this practice. My academic, dance, and personal interest in Muslim women and embodied ritual practice aims to understand the faithfulness of the relationship between cultural and social awareness, and spiritual commitments. This is in part the reason why I decided to write a book about Sufism, gender, body, and embodied ritual practice. With this said, there are significant terms, which need to be defined. The terms are Islam, Sufism, selfhood, and culture. Here, I begin by discussing the term Islam, the term Sufism, and selfhood. Chapter 2 addresses the term culture within the methodology and framework contexts that shaped this book. Islam. Islam is a complex and multifaceted religion that calls for submission, surrender, and being docile to one God, and Muhammad – peace be upon him – is their prophet. It is important for the reader to understand that the term ‘Muslim’ refers to Islamic religious identity and the term ‘Sufi’ refers to a Muslim who follows Sufism, meaning, whereas a Sufi is Muslim, not every Muslim is Sufi. The name of God is Allah, which simply means ‘the God’. The word Allah is derived from al-ilah, abbreviate to Allah by frequent use. The Qur’an is the book followed by Muslims, which is seen as the literal word of God. The first fundamental belief in Islam is the belief in the unity of God. Muslims believe that the core out of which everything is derived in Islam is the unity of God, based on the Qur’an text God has not partners (Q. 6:163), God is not born, nor does God give birth (Q. 122:3). This idea is formalised in the first and core section of the faith, the shahad: There is no god but God. The second core is the belief in angels. Qur’an stories when God created Adam to a status in some ways higher than angels (Q.7: 11–28). In Islam, angels like Gabriel (jibril) and Michael (mikal) are created from light; others like Iblis was created by fire and seen as an evil angel. The third core is the belief in prior revelations and prophets. Muslims acknowledge the holy status of prophets prior to Muhammad. In fact, the Qur’an refers to 25 prophets, covering Adam, Moses, Isaac, Ibrahim, Jacob, David, Solomon, and Jesus, for example. Yet, Islam teaches that Muhammad was the last in line with these inspired prophets. The fourth is the belief in the final judgment. The Qur’an mentions that all creatures will be brought to a final judgment, which will determine eternity in paradise or sentence to hell. Examples are shown in verses of the Qur’an that mentions only God knows when the judgment will occur, either very soon (Q. 21:1) or suddenly (Q. 6:31). The last and fifth core is the belief in predestination and the divine decree. Muslims refer to it as the issue

Introduction  ix of God’s power and decree. According to the Qur’an, God controls time and thus determines the length of the night and day (Q. 73:20) and stresses the unconditional power of God. In other words, the fate of all occurrences, good and bad, has been determined to the extent that all has been written in a primordial book even before creation (Q. 57:22) that says, ‘The keys of the unseen are with Him’. The five Pillars of Islam that resume Islamic faith and practice are known as witnessing (shahadatayn) which testifies that there is but one divinity that created the Universe and has absolute power and that Muhammad – may peace be upon him – is the prophet of God. This idea is resumed in the phrase there is no god but God or in Arabic la ilaha illallah umuhammadun rasulullah. The second is the prayer or salat, which consists of five daily prayers, obligatory to all Muslims. This is different from du’a, which is a personal additional prayer, not required but encouraged. The third pillar is known as required giving; (zakat) is the giving of alms to the poor and needy, and it is obligatory upon every Muslim of sound mind and financial means. The fourth is fasting, or sawn, which is well known to non-Muslims and lasts for a month. From dawn to sunset Muslim refrain to eat, drink, smoke, and have marital relations; this is an exception for pregnant women, women during menstruation, sick people, and children. The last pillar is called Hajj, the Pilgrimage to Mecca, which is required once in a lifetime for Muslims who have the physical and financial means to do this. This pilgrimage is to Muslims the most important spiritual ritual act of Islamic faith. While the focus of this book is on Sufism rather than general Islam, still, the two are closely associated because Sufism emerged out of Islam’s theological, geographical, historical, social, and cultural contexts. Sufism. The term Sufism refers to the mystical dimensions of Islam, in both Sunni and Shi’i versions. The followers of Sufism are called Sufis. Here I am reminded of anthropologist Gabriel Marranci who maintains, ‘It is not Islam that shapes Muslim, but rather Muslim who, through discourses, parties, beliefs, and actions, makes Islam’ (Marranci 2008: 15). With this in mind, a Sufi is, therefore, a Muslim that follows a discourse, a practice, belief, and behaviour that goes according to Sufism’s theological thinking and practice. Sufism is not a monolithic religious system. It consists of various ritual praxis and Sufi ‘orders’ (tariqa), comprising a multiplicity of understandings and local expressions. There are several Sufi groups around the world. Sufi orders like Yassaviya, or the well-known Turkish-originated Mawlaviyya, the Kubraviyya, and the Chistiyya that spread towards India and is now the largest Sufi community in the world are just a few examples (Sultanova 2011). A Sufi community can be seen as a group of people who define their religious identities through their affiliation to different expressions of Sufi praxis and whose interpersonal connections are based on religious,

x Introduction affective ties, and personal interest sanctioned by and manifested through Sufism. Sufism has been defined as the search, or quest, for a direct intimate experience with God (Schimmel 1978). The aim of Sufism consists of a long process of initiation into the mystical pathway (tariqa), which is done under the spiritual guidance, and surveillance of a Sufi Master, or Sheikh. Sufis base their pious identity on the experience of mystical states that are induced through the body and body movement in ritual practices, and hadra is one of them. Yet, not everyone who attends hadra is Sufi. In Cape Town and in Lefke, it was common to see Muslims who are not Sufis attending the ceremonies, as invited guests or curious about Sufism as I will explain in better detail in Chapter 2. Selfhood. In this study, I use the term ‘selfhood’ based upon an anthropological perspective in which ‘selfhood implied feeling, and acts of feeling implied the presence of a self’ (Desjarlais 2011: 408). An embodied selfhood is perceived as a representation of the state of an embodied subject at any point in time. In relation to hadra and its embodied praxis, selfhood is seen as the coming to know oneself, the manners by which Sufi women projects towards the world, as well as by the religious and cultural conditions that inform women’s values embedded within it. There are many misconceptions about Islam. One of them concentrates on male domination in Islam. As many recent studies expose, women’s status and roles in Muslim groups are a function of several factors, including patriarchal structures and gender relations, which often are culturally patterned rather than religiously shaped (Shaikh 2012). Further, the Qur’an stands that the woman is as vital to life as man and that she is not inferior to him in any matter. Had it not been for the influence of foreign cultures and influences, this question would have never arisen amongst the Muslims. Islam gives women’s rights and privileges, and this can be understood when this topic is addressed in a comparative manner, rather than partially. I am aware that issues around Islam, Sufism, and gender have been engaged with, argued about, problematised, negotiated, and re-negotiated in varying ways throughout academia. For example, in Islamic feminism (Hoel 2013) scholars maintain that Muslim women’s veiling has become a politicised symbol of identity, forming unity and difference, and it has been used as a mode of confrontation face to western cultural norms. The most striking case is happening now in the fall of 2022. The world is witnessing Iranian women (and men) position themselves as agents of social change by taking off over the streets as a sign of protest over the death of a young Kurdish-Iranian woman who was detained by the morality police for allegedly wearing her mandatory Islamic veil too loosely. These recent events show that are not passive, and fighting against the government for women’s rights is nothing new. On the contrary, demonstrations against the new rules date back to 1979 and then in 1980 when compulsory wearing

Introduction  xi of the hijab was officially implemented, sparking demonstrations by women dressed in black attire as a symbol for their loss of freedom. This Western ethnocentric gaze is problematic, and Islamic body politics is altered in ways that prove the susceptibility of Muslim women, hardly measured against western norms of gender performativity and expression. Ideas of forced marriages or female genital mutilation are often linked with Islamic ‘normative practice’ in the western imagination. These reductionist ideas endorse western general suppositions on Muslim women’s marginalised position in Islam (Shaikh 2012). The numerous realities of gender dynamics in Islam are as complex as the realities of any other women in other religious, cultural, or political contexts. This book does not intend to engage with feminist theories and or Islamic feminism, although the legitimation of patriarchy has been a heated topic of debate since the early 20th century and continues to be so with the legacy and politics of colonialism and orientalist narratives of Islam (Shaikh 2012). I appreciate and recognise the importance of scholars who argue for the need of feminist scholarship that takes Islam as a source of legitimacy and confronts patriarchy from within the tradition. However, as previously mentioned, the focus of this book is not on Islamic feminism, nor on patriarchal notions within Islamic or Sufi tradition. Rather, I am interested to unpack and explore concepts of gendered embodied selfhood and body movement expression in Sufi rituals and use dance studies, anthropology and religion studies, and a somatic approach, as I will keep referring throughout this book. This book is an ethnographic study of Sufi ritual practice and its embodied experience amongst the female members of the Naqshbandi community in Cape Town, South Africa. I explore and analyse a Sufi ritual named hadra, a religious gathering composed of the recital of the sacred text, music, and body movement where the ultimate goal is for the individual to reach a state of intimacy with God. In Cape Town, Sufi men and women attend hadra rituals that happen on a Monday and Sunday night in two different houses of family members of the Naqshbandi community. All members engage in reciting the sacred prayer called dhikr and follow music, alongside body movement such as body rocking backwards and forwards, head turning from side to side, or the right hand hitting against the chest for example. Hadra follows a circulatory spatial formation where men are separate from women. Although one of the houses holds this ritual since 2009, the practice was formally introduced and ordered by the local representative Sheikh Yusuf da Costa in 2011. Hadra has become a valued and fundamental part of the Sufi ritual life of the Naqshbandi members in Cape Town, and members often refer to the ritual as something they look forward to and treasure being part of. The basis of this study is the in-depth ethnographic research, which took place in Cape Town in 2013 and 2014. The framework of this book combines an anthropological approach based on Sufism and anthropology,

xii Introduction symbolic anthropology, as well as somatic studies, and includes theory and understanding of Islamic Sufism history and theology. Ethnographic materials concentrate on Sufi female members and their individual discussion about hadra embodied experience. It explores topics concerning Sufi ideas of body and soul, body movement expression, religious symbolism, embodied pious identity, and gender selfhood expression within the context of Sufism and its practice in Cape Town. It also explains how women’s participation in hadra ritual life in Cape Town reflects religious and cultural ideals about body and body movement expression within the ritual experience. By exploring Sufi women’s discourses about hadra, this book reveals how the borders between doctrinaire norms and subjective modes of attending and making sense of the body and ritual bodily experience can shift, change, and cohabit with each other. Firstly, this book provides a historical and theological background of Sufism and explains in detail the core and the aim of Sufi hadra from its theological perspective. It attends to the components of the ritual in external structural form, space, text, music, and rhythm and describes the visual body movement that occurs during the praxis. It also discusses hadra from an anthropological perspective and demonstrates how Sufi praxis and body movement are interconnected to cultural values that are learned and shared by communities. Thus, women’s body movement expression visibly adopts religious and cultural norms and grants Sufi women a sense of religious communal belonging. Second, it examines notions of the body and analyses women’s discourse about this topic in relation to the ritual experience. I argue that Sufi women tend to follow a culturally embedded Sufi notion that seems to disregard the body for complete surrender to God. Third, it discusses hadra and its symbolic value and analyses Sufi women’s notions of symbolic ritual embodiment as marks of individual pious identity and a sense of religious communal belonging. It argues that the attached symbolism of this practice is what allows women to justify speaking of the body and its importance as a mere tool to serve spiritual ritual purposes. I argue that women’s embodied selfhood expression tends to be represented through a sense of pious identity rather than attending to the body and bodily knowledge. Lastly, this study argues that hadra is a platform where somatic processes of attending to the mind and body relationship are present. Thus, it defines hadra’s three stages in relation to internal and external features that are described by women and interprets how these inner and outer elements women speak of can be considered a somatic process, which I claim Sufi women in Cape Town are experiencing. Data analysis suggests that hadra is a platform for selfhood expression, which is also lived, and experienced by women as a soma, by this I mean, ‘any individual embodiment of a process’ (Hanna 1980: 31). Sufis stress the importance of the body with religious experience and understand that the connection they seek can only be achieved through

Introduction  xiii so-called ‘mystical exercises’ that are performed through the body. If this is the case, the intense focus of the Sufi on the body, its religious and cosmic qualities, makes the study of ritual embodiment an ideal place to understand how Muslim female bodies are perceived and articulated in Islamic cultures and beyond.

1

The Salikun1 journey begins

I am at Claremount on a Sunday night where the brothers and sisters of the Naqshbandi are about to perform hadra. I sit next to women and as the hadra develops, I gently move and sit back to observe my surroundings. The body stands still. Knees bend, head down, hands up. The body receives. The head turns, searching, for a blessing, for the spirit, and the body moves subtly from side to side on the rhythm of the heart, that opens … to Allah. Bismillahi ar-raham ar-rahim. The hands open to receive while the eyes are kept closed, talking to God. The bodies are tired after reciting, sitting, moving, receiving the energy within the meaning of the words. Women are beautiful as they smile with their eyes open, looking beyond what one can really see. This is hadra. (Fieldwork notes from Cape Town, 2014)

Introduction This book is an anthropological and ethnographic case study of the Sufi ritual named hadra and the embodied experience of this practice amongst Sufi Muslim women from the Naqshbandi Tariqa2 in Cape Town, South Africa. Fieldwork research was conducted at the Naqshbandi home base in Lefke (Cyprus) in July 2013 and in Cape Town from February to June 2014. Hadra is referred to in Sufism as a ritual gathering and an act of worship where devotees take part by reciting a particular prayer called dhikr while at the same time they engage in certain body movements or gestural postures that are aimed to assist them into a state which they referred to as ‘intimacy with God’ (interview with Wanda3 2014). The basis of this book is in-depth ethnographic research, and the framework of this study combines an anthropological approach based on Sufism and anthropology, symbolic anthropology, and somatic studies. This book follows a theoretical approach in anthropology and uses studies in symbolic anthropology (Csordas 1993, 2004), dance anthropology (Grau 2011), Sufism and anthropology (Pinto 2002; 2010), and somatic studies (Bacon 2010), which support the analysis and examination of gendered selfhood DOI: 10.4324/9780429353574-1

2  The Salikun journey begins expression constructions through the practice of hadra. It includes theory and understanding of Islamic Sufism history and theology. Ethnographic materials concentrate on Sufi female members and their individual discussion about hadra embodied experience. This book explores topics concerning Sufi ideas of body and soul, body movement expression, religious symbolism, embodied pious identity, and gender selfhood expression within the context of Sufism and its practice in Cape Town. It explains how women’s participation in hadra ritual life in Cape Town reflects religious and cultural ideals about body and body movement expression within the ritual experience. By exploring Sufi women’s discourses about hadra, it reveals how the borders between doctrinaire norms and subjective modes of attending and making sense of the body and ritual bodily experience can shift, change, and cohabit with each other. It provides a historical and theological background of Sufism and explains the core and the aim of Sufi hadra from its theological perspective. It attends to the components of the ritual in external structural form, space, text, music, and rhythm and describes the visual body movement that occurs during the praxis. This book also discusses hadra from an anthropological perspective and demonstrates how Sufi praxis and body movement are interconnected to embodied cultural values that are learned and shared by communities. Thus, women’s body movement expression visibly adopts religious and cultural norms and grants Sufi women a sense of religious communal belonging. It examines the notions of the body and analyses women’s discourse about this topic in relation to the ritual experience. I argue that Sufi women tend to follow a culturally embedded Sufi notion that seems to disregard the body for complete surrender to God. This idea emerges from women’s discussion about hadra and its symbolic value as embodied marks of individual pious identity and a sense of religious communal belonging. It argues that the attached symbolism of this practice is what allows women to justify speaking of the body and its importance as a mere tool to serve spiritual ritual purposes. Thus, women’s embodied selfhood expression tends to be represented through a sense of pious identity rather than attending to the body and bodily knowledge. An embodied selfhood is perceived as a representation of the state of an embodied subject at any point in time. In relation to hadra and its embodied praxis, selfhood is seen as the coming to know oneself, the manners by which Sufi women projects towards the world, as well as by the religious and cultural conditions that inform women’s values embedded within it (Csordas 2004). Finally, I will argue that hadra is a platform where somatic processes of attending to the mind and body relationship are present. To arrive at this conclusion, I define hadra’s three stages in relation to internal and external features that are described by women and interpret how these inner and outer elements women speak of can be considered a somatic process, which I claim Sufi women in Cape Town are experiencing. If this is the case, hadra

The Salikun journey begins  3 can be seen as a platform for selfhood expression, which is also lived, and experienced by women as a soma, by this I mean, ‘any individual embodiment of a process’ (Hanna, 31).

Personal interest: Sufism and the body My interest in Sufism and ritual emerged from an interest in understanding how Sufi ritual practices help women construct expressions of embodied selfhood and to question whether women related this experience merely to a religious or to a body and mind relationship. I listened to Sufi women’s stories and their verbalised ideas about hadra and its embodied experience, and then analyse their discourse through the lens of anthropology of religion and somatic studies. My journey into the Sufi was also influenced by a journey to Ethiopia in 2011 where I went to take time off to slowly recover from a car accident that occurred months before in the Namibian desert. During my stay in Ethiopia, not only I was looking for Sufism and its praxis but also I was trying to make sense of what had changed in my body and in my character due to this car accident. Being a dancer, I was learning how to deal with this experience that not only affected my physical but also emotional side of myself. I was watching and sensing the effects this event had on my life and learning how to embody my selfhood. To learn how to accept to live with the consequence of an unwanted experience invites you to revisit, reshape, and relearn your sense of self. It was this search for answers about my embodied selfhood that drew me to Sufism and its praxis. I wanted to understand Sufi ideas about the self, the body, and the role of body movement in their ritual praxis. Therefore, while traveling in Ethiopia and Somalia, I visited Sufi shrines and encountered Sufis with whom I had lively debates about the existence of the human being and the human body as a form of embodied spiritual devotion and connection. I wanted to understand how Sufis perceive the body, and how they embody religious values. Ultimately, because I am a woman, I wanted to understand how body movement helps women connect with their self and how would they relate ritual experience with a connection and an intimate moment with God. When I returned from Ethiopia, I decided to study ritual practices with a group of Sufi women in Cape Town where I was based, but I was ignorant about what practice would be appropriate and which group would be willing to accept me. Therefore, this idea was initially discussed with scholars in Islamic studies and Sufism and feminist studies at Cape Town University. Scholars Abdukalder Tayob and Sady’iia Shaikh are familiar with the Islamic and Sufi scenes in South Africa. They guided me during the earlier stages of this research. I decided to deepen my knowledge in religious studies and took a postgraduate course in sociology of Islam, critical terms of religion, and

4  The Salikun journey begins anthropology and Islam. This was a new and challenging academic territory for me since my background was in dance anthropology. At the same time, I engaged in discussions about my topic of research with scholars in Sufism and anthropology, and with colleagues in dance anthropology at the University of Cape Town, which then led me to formulate the areas of enquiry of this research. While in Cape Town, I searched for a group of Sufis who would be interested to participate in my research. I was introduced to a Sufi woman named Maika4 who belongs to the Sufi Naqshbandi group in Cape Town. After Maika enquired about my work and my intentions, she told there was a ritual called hadra, and openly invited me to attend and take part in it. I had visited Sufi rituals and seen hadra ceremonies before, but I never experienced being part of one, so I was excited and nervous at the same as I did not know what to expect from this experience. The following Monday night I was at Maika’s house, attending and taking part in hadra with the Naqshbandi group. What happened next was the beginning of my journey into the Sufi world. This study is therefore an ethnographic method of a combination of observing and participating in hadra. This research was based on formal and informal conversations with the community members that I will explain in detail that discusses the ethnographic methods and fieldwork experience. In a broader sense, this journey helped me better understand Sufism and its ritual practices as meaningful symbolic embodiment and sensorial manifestations of the female body in movement. On a personal level, I welcomed into my life a new way of thinking about Islam and how religious practices can promote an awareness of the body and mind relationship as well as creating moments of intimacy with the self. That became key to understanding the connection women have with Sufism, the Divine essence, and the meaning they gave to the body and the body movement in hadra. My curiosity opened a territory for an academic exploration of Sufi women’s experiences in hadra rituals in Cape Town. Thus, the next section contextualises Islam and Sufism in South Africa and introduces the Naqshbandi group and its community in Cape Town.

Islam and Sufism in South Africa Islam first made its appearance in South Africa in 1650 when Dutch colonists brought with them slaves and political prisoners from the Southern and Southeastern regions of Asia, the Bengal coast in India, and the Indonesian provinces of Makassar and Java. Among them were the first Imams (Muslim spiritual leaders), who became the pioneers in developing Islam in South Africa. Muslim communities in South Africa are divided into Asian descendants, who tend to concentrate in the cities of Johannesburg and Durban, while mixed Black African, Asian, and European descendants referred to as the ‘Cape Malays’, live in the Western Cape, particularly in and around Cape Town. According to Islamic history studies scholar John

The Salikun journey begins  5 Edwin Mason, the first group of Muslims to arrive in the Cape can be dated back as far as 1658, The first sizable group of Muslims to arrive at the Cape may have been Mardyckers from Amboyna in the southern Moluccas, who landed in 1658, only six years after the creation of VOC (the Dutch East Indian Company named Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) ‘refreshment station’ at Table Bay in 1652. (Mason 2002: 8) Sufism was then introduced in Cape Town in 1667 with the arrival of other Muslims, three Sufi Sheikhs named the Orang Cayen, or men of power (Mason 2002). Mason explains that the pioneers of Sufism in Cape Town welcomed different groups of people, from Muslims to non-Muslims, teaching them about Sufism and converting people to the Sufi path. the shaykhs quietly attracted followers from among the slaves and free blacks, instructed them in the tenets and practices of Sufism, and initiated them into their respective Sufi tariqa (literally, path or way; conventionally, order or brotherhood), thereby laying the foundation for Islam in the Cape. (Mason 2002: 9) Sufi rituals are visibly performed in Cape Town in our days such as the recital of the sacred prayer called dhikr, the ritual of hadra, or the ritual of ratiep,5 to mention only a few. However, it is beyond the scope of this book to present an in-depth discussion about Islam and Sufism in South Africa, I am aware of other scholars who contributed to the field (Davis 1992, Mason 2002, Tayob 1982, 2005). Sufis stress the importance of the body with religious experience and understand that the connection they seek can only be achieved through socalled ‘mystical exercises’ that are performed through the body. Thus, the intense focus of the Sufi on the body, its religious and cosmic qualities, makes the study of ritual embodiment an ideal place to understand how Muslim female bodies are perceived and articulated in Islamic cultures and religious ritual practices and beyond. In this book, I note that while performing hadra, women are simultaneously engaging with body movement, music, and text and the symbolism this ritual entails as well as internal factors that they describe breathing awareness, visions, or body felts sense of other people around for example. Further on, this book claims that this overall feature of embodied experience can be regarded as part of a somatic process, a way of attending to a body and mind relationship in relation to its religious action and function. All these mechanisms produce and express the many manifestations of Sufi’s

6  The Salikun journey begins complex religious identity and practice. Thus, hadra is at the core of women’s religious life experience in Cape Town, or as a Sufi member explained, ‘hadra is not a game. It’s a serious practice’. At the time of my fieldwork in Cape Town, Sufi men and women attend hadra rituals that happen on different nights in two different houses of family members of the Naqshbandi community. All members engage in reciting the sacred prayer called dhikr, and follow music, alongside body movement such as body rocking backwards and forwards, head turning from side to side, or the right hand hitting against the chest for example. Hadra follows a circulatory spatial formation where men are separate from women. Although one of the houses holds this ritual since 2009, the practice was formally introduced and ordered by the local representative Sheikh Yusuf da Costa in 2011. Hadra become a valued and fundamental part of the Sufi ritual life of the Naqshbandi members in Cape Town, and is often referred to as something they look forward to and treasure being part of.

About hadra During hadra the prayer of dhikr is recited as a composition of repetitive melodic words that evoke God’s love, the Prophet Muhammad, as well as the quest of the Sufis for God’s presence. The goal of hadra is to connect the individual to God. Sufis in Cape Town acknowledge this praxis as a ritual, or as one of the Sufi female participants describe, hadra ‘is a means to an end’. There is a music component of the ritual such as the recital of text and group chanting. The ritual entails body movement components such as body rocking backwards and forwards, head turning from side to side, or the right hand hitting against the chest. The ritual follows a circulatory spatial formation where men are separate from women. These elements that comprise hadra are discussed in detail in Chapters 4 and 7. Hadra has been described by Sufis in Cape Town, and in Sufism in general, as a ritual practice this book uses the term ritual in this context to describe something repetitive, a constant way of certain actions, gestures, or body movements. This is also used to describe religious praxis that involves constant movement, words, or actions in order to connect the individual or community to a Divine entity or entities. The term ritual in religious practice is a discussion that requires unpacking and will be dealt with in the following chapter.

The Naqshbandi and its community in Cape Town The Naqshbandi (or Naqshbandiyya) is linked to an initial lineage (silsila), which claims to reach back to the Prophet Muhammad6 (Algar 1976). The group was founded around the 14th century by Sheikh Baha al-Din who lived in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. They spread to other Eastern areas of Persia and Afghanistan, eastward to China and into the Balkans, as

The Salikun journey begins  7 well as Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia, and India. Ethnomusicologist Razia Sultanova (2011) discusses topics of Shamanism, Sufism and women, and religious practices, and conducted fieldwork research in the regions of the Ferghana valley. In the context of Sufism, Sultanova provides a useful historical description of the Naqshbandi group in the region of Central Asia. Sultanova informs that the Sufi group, Naqshbandi (Naqshbandiyya) is one of the major Sufi orders (Tariqah) of Islam. Formed at the end of the fourteenth century in the holy city of Bukhara, and based on the theories and practices of the previous orders (Yassaviya, Khajagon), the order is considered by some as ‘sober’, and known for its silent Zikr/Zikr (remembrance of God) rather than the vocalised forms of Zikr common in other orders. The Naqshbandi order is also notable as it is the only Sufi order to trace its spiritual lineage (silsilah) to the Prophet Muhammad through Abu Bakr, the first caliph. (Sultanova 2011: 33) Also, according to Naqshbandi spiritual leader, Sheikh Kabanni, the term Naqshbandi means ‘to engrave the Name of God in the Heart’ and is related to the idea of the individual who casts patterns upon cloth (Naqshbandi) to bond with God (Kabanni 2004). Yet, Sultanova informs that are other means of translation such as, ‘the image-maker’; some consider it to mean ‘pattern maker’ rather than ‘image maker’, and interpret Naqshbandi to mean ‘reformer of patterns’; others consider it to mean ‘way of the chain’ or ‘golden chain’. (Sultanova 2011: 32) In Cape Town, the background of this group is presented in two historical periods between 1694 and 1998, and from 1998 to the present. The first period marks the arrival of Shaykh Abū Yaqūb Yūsuf al-Ĥamadāni in 1694 and the establishment of the Naqshbandiyya Tariqa in 1934 by Sheikh Muĥammad Śāliĥ (da Costa and Davids, 2005). In 1998 the Naqshbandi, as it is known in Cape Town today, was founded by the Haqqani Foundation, which was established by the main spiritual leader of the group, Sheikh Moulana Nazim. During the same period, Sheikh Nazim appointed South African Yusuf da Costa, at the time of writing this book, as the spiritual leader. During the period of my fieldwork in Cape Town (2013/2014), I noticed that this Sufi community operates as a religious organisation that educates others about Islam and Sufism, predominantly in the poor areas of the region. The group received financial assistance from a Muslim group named South African National Zakah Fund to develop several community projects. These include teaching Islam in poor areas, catering services, and educational programmes, such as the An-Nisaa Ladies Project, which consists of

8  The Salikun journey begins a series of workshops on Islamic-related topics, led and directed by a few women from the community. To understand the broader context of this Sufi community, I was advised by Professor Sad’iiya Shaikh to travel to Lefke (Cyprus) to gain a better understanding of the Naqshbandi Sufi community worldwide. Lefke is the base of the Naqshbandi and was home of the main spiritual representative Sheikh Moulana Nazim. This field trip was important not only for data collection but also for establishing my position in the community in Cape Town, since travelling to Lefke has a great impact on the Naqshbandi members. Lefke brings together community members from all parts of the world in search of spiritual benefit, guidance, and physical closeness to their master. Lefke is also often visited by South African members and considered an important symbolic place of worship. A short-term (one-month) field research was conducted in July 2013 in Lefke, at the Ladies’ Guest House, and at the Dergah the spiritual house where hadra takes place. This trip provided direct access to observe hadra between South African Sufi women and the larger community, and to notice the relationship that female disciples maintain within the community and with their main spiritual leader. During my visit to Lefke, it emerges that there are links between the relationship Sufi women maintain with their spiritual leader and the praxis itself. Sufi women in Lefke discussed with me the experiences of participating in hadra as well as the importance of the relationship they maintain with their male spiritual leader, Sheikh Moulana Nazim. Some women claimed to have visions of the spiritual leader in their dreams, while praying alone, or during hadra. Some women referred to Sheikh Moulana as their ‘spiritual father’ or ‘spiritual friend’ and some admit to feel a profound love for him. It was obvious that this male figure was key for the embodiment process women experienced. This relationship and the power dynamics I observed during my stay in Lefke were something I sought to discuss in this book. I wanted to understand what roles male and female Sufi members play in the Sufi community and how Sufi women gain religious agency through embedded values and embodying a ritual form that is passed on from a male figure. What impact would this have on embodied experience? How did Sufi women speak about their male spiritual leader, and what ideas did they share about a maledominated practice? However, when I left Lefke and I was already back to fieldwork in Cape Town in April 2014, Sheikh Moulana Nazim passed away, and his loss was deeply mourned by the community worldwide, and by the members living in Cape Town. Some members in Cape Town decided to travel with their families to Cyprus to attend the funeral and the ceremonies in remembrance of Sheikh Moulana. Due to this sad event, from April onwards, women in Cape Town refrained from speaking about their relationship with the Sufi master, since it was a recent and painful event for them. They did, however, agree to interviews on other topics.

The Salikun journey begins  9

Hadra at the Naqshbandi Hadra has been introduced as part of regular Sufi practice amongst the Naqshbandi since 2007. The ritual was implemented by the main spiritual leader Sheikh Moulana Nazim and followers have been encouraged to practice it in other parts of the world. To explain how and why this ritual has been introduced to the community, I will draw on personal fieldwork notes and informal conversations during fieldwork in Cape Town and Lefke. Additionally, I will draw from the work of a scholar in Sufism and anthropology studies, Simon Stjernholm doctoral book, Lovers of Muhammad – A Study of Naqshbandi-Haqqani Sufis in the Twenty-First Century (2011). Stjernholm conducted fieldwork amidst the Naqshbandi communities in London and Cyprus throughout the period of 2007 and 2011. He analyses the ways in which the main spiritual leaders of the Naqshbandi have been actively involved in propagating peaceful imagines of Islam through Sufism particularly since 7 July 2005 bombings of the London transport network. Stjernholm’s case study is mainly focused on the high-ranking Naqshbandi spiritual leader Sheikh Kabanni and the mode in which the leader uses public media discussions with politicians to reach the worldwide Muslim communities and non-Muslim people. Although Stjernholm’s work does not focus on hadra, it still provides useful information about the way this ritual was introduced in the group and became an embodied symbol of Naqshbandi spirituality across the world. During informal conversations with Sufi women in 2013 and 2014, I was informed that the Naqshbandi introduced hadra in Cape Town in 2009, although I was not given an explanation on why there is a discrepancy between the times of the establishment of hadra in Lefke in 2007 and in Cape Town two years later. However, some women who belong to the group for a long period spoke about a particular imam7 based in Cape Town (also from the Naqshbandi) who has known to practice the ritual in his own house and with community members prior to this time. A Sufi woman informed me that during the years of 1999–2000, she and her husband attended dhikr and hadra practices at this imam house, she says ‘Friday nights were our congregational night of dhikr, but on Thursday nights that imam was doing hadra way before he entered the Tariqa’ (Riana 2014). Another woman named Nadia, who is now in her forties, told me about the first time she came across the practice. I went to something like, it was probably hadra, it was called the circle of remembrance, and I was probably in my early twenties, I went there with my uncles and my aunt. (Nadia 2014) Data reveals that some members knew of hadra as part of Sufi practice by other groups in Cape Town like for instance the Shadilli Tariqa. During my

10  The Salikun journey begins fieldwork research in 2013, I was not able to speak to imam although I have tried several times for an approach. In the worldwide community, Stjernholm explains that hadra was introduced in 2007. He explained: To give an idea of how fast changes can occur: in February 2007 when I visited the priory in London there was no hadra – in October the same year it had become an integrated part of the Thursday evening communal dhikr. Between these two visits of mine, I had understood that a change had occurred from watching videos posted on YouTube. (Stjernholm 2011: 163) Stjernholm suggests that the embrace of hadra in the Naqshbandi can be seen as a potential reaction to the wider context in which Sufism is now placed in the contemporary world. For Stjernholm, this implementation comes from a sense of Sufi groups trying to reach the community through an open practice that is recognisable as Sufi and goes in hand with the original practice of dhikr. He maintains, Hadra appears to make dhikr more accessible and easily enjoyed by the participants, and its inclusion by Shaykh Nazim and his murids can be seen as the next step to popularising dhikr. (Stjernholm 2011: 165) This recent implementation of hadra exemplifies how Naqshbandi spiritual leaders have responded and developed their original ways of practices in relation to contemporary Sufism (Stjernholm 2011). This idea suggests that practices like hadra as a new established form of ritual amongst the Naqshbandi can be regarded not only as piety embodiment but as signs of a position that leaders of the community have taken in regard to the wider Sufi world practice. In this sense, ritual practice differentiates Sufis from other Muslims, with different approaches to such rituals (Weismann 2007; Stjernholm 2011). Within this context, it is possible to suggest that boundaries between ritual forms or ritual behaviour in Sufism are not set, rather they become adaptable in regard to their wider social context. The development from the more orthodox form of practice like the silent dhikr to practices like hadra is not unique behaviour in the history of the Naqshbandi. According to Islamic studies scholar Tayfun Atay8 (1994), Naqshbandi communities in London have evolved from the silent practice to the communal loud recital of dhikr during the early 1990s (Atay 1994). In recent times, the development of the Naqshbandi and its practice, as Stjernholm suggests, ‘provides an illustrative example of how the practice of rituals develops and adapts in contemporary Sufism’ (Stjernholm 2011: 167).

The Salikun journey begins  11 When I met the community in Cape Town in 2011, I was only introduced to hadra at the house of Maika. In 2013, I attended another hadra established by the local representative Sheikh Yusuf da Costa, which is performed at the house of another Sufi member which I name Mahid. Within this context, I noticed that the implementation of hadra has become a valued and fundamental part of the ritual life of the Naqshbandi members in Cape Town. A Sufi woman named Tania expressed real participation in the ritual as the opportunity of ‘becoming high on it’ (Tania 2014). Either attending Maika’s or Mahid’s ritual members often refer to the hadra as something they look forward to and treasure being part of. From a dance anthropology perspective and my personal embodied experience of the praxis, I understand hadra as a platform that opens dialogues of space, rhythm, spirituality, religious bond, body awareness, and somatic approach, allowing space for these associations. As this book will reveal throughout the following chapters, these associations include patterns of value, symbolic movements, nonverbal expression, identity, bodily experiences, and somatic experiences. Within this context, I strongly believe that a study of body movement raises issues of Islamic ritual embodiment and Muslim women’s religious identity and selfhood expression. Thus, it becomes integral to understanding the ways in which these elements are culturally meaningful and specifically how they are meaningful to the Sufi women who embody them. Understanding culture and how it can make specific elements meaningful is crucial and will be explored in the next section.

Culture in anthropology Cultural studies scholars William B. Gudykunst and Stella Ting-Toomey suggest that there is no common agreement in defining culture, ‘when it comes to formulating an interdisciplinary definition which can be accepted across the diverse fields of study’ (Gudykunt and Ting-Toomey 1988: 27). This idea implies that ‘cultural’ as a term cannot be universally established; thus, the ways of thinking and perceiving what culture is vary. In this sense, Stuart Hall proposes that culture meaning is allocated throughout ‘the frameworks of interpretation which we bring to them’ (1997: 3). In anthropology, researchers look at the culture of different features that can include people’s belief, sharing knowledge, moral codes, law, tradition, kinship, and learned behaviours. Studying culture requires an interactive approach, much like the pieces of a puzzle fit together that constructs and organises the patterns or forms of life in societies. Because in anthropology culture embraces several components, scholar Larry L. Naylor proposes that the study of culture from an anthropological perspective,

12  The Salikun journey begins makes the field eclectic and very difficult to categorize in the usual social science, natural science, or humanities group normally found in academic environment. (Naylor 1999: 5) With this in mind, to study culture is to attend to the complexity of communal life and its behavioural patterns, which are interlinked to people’s daily life. Following this principle, the use of the term ‘culture’ as described by anthropologist Robert Murphy (1986) is useful: Culture means the total body of tradition borne by a society and transmitted from generation to generation. It thus refers to the norms, values, and standards by which people act, and it includes the ways distinctive in each society of ordering the world and rendering it intelligible. (Murphy 1986: 14) As Murphy proposes, culture involves a learning of set, of codified rules, or norms, and moral values that mark people or communities’ way of living. Additionally, Clifford Geertz uses a cognitive symbolic approach to define culture as, an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life. (Geertz 1973: 89) On the one hand, Murphy tells us those cultural factors such as tradition, moral meanings, and codes of conduct are set norms. Groups have established these norms so that people can follow these patterns as they construct their understanding of the world. On the other hand, Geertz suggests above that these patterns can be seen as embodied symbolical meanings by which people gain acknowledgement of themselves and between themselves. Geertz’s ideas are further applied to this study about Sufi rituals and their cultural way of living in Cape Town and consider how culture influences and helps Sufi women to make sense of their embodied religious experience as part of their daily life. Thus, an examination of Sufi practice through an anthropological perspective helps the researcher to understand how hadra is learned, structured, shaped, and culturally transmitted in the Naqshbandi community in Cape Town. Sufism as a cultural religious practice helps women to make sense of and solve daily life problems, and shape their ideas and system of values. Religious ritual practice is the platform for these culturally shaped behaviours to come alive, as I will discuss next.

The Salikun journey begins  13

Symbolic anthropology Symbolic anthropology deals with the interpretation of events that are embodied by the individual or group of people (Kottak 2006). Symbols, which are also present in religious practices, are learned and shared mechanisms of cultural knowledge amongst communities and interpretations of how ‘local people think’ (Kottak 2006) and act as anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski defined, Symbolism must make its appearance with the earliest appearance of human culture. It is in essence that modification of the human organism, which allows it to transform the physiological drive into a cultural value. (Malinowski 1957: 955) Symbols are a way of understanding how people think and act in the world since the beginning of humanity. Speaking of symbolism, Geertz focuses on people’s notions and interpretations of symbols and argues that people’s beliefs became ‘real-world’ within their own cultural systems, which are ultimately led by interpretation (Geertz 1973: 145). He suggests that while studying symbolism, the researcher should try to understand the participant’s ideas by positioning him or her in the same context. The researcher’s interpretation should be based on the ‘thick description’ (Geertz 1973) of a sign in order to see all potential values. Geertz uses the term ‘thick description’ to speak of data collection and its analysis as ‘our own constructions of other people’s constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to’ (Geertz 1973: 9). This suggestion is useful in the context of hadra as ritual. Sufi women in Cape Town discuss hadra through its symbolism and that influences their discourse about the practice and the relation to their bodies and the body movement. For instance, while women present a discourse that regards the so-called soul or spirit over the body during practice, I argue that the body cannot be merely the vessel that the spirit inhabits, and women’s religious lived experience is the key to accessing body knowledge. While women’s bodies unfold the symbolic embodied meaning, they also reflect women’s moral, and cultural values. This idea is unpacked in detail in Chapter 5. The stories Sufis tell and teach themselves about hadra and its meaning are one way to provide background for the embodied experience. Women’s discourse proves that there are always different angles attached to each term, idea, or value. I am also aware that their experience and the researcher’s perspective are just one way of defining hadra. Here I am reminded of Hanna’s idea that ‘the efficacy of religious practice depends upon the performer’s and spectator’s beliefs’ (Hanna 1988: 102). Thus, I also draw from a dance anthropological perspective and understand hadra to be an established, learned, embodied, ritualised formula; a source of knowledge; and a somatic process of body and mind experience. The following section addresses some relevant literature that helped to frame this idea.

14  The Salikun journey begins

State of art Few studies exist on Sufi women and embodied ritual praxis from anthropological and somatic studies perspectives. Anthropological studies in Sufism and embodied practice and Sufism and gender are developing in the academic field. There are some significant contributions to the advance of theoretical discussions about the various kinds of experiential aspects of different Sufi rituals involved. Examples from those who have studied Sufism and its embodied practice are found in studies conducted in regions like the Middle East, North Africa, and India. These examples resemble and support this case study on how demonstrations of embodied piety and selfhood expression are happening amongst the female members of the Naqshbandi Tariqa in Cape Town. In the regions of the Middle East (Gellner 1973) and North Africa,9 scholars studied how Sufi practice influences the political, social, and cultural movements of societies where Sufism appears to be present. Evans-Prichard’s studies on Sufi healing practices as a form of political value in Libya (Evans-Pritchard 1946; 1949), or Gellner’s analysis of Sufi faith religious practices in Moroccan tribal communities as important communal spiritual values and psychological relief, are good examples. There are also a growing number of publications examining Sufism and gender10 predominantly in the regions of the Middle East,11 Asia,12 Africa,13 and Europe.14 In the book entitled Sufism, Mystics and Saints in Modern Egypt, Hoffman (1995) explored the situation of Sufism present in Egypt and discussed topics of Sufi women and sexuality in Egyptian Sufi life. Hoffman mentions that the Egyptian Supreme Council of Sufi Orders officially bans female membership in the order in order to preserve the propriety and morality for mixing genders, which is already incumbent in Islam. However, Sufi women are still involved in Sufi activities. Although the rule is eminent in Egyptian society, Hoffman explains that women often participate in saint’s shrine activities, and also become disciples of sheikh and sheikhas (females sheikhs) in their own right; however, this is not officially recognised (Hoffman 1995). Sufism acts as a religious ‘alternative’ sphere where religious devotion is performed outside the regular domestic environment Sufi women are accustomed to. Hoffman argues that the apparent integration of Egyptian Sufism covers a flourishing movement hidden from the Western world, offering new insights into Sufism and its development in Egypt, the key role that women play in the making of religion and some of the Sufi perspectives on gender and sexuality. The anthropological study of Pina Werbner’s (2003) amidst the European (United Kingdom) and South Asia (Pakistan) branches of the Naqshbandiyya group of Zindapir focused on a politicised global transnationalism approach to the analysis of what she calls ‘Sufi cult’ and their practices, such as dhikr, healing rituals and or miracle performances in both Britain and Pakistan. Werbner is particularly interested in the life of the Pakistani Naqshbandi Master Pir Hazrat Shah and traces the expansion of the Sheikh’s network of

The Salikun journey begins  15 piety movement as a transnational effort to reach out to faithfuls in Europe, the Middle East, and Southern Africa. She also conducted interviews with Zindapir disciples and discuss their ideas about what she calls ‘charismatic man of action’ (p. 49). The ethnographic work of Shemeen Abbas (2003) Female Voice in Sufi Ritual: Devotional Practices in Pakistan and India investigates the role of Sufi women in Pakistan and India Sufism and the place of female voice (singers) in the narratives of male performers during Sufi rituals. She contextualises notions of gender in Sufi praxis in relation to the wider socio-cultural and economic background of women in India and Pakistan. She focuses on textual performance and aesthetic elements, which, she argues, inform gender roles in Sufi music performance. Abbas maintains that Sufi women have taken on active roles as performers during public demonstrations and their voices are key to the relationship between the supplicant (singer) and the Divine. Saba Mahmood’s ethnographic work Politics of Piety (2005) amidst Muslim women and mosques in Cairo investigates women’s piety movement in the Islamic movement in modern Egypt challenging feminist theory with questions concerning women and politics, religious agency, secular liberalism, and resistance for example. By exposing women’s narratives and their active participation in Islamic religious life in Cairo, Mahmood debunks notions of secularism from an anthropological point of inquiry. Speaking of religious embodiment, Mahmood notes that women’s pious demonstrations such as veiling or social conduct ‘do not serve as manipulable masks in a game of public presentation … rather they are the critical markers of piety as well as the ineluctable means by which one train oneself to be pious’ (Mahmood, 158). Her work is a valuable contribution to studies in Islam and women, challenging feminist theoretical frameworks by exposing a religious movement that serves as liberating Muslim women in Egypt and shifts ideas of agency within a male-dominated world. Perhaps the closets related work to this study is Dominguez Dias’s (2014) ethnographic study Women in Sufism: Female Religiosities in a Transnational Order which focuses on Sufi healing practices and women’s religious identities belonging to the Moroccan Sufi order Qa-diriyya al-Bu-dsh-ıshiyya. Dominguez discusses the transnational dimension and the development of the group from Morocco to Western Europe, Latin America, the United States, and Canada. Dominguez conducted fieldwork in Madgah (Morocco) and parts of Europe (France, Spain, the UK, and Belgium). Her study analyses the ways in which Sufi female discipline followers participate in the making of Islamic Sufi traditional discourses in their local and regional communities. Her study discusses topics related to gendering in religious praxis and its role in shaping Sufi women’s understanding of morality and normativity attending ideas of ‘corporeality’ as marks of embodied religious identity. She explores the ‘religious body in movement (i.e. pilgrimage), in performance (i.e. ritual) and in relation to the social order (i.e. notions of illness

16  The Salikun journey begins and health)’ (p. 2) and argues that embodied religiosities can be regarded as part of the dynamic exchange between the faithful and their social sphere. Although Dominguez’s work shares similarities with this study, her research places significant focus on the developments by which Qa-diriyya al-Budsh-ıshiyya Tariqa symbols and institutions are reinterpreted and modified to accommodate new social realities as part of a transnational movement. Also, Dominguez does not address the personal embodied experience of ritual practice or writes an autoethnographic experience on Sufi ritual practice as a somatic process. My study writes coherently on the way in which I perform to see hadra as a mechanism of somatic practice, since to my knowledge there is no scholarly work about hadra in this context of somatic practice in somatic studies. Arthur Saniotis’ (2012) work amongst Sufis at the Nizamuddin Auliya shrine in Delhi, India. He analysed the ways in which devotees regard mystical practices in relation to their bodies and how they attend aestheticism as a way of expressing religious commitment. At the Nizamuddin shrine, Sufis are characterised by the untamed hairstyle look, while others are known to use turbans. Some wear sackcloth, which relates to their renunciation of the domestic lifestyle. This particular group practices celibacy and regards women as ‘sexually dangerous’ (Saniotis, 70). Sufis’ distinct social behaviour is also marked by the way devotees embody their mystical practices in relation to the self, or the naf. Sufis believe that mystical practices, such as ritual fasting, chanting, prayer, and seclusion, allow them to gain control of the nafs’ (Saniotis, 72). In this manner, Sufis came to realise the aspects of their psyche, or ‘new ways of thinking and experiencing the body’ (Saniotis, 73). In Syria, Paulo Pinto (2016) analysed the practice darb al -shish (piercing the body with spears) amidst the Rifa’iyya Sufi group in Aleppo. He maintains that this praxis is a means of body display and embodied pious identity, and how rituals produce religious selves gifted with power as charismatic figures in the Sufi world. During darb al-shish the Sufi disciple needs to mobilise the correct cognitive framework and body techniques learned during his initiation into the mystical (Pinto, 204). For the Sufi, being chosen for this performance means that his body is an elected instrument for a Divine intervention to take place. For the Sufi in Aleppo, to embody dar al-shish as a religious act is ‘the existential ground for the doctrinal and ritual principles of Sufism’ (Pinto, 205). Public manifestations of embodied pious identity, combined with demonstrations of the Sheikh’s power and charisma, are what Sufis of the Rifa’iyya group defined as ‘the elite of religion in relation to the other residents in town’ (Pinto, 201). Hill15 reveals that in Senegal, Sufi women dispute the notion of maledominated religious authority and often assume the position of muqaddam (spiritual guide) despite prevalent assumptions that such religious authority positions are reserved to men, meaning that they can ‘actively cultivate, legitimate and practice religious authority’ (Hill, 39). Hill explains that

The Salikun journey begins  17 in the 1990s, a growing number of Taalibe Baay’ (disciples of Senegalese Sheikh Niasse) women became leading actors in their communities mainly to do with the popularity that Sheikh Niasse had amidst the community and his grant of religious authority to women. Yet, he notes that Sufi women in Senegal are both religious actors and attend to their domestic duties, these women ‘leaders describe acts of wifely submission as expressions of submission to God’s law (Sharta) and of their sincere desire to care for husbands and family’ (Hill, 382). Sufism in Senegal becomes a platform for women’s piety movements and issues of power exercised within patriarchal societies, revealing how women become powerful agents for cultivating and presenting themselves as moral beings in their respective societies. Kugle’s work Sufis and Saints’ Bodies: Mysticism, Corporeality, and Sacred Power in Islam (2007) analyses the perspectives of the body as imagined in Sufi communities in Morocco and the bodies of holy people in Sufism, saints, or spiritual guides. In a historiographical style, Kugle examines the role of these saints during medieval times as key figures in Islamic religious life, which often played the role of political leaders and moral examples (Kugle 2007). The scholar made use of feminist approaches and embodiment in religious studies to analyse the specific case of the Sufi female, Saint Sayyida Amina, and the symbolism of her belly. Kugle argues that Amina’s body is an example of a gendered body as a site of political, pious, and moral conduct in the early period of Islamic societies in Morocco (Kugle, 102). The example of Sufi Saint Amina and her belly was a symbol of procreation, sustenance, and human life. Kugle claims that during her life Saint Amina and her gendered body were the cause of debate regarding the patriarchal Muslim society in which she lived, and that her corporeal nature as female saint challenged such patriarchal values. The author claims the case of Saint Amina suggests that before the Muslim female can become a saint, she needs to be affirmed, or recognised by Islamic society. These examples show that it is relevant to deliberate on the intricate discourse amongst Muslim and non-Muslim communities, and the different socio-cultural and political spheres they operate, to debunk an often-generalised notion that all ‘Muslim women are victims of a general patriarchal society based on Islamic interpretations’ (Shaikh, 149). This suggests an investigation into how different societies operate and how Muslim women around the world actively participate in the making of culture, society, and traditions of Islam within their countries. In this context, this work contributes to studies conducted on Sufi praxis and gendered embodiment and analyses the ways of acting religious performance and the sense of self as means to agency. In Chapter 3, I discuss how although hadra is sometimes referred to in Sufism studies as ‘sacred dance’ form (Michon 2007: 174), this study chooses words such as body movement, gestural action, or corporeal action when referring to the sort of physical actions present during praxis. I am

18  The Salikun journey begins aware that in dance studies, the term ‘dance’ is also complex and subject to interpretation, as dance anthropologist Adrienne Kaeppler suggests, ‘dance is not a universal language’ (Kaeppler 1978: 310). What is considered dance in some cultural groups is not perceived as such in others. For example, dance anthropologist Andrée Grau suggests that when using the terms ‘dance’ or ‘dancing bodies’, one must be aware that those terms ‘cannot be accepted as universal concepts since they are embedded within typically western understandings, firmly rooted in a Kantian perspective of the body in space’ (Grau 2011: 5). For this reason, researchers interested in dance language as a means of cultural practice have long wrestled with the term. Taking Kaeppler’s and Grau’s ideas in mind, I agree that such terminology is already challenging. To label something as a dance form requires consideration of the context and the function (Royce 2002). In dance and anthropology studies, David (2013) conducted fieldwork within a UK-based community of Indian women that performs traditional Indian folk dance called garba (part of the Hindu religious festival Navrati). David proposes that to embody and experience the physical movements and actions of this ritual practice are ways of underpinning ‘concealed cultural codes and displays the conceptual thought and words that bind a community and in which their history, practices, beliefs, knowledge, and communications are held’ (David, 48). She suggests that such ritual practices can offer women a platform where ‘they can embody and perform the divine’ (David, 48) as ways of religious agency. Hindu worship becomes a doorway of performing and acquiring religious agency, ‘that is commonly taboo in the more orthodox Brahminical Hindu worship’ (David, 48). Similar kinds of meanings are also presented in this case study of hadra, and Sufi women’s verbalised ideas of their practices as means of embodied religious identity and selfhood expression. Ritual practice features like music, song, language, somatic, and kinetic realms of movement come together. Grau (2011) Who studied ritual practice amidst Tiwi people in Australia observed how this community gives particular emphasis to evocative song and text, and to cosmological aspects like kin and land. She maintains that the success of a ritual is understood not only through individual experiential performance but also through group participation as a way of cultural and traditional identification. In rituals, different physical areas and domains of experience are brought together creating a sense of plenitude that reinforces ‘what it means to be Tiwi’ (p. 18). Similarly, Sufi women discuss the importance of the group dynamic in the context of hadra. The symbolism of the ritual and the body movement is what gives meaning to hadra as construction of Sufi religious and communal identity and sense of self in the world. Kaeppler (2004) who wrote about Hawaiian dance forms suggests that Hawaiian ritual practices are not static, as they develop alongside human ideologies, ways of thinking and bringing new perspectives to old ones (Kaeppler 2004). When she describes the religious ritual forms like the

The Salikun journey begins  19 Hawaiian ha’a or the hula, she explains that ha’a was part of a Hawaiian ritual form used in mourning ceremonies performed in outdoor temples. Hula is ‘a structured movement system used in formal and informal entertainment’ (Kaeppler, 297). She noticed how these recycled practices ‘have become the most important element of Hawaiian ethnic identity’ (Kaeppler, 295). In a similar way, hadra, now a noticeable practice amongst the Naqshbandi, follows this idea of community sharing of ideas, values, and meanings that are subject to change and to development, as this will be addressed in detail in Chapter 4. Despite the interest and development of topics of ritual and embodiment in dance anthropology studies, scholars in the field (Williams 2004) note that such research remains under investigated and critically unexplored due to the stigmatised nature of religion and its relation to ritual and the senses. There is clearly an area in anthropological studies in which little research has been attempted about Sufi-embodied practice in Cape Town and hadra ritual. This book broadens the scope of what ritual embodiment means anthropologically and builds on existing work about Sufism and embodied practice and examines, for the first time, Sufi women discourses mainly within their South African as well as transnational contexts. However, it should be noted that when the term ‘dance’ is applied to meaning in religious action, it can become problematic and subject to interpretation. Thus, anthropologist Drid Williams’s opinion is valuable in the sense that discussions on dance or body movement in religious practice: inevitably depend on larger questions about the value of human study itself, whether the focus of attention is on dancing, sign languages, the martial arts, ceremonies and rituals, or everyday movements. (Williams 2004: 89) For this reason, an alternative to the term dance is used in this book to include a wider understanding of how body movement can be associated with religious rituals, as I will explain in detail in Chapter 2. Taking from a dance anthropology perspective, my notion of dance in the context of this study of hadra embraces a dialogue of space, rhythm, spirituality, religious praxis, body awareness, and somatic approach, allowing space for these associations. In Sufi practice, these associations or element relationship includes patterns of value, symbolism, nonverbal expression, bodily experiences, and body and mind connection. Therefore, in the context of this book, a study of body movement raises issues of how Islamic ritual embodiment and Muslim women's religious identity and selfhood expression take place at the same time during ritual practice. I am aware that concepts of dance or even body movement in Islamic thinking are complex. For example, in orthodox Islam, Muslims based their ideas on theological principles that see dance or body movement as prohibited and perceived as erotic rather than an artistic form of expression as

20  The Salikun journey begins commonly perceived in the West (Chittick 2000). Yet, in common Islam, body movement occurs in the most fundamental type of Muslim prayer, named salat.16 There is a suggestion that the Qur’an encourages Muslims to move rhythmically as the faithful prays. Verses in the Qur’an that refer to and connect movement to the earth’s creatures to praying, such as ‘all the creatures in the sky and earth are praying for God, even when birds have opened their feathers to fly, they are praying’ (Qur’an, an-nur, 24.41) is just an example. In this context, the sacred text that refers to movement, as in flying, is compared to the human action of praying and the body movement it involves. While orthodox Islam follows restrictive ideas of body or body movement expression in religious praxis, Sufis consider the body as means to express their association with God, or the experience of intimacy with God (Schimmel 1978). Sufis teach that the body plays the complex role of becoming the container for the sacred other (Kugle 2007). My understanding is that this process is central to body engagement of body awareness and body movement. In other words, it is through this bodily process that Sufis can regain personal autonomy, selfhood experience, and connection to God. Further, I note that this connection to God that Sufis speak of is apparent in the body movement while practicing the hadra. As anthropologist Paulo Pinto suggests, the aim of Sufi rituals is an idealised form constructed through a series of moral codes and conducts (Pinto 2016). This study agrees with Pinto’s idea and suggests that body gestures and body and mind relationship are also part of this process. I note that the body in hadra needs to adopt certain components of breathing, posture, and movement, which are embodied and practised to reach a spiritual goal. Sufi women in Cape Town learn about the body and its meaning in ritual practice through Sufism. Yet, the way they express this body movement is not necessarily seen as an experience that gives dominance or importance to the body as I will further discuss throughout this book but particularly in Chapter 3. Expressions such as ‘the body is just a vessel’ (Nadia 2014) or ‘the cage is your body’ (Tania 2014) are just a few examples of the ways Sufi women in Cape Town would express about this topic. In this sense, hadra ceremonies in Cape Town provide a powerful site for this intimate moment with God to happen. This instance is part of Sufi women’s embodied selfhood, as I will explore this throughout this book. This book claims that analysing the dimension of this embodied religious experience opens discussions about the importance of the body and the body movement in Sufism to achieve a physical and emotional state of ritual performance. Thus, the focal questions in this study are ‘What notions of selfhood are embodied and expressed through the performance of hadra rituals, and why do Sufi Muslim women in Cape Town perform such practices?’ To investigate this topic, additional questions are also explored, such as what is the nature of the movement of the Muslim female body in religious ritual?

The Salikun journey begins  21 How do Muslim women articulate and make sense of the moving body experience during the practice? What possible tensions or ambiguities in relation to the body and mind and to embodied selfhood expression could these women experience? This book essentially aims to understand how Sufi women embody hadra ritual.

Outline of chapters Chapter 2, ‘From theory to practice’, presents the theoretical framework and methodology chosen for this research study. This includes a literature review discussion that draws from anthropology (Collins 2010) and symbolic anthropology (Geertz 1973), dance anthropology (Grau 2003), Sufism and anthropology (Pinto 2002, 2010), and somatic studies (Bacon 2010), just to mention a few. I define key terms that are going to be used throughout this study. This includes culture, symbolism, ritual, and embodied religious practice. These terms are discussed through current research in anthropology, dance anthropology, and Sufism studies. Somatic is another key term used in this study that will be discussed drawing from somatic studies in dance and the performing arts field. This chapter explains the choice of an ethnographic methodology to study the ritual of hadra, drawing from existing literature in ethnographic studies (Murchison 2010, O’Reilly 2012). It also explains the nature of my fieldwork and methods of data collection and data analysis. It describes a self-constructed method of movement analysis using written descriptions such as Laban analysis as well as my personal interpretations based upon my dance background. Chapter 3, ‘The inner Islam: an overview of Sufis, and Sufi notions of the body’, provides background information about the nature of Sufism. It examines notions of mysticism in Sufism and explains in detail the core and the aim of the Sufi practice, the prayer named dhikr. It argues that Sufi ideas of dhikr performance are linked to notions of the body and use some selective studies in Sufism (Chittick 2000, Karamustafa 2007, Nasr 2007, Kugle 2007, Bashir 2011) and Sufism and anthropology (Pinto 2010, Saniotis 2012) to discuss how embodied praxis in Sufism is often related to an idea of a ‘mystical body’. Chapter 3 also addresses concepts of body and soul relationship in Sufi theological thinking to understand Sufi women’s discourse about the body and its value. In this way, this chapter suggests that Sufi praxis can be better appreciated as part of bodily experiential practice. Chapter 3 reveals some data collected in Cape Town as well as the complex ideas Sufi women have regarding the body and the body and soul relationship. Data reveals that Sufi women in Cape Town make use of Sufi theological thinking as means to justify speaking of the body and the importance of the body in everyday life and in their religious praxis. Based upon data analysis, Chapter 3 proposes that Sufi women acknowledged the presence of the body in praxis, but the body is merely regarded as

22  The Salikun journey begins secondary importance to the soul. Thus, notions of body and mind, body and soul, are seen to be complex and subject to Sufi theological learned patterns. Yet, this study argues that hadra practice can go beyond its theological values and it is indeed a cultural form of behaviour as the following chapter explains. To understand the nature of hadra in Sufi praxis, Chapter 4, ‘Dancing with God: hadra as sacred dance and cultural embodiment’ draws from Islamic studies (Chittick 2000; Burckhardt 2007; Michon 2007) to discuss the ritual from its theological perspective. It also attends to other components of the ritual as in external structural form, space, text, music. and rhythm and describes the visual body movement that occurs during the praxis. Sufi theological notions of dance are also explored in relation to hadra. To understand this complex idea, Chapter 4 uses the teachings of Sufi masters such as al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid (d.1058–1111) who privileged hadra as a dance form, and others like master Ibn al-Jawzi (d.597/1200) who strongly disapproved of it. Although the topic involves disagreement amongst Sufi masters or Sufi schools of thought, this chapter notes that hadra seems to be regarded as a platform for religious faith expressions that are also engaged through a physical movement demonstration. Yet, Chapter 4 suggests that hadra goes beyond a theological background and a cultural form of behaviour. It uses a selection of anthropological case studies in Sufism and embodied practice (Hoffman 2005; Pinto 2007) to demonstrate how religious praxis embraces cultural values that are learned and shared by communities, adopt norms, and give people a sense of religious communal belonging. In Cape Town, I note that similar kinds of actions are happening, and that embodied practice is key in shaping Sufi women religiosity, which is territory for the following chapter. Chapter 5, ‘De-code’ hadra: body movement analysis of the ritual practice, describes in detail the external settings that comprise this practice in the context of the Naqshbandi group Cape Town. It defines the settings of hadra at two houses of Sufi members where the praxis took place during the period of my fieldwork in 2013 and 2014. I break the rituals into three stages as I learned with the members and through Sufi books: the beginning, the middle, and the end stages. I translate some parts of the sacred text, or dhikr, that is used by the Naqshbandi in Cape Town during hadra. The text is translated from Arabic to English, directly from one of the many Naqshandi official manuals, Sea without shore (Keller 2011). This chapter also uses a method of movement analysis (further referred to in Chapter 2) to analyse and describe in writing the physical component that is present in the ritual. I use data from online video resources, interview notes, voice and music recording, photography, and personal observational notes. Data analysis suggests that body movement is the midpoint of Sufi-embodied practice. The ritual components combine a relationship between the physical actions with the music and the oral

The Salikun journey begins  23 recitation and this creates space for women’s ritual embodied experience. The combination of the elements is what Sufis consider the physical and visual aspects of hadra. These elements are charged with symbolic meaning, as Chapter 6 will explain. Chapter 6, ‘Symbolic embodied practice: the Sufi “mystical body” and women’s religious identity’, examines notions of Sufi religious symbolism within the context of hadra and analyses Sufi women’s discourse about the symbolic meaning as part of their embodied ritual experience. This chapter describes four main symbolic values that are attributed to hadra as discussed by Sufi women in Cape Town. Data analysis suggests that women’s embodied selfhood expression tends to be represented through a sense of religious identity rather than the bodily experience itself. To discuss this idea, Chapter 6 draws from anthropological case studies in religious ritual practice and symbolism (Csordas 1990, 2004), and also studies in dance anthropology (Singer 2014) and Sufism and anthropology (Saniotis 2012). By comparing these scholars’ case studies to this one, this chapter demonstrates how the Naqshbandi women in Cape Town use a similar discourse to describe the symbolic meaning of hadra in connection to the body movement in ritual practice. This chapter also maintains that these notions are also subject to Sufi women’s cultural habits, personal ideas, and ways of articulating and making sense of this embodied symbolism. Supported by a dance anthropology perspective, this chapter maintains that body movement is itself a source of knowledge and opens to the idea that the body and mind relationship is at the core of the ritual experience as part of a somatic process. Chapter 7, ‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice and hadra performance: and embodied experience’, argues that hadra is a platform where somatic processes of attending to the mind and body relationship are present. Thus, it first defines hadra’s three stages in relation to internal and external features that are described by women. Through data analysis, this chapter interprets how these inner and outer elements women speak of can be considered a somatic process, which I claim Sufi women in Cape Town are experiencing. Data analysis suggests that hadra is a platform for selfhood expression, which is also lived, and experienced by women as a soma, by this I mean, ‘any individual embodiment of a process’. Case studies have drawn from somatic studies in performing arts and dance (Eddy 2009, Batson 2014, Bacon 2010) support this idea of hadra as a somatic experience. This impression is based upon women’s descriptions of the embodied sensations they claim to feel during the praxis and the complex explanation they give to describe the ritual as an ‘in and out of the body’ experience. Further, I was also able to make sense of their descriptions through my own reflexive experience of this ritual. Chapter 8, ‘Conclusion – the salikun journey ends’, concludes this book and discloses the most significant findings of this study and relates the findings to the theoretical framework and methodology that give shape

24  The Salikun journey begins to this study of hadra and women’s embodied religious praxis. This chapter explains how this book supplies new knowledge to studies in dance anthropology and Sufism and anthropology and expands discussions of Sufi practice as a form of embodied cultural behaviour, religious identity, and selfhood constructions. Additionally, it reveals the contribution to the field of somatic studies and hadra ritual as a platform for somatic engagement to take place. As a result, this book opens new dialogues about the particular Sufi practice of hadra in a South African context with Muslim women in Cape Town that come primarily from anthropology and somatic perspectives, offering an innovative approach to the field.

Conclusion It is hoped that this study and its representation can maintain honesty with the complexity and richness of the Naqshbandi Sufi practice in Cape Town. The intention of this book is that it can hold true for those Sufi women who were involved in this research and why decided to share their stories about embodying hadra. On a personal level, this research has been a vehicle for a personal spiritual enquiry, opening my views about the nature of the body and the body movement in religious ritual practice. Over the course of the writing process, this research has been the container for some of the most profound spiritual inquiries that I have undertaken in my life. I was often thinking and rethinking my religious values systems, concepts of body and soul, body movement expression, and means of what is to experience intimacy with one’s self, and with the Divine essence. What I do know is that these intricate questions had found a home within this research. I imagine that it will take time for these insights and understanding gained through this study to gradually become fully integrated within me. The methods applied and the texts read proved to be a deep and wide enough vessel to hold these questions about hadra and Sufi Muslim women’s experiences. This topic is what Chapter 2 addresses next.

Notes 1 In Sufism this term refers to the ‘travellers’ on the pathway to God. 2 In Sufism, the word Tariqa means ‘path’ or ‘way’ and defines a school or order. Other words like group or community are also used throughout this thesis when referring to the Naqshbandi. 3 The names of the Sufi women interviewed have been changed to respect the anonymous agreement on which I based this research. 4 The names of the Sufi women interviewed have been changed to respect the anonymous agreement on which I based this research. 5 Ratiep is an expression of Sufi mysticism. Ratiep made its first appearance in Cape Town over 300 years ago, brought by slaves from Indonesia. Ratiep is the practice, similar to that in Hinduism, where the faithful penetrate body parts

The Salikun journey begins  25 with swords, metal skewers, and other metals as an expression of faith and the existence of God (Mason 2002). 6 Sheikh Hisham Kabbani, who is a spiritual leader of the Naqshbandi group, provides an in-depth historical background of the origins of the group in his book, The Naqshbandi Sufi way (1995). 7 Imam is a term referred to a spiritual leader in Islam, or a leader of a mosque 8 A good example is the research conducted by social anthropologist Tayfun Atay (1994) and his book Naqshbandi Sufis in a Western Setting. Ataya traces the historical context of Sufism in the West and focuses in the practice of the Naqshbandi community in London. He discusses the ways in which the group think and talk about themselves as Sufis and Muslims in a Western setting. Another significant study is the work of William Rory Dickson and his thesis entitled Living Sufism in North America: Between tradition and transformation (2012) that examines Sufism in North America, and the roles that Sufi leaders have in the way Sufism is taught and learn in a Western context. 9 A detailed review on work conducted in North Africa can be found in the work of E.E Evans Pritchard (1946; 1949) Eickelman, Dale F. (1985). 10 Alyson Callaan (2008) work on Female Sufi healers in Bangladesh. 11 A detailed review of this scholarship can be found in the work Abu-Lughod (1999a). 12 Sultanova (2014) ethnographic work in Sufism and Shamanism in Central Asia. 13 Sadi’yya Shaikh (2010) and her work in South African Muslim women and sexuality. 14 Yafa Shaneikh (2015) work on Muslim Shia women in Denmark. 15 David Pinault (2001) work Horse of Karbala is a great effort of another male scholarship in Islam and women studies. He discusses Indian Shia Muslim women roles during Muharram rituals. 16 Salat is the mandatory prayer which is performed by Muslims five times a day.

2

From theory to practice

In my soul there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church where I kneel. Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist. Is there not a region of love where the sovereignty is illumined nothing, where ecstasy gets poured into itself and becomes lost, where the wing is fully alive but has no mind or body? In my soul there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church that dissolve, that dissolve in God.1

Introduction This chapter discusses the key terms of this study and provides a literature review on academic research in ritual embodied practice and feminist understandings of women’s bodily experiences. First, I define the terms that are used in the current study, including the language of body image and embodiment. I then briefly discuss the ways in which women’s bodies are constructed by culture, specifically addressing expectations regarding DOI: 10.4324/9780429353574-2

From theory to practice  27 femininity. I outline some of the current knowledge regarding body dissatisfaction and the ways in which body dissatisfaction serves to maintain social control of women, simultaneously addressing the gendered nature of body dissatisfaction and utilising social constructionist and feminist theory to understand how culture impacts women’s bodies and body experiences. I explore the research and theory on resistance to social and cultural pressures towards body dissatisfaction and control behaviours, while also defining the concept of joy as it relates to the current research study. The literature review concludes with a rationale for the current study. This chapter will also address my personal embodied experience of hadra and reinforces the idea of using an autoethnographic approach to help me write and make sense of this ritual experience. Although I did not plan to write about my personal experience, this reflective approach offered me an opportunity to pause and to understand, through my bodily movement, what it means to practice hadra, and, ultimately, to reach the conclusion that performing this ritual means to be engaged in and be part of a somatic process. I understand that a self-reflexive, autoethnographic approach can assist researchers doing fieldwork in how ‘we placed ourselves at the center of the process’ (Sharp, Riera, & Jones 2012: 316), therefore helping me to understand my own journey of embodying hadra.

Own perceptions and experiences of Sufism For the past three years, I have been absorbed in academic research to find out more about Sufism, notions of the body and the body movement in religious rituals, cultural ways of embodying religious values, and finally, to immerse myself in analysing my fieldwork data collected in Cape Town. I examined Sufi women’s arguments and ideas in relation to these topics and by practicing hadra myself I was persuaded to embrace a somatic approach to this practice, to value the body and mind relationship. Thus, besides participant observation in hadra ceremonies in Cape Town, I decided to situate myself at ‘center of the process’ of doing hadra and I write this experience from the first person to complement Sufi women’s verbalised ideas. For this to happen, not only do I participate in hadra but I also gather personal data about my embodied experience, keeping in mind the features that help shape this piece of writing such as my academic, cultural, gender, or religious background.

The researcher role: participation and observation An important key in ethnography is the participant observation factor since it enables the researcher to appreciate different perspectives while conducting fieldwork and to engage with many sources of data. This method involves the researcher’s interaction with the community in their daily life. Ethnographer Danny L. Jorgensen (1989) suggests that

28  From theory to practice Through participant observation, it is possible to describe what goes on, who or what is involved, when and where things happen, how they occur, and why – at least from the standpoint of participants – things happen as they do in particular situations. (Jorgensen 1989: 12) Jorgensen suggests that participant observation is a useful tool for investigation into the complex, rich, and diverse communal daily life experiences, their thoughts, feelings, and what sort of meanings people give to their existence. Following this line of thought, ethnographer Julian M. Murchison also proposes Close observation by the ethnographer will reveal things of which the participant is sometimes unaware, and in other cases participation is the only way to gain an experiential understanding of fundamental components of cultural and social lived worlds. (Murchison 2010: 26) My position as participant and observer helped me to learn about the community and their viewpoints, and to understand how Sufi cultural values and social constructions are shaped and how women relate to them. I tried to combine the role of insider and outsider, considering the contexts in which I found myself, to take time to reflect on the data, take notes, learn the Sufi codes, attend secular and religious activities, and note the relationship between the community, the women, and myself. The choice of participant observation helped me to engage with the community and their activities and to become familiarised with their codes, beliefs, and ways of living, the ‘here and now of everyday life’ (Jorgensen 1989: 13). My experience tells me that this method is an effective way of gaining an in-depth understanding of the ways in which Sufis see and interact between themselves and with the world. After access to the community was granted and I began fieldwork, I was able to maintain relationships with the group, and the character of this field relation and the researcher role is key to gathering reliable information. Ethnographer Giampietro Gobo explains that one of the issues of entering into fieldwork is that unavoidably the researcher is ‘forced to assume a role’ (2008: 122). Just as Gobo suggests, I also questioned my role and to what extent South African Muslim communities viewed me as ‘native’, and what potential challenges I would be facing during my fieldwork in Cape Town. My physical features and Islamic family background classified me as having a so-called ‘Muslim identity’, although women knew that I did not speak of myself as a Sufi. Speaking about trust relationships during fieldwork, Gobo maintains that the researcher must devote a great deal of time and energy to winning the trust of his or her interlocutors and to maintaining that trust throughout the research (Gobo 2008: 118).

From theory to practice  29 The combination of the above-mentioned factors helped me develop a relationship of trust with the community. I had to take a conscious decision about the variety of roles that I had to play as the researcher. There were times I had to be the listener, at others the talker, the adviser, the nutritionist, a housekeeper, for example. For instance, when hadra ended in the late hours of the night, I would often take people home and then drive home alone. Women from the community seem to care about my security and phoned or text me to make sure I got home safely. I noticed similar behaviour towards a few members of the community who would drive home alone after the ceremonies. I can only record one other woman, in her late sixties, that also drove home alone, and some community members were concerned with her safety. My long-term personal involvement with the group led me to engage in daily activities with the community besides attending hadra. I was invited to join some members of the group for mountain hiking or forest walks, and at other times invited to have lunch or dinner at people’s homes. I also asked to babysit or help with religious activities such as gathering women to recital dhikr together. Similar events were part of my daily routine while doing fieldwork. However, fieldwork is a learning curve, meaning that as a researcher I had to cultivate the right skills and sensibilities within the context in which I was living and be open to any changing conditions that would appear. On some occasions, particularly after interviews, women would share their opinions about members of the community, trusting the private nature of the research, but also feeling free enough to share their thoughts with someone who was partly involved in the group but did not grow up in the community. On some occasions, particularly after interviews, women would share their opinions about particular members of the community, trusting the private nature of the research, but also feeling free enough to share their thoughts with someone who was partly involved in the community, but did not grow up in the community. At the same time, I was aware that this sharing of private information might bring me too close to the subject in a way that may threaten my aptitude for analysis, or to notice local cultural norms, or even tempted to take parts or judgements. Here I am reminded of ethnographer Aull-Davies (1999) who suggests that the researcher should show the capability to apply the diverse ethnographic methods and techniques that prove more effective in similar complex situations. Thus, it requires the researcher’s attentiveness to the nature of her participation as part of her evolving understanding of the community being studied. For this reason, I tried to adopt a neutral position when it came to sharing personal opinions involving issues related to the community. Further, the anonymity of participants had to be guaranteed, not only as an ethical matter but to assure that on reading this study none of the women would

30  From theory to practice recognise the others involved. Nevertheless, the choice of participant observation helped me to engage with both groups of the community and their activities to understand the religious codes and beliefs, which influence the experiences of the devotees. After some months of observing and participating in the field, I could sense the development of trust and familiarity with the community, and the building of friendships with members. Through my integration into the community, I came to be perceived as just another ‘participant’ or ‘attendee’ to the rituals. Sufi members saw my presence not as threatening but regarded it as natural. Given this context, the following section presents how data was collected.

Data collection: interviews In Cape Town this kind of communication/interaction happened often during dinner at people’s homes, while mountain hiking, at birthdays or weddings, or as part of religious activities. However, semi-structured and in-depth interviewing was the most productive way of collecting and analysing data. In-depth interviews were held with members of both groups, the group that attends hadra at Maika’s house, and the other at Mahid’s house. Upon setting an interview, I had to gather information about the participants regarding age, ethnicity, social status, and education levels for example. I formally interviewed 23 women. Two of the participants had no school education; a few had primary and secondary education, and four had a university education. Mostly all women were married, although one was divorced, one was a widow, and another one was single. Women worked as shop assistants, financial managers, therapists, lawyers, nurses, schoolteachers, and medical doctors, or were self-employed. Two women studied at the University of Cape Town and three others were domestic workers. Their ages ranged from 19 to 72 years. All women were South African and Cape Malayan descendants. I made sure that women from several areas of the city took part in this research. Areas in Cape Town, such as the Bo-Kaap (locally known to be a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood), Kensington and Pinelands (known as socially underprivileged areas), and Claremont (a middle- to upper-class neighbourhood) were deliberately selected. I assured that data was drawn from different communities of women who attended hadra; in other words, I chose to represent various socio-economic contexts of participants. I am reminded of Sklar’s idea that factors, such as ethnicity, gender, social class, and race are important contexts from which to address the cultural position while doing fieldwork research (Sklar 2000). I made sure to engage women of different ages, educational levels, and marital statuses. By engaging I mean not only collecting data in formal interviews but also observing and participating in women’s daily activities. The reactions to participating in this project were different for the two groups. At Mahid’s house, the group was first approached through a formal email as an announcement from Sheikh Yusuf da Costa to inform the group

From theory to practice  31 of my presence and research. He wrote that any woman interested in taking part in the research should contact me. This approach was unsuccessful since none of the women responded to the email. I decided to approach women individually, usually after the ceremonies. I would introduce myself, explain my research, and ask if they were interested in taking part. In a later stage some women confirmed that they had read the email but did not feel comfortable replying. Others claimed that they did not receive an email. I was able to interview seven women from this group. In the second group, it was Maika who introduced me to the women and explained my research. Some of these women already knew me from attending hadra but were not aware of the project yet. Women in this group were more open to collaborating, and after Maika’s conversation, I was given phone numbers and home addresses, and set up interviews. A second approach was again made to individuals after ceremonies. I interviewed 16 women from this group. The interviews with both groups were conducted face-to-face with a voice recorder, which I used to record the conversation and their given consent. Usually, interviews lasted between one and one and half hours. The reasons why women chose to participate in this study varied. Certain women seem to welcome a young academic researcher that was interested in South African Muslim women and their religious practices, while others were simply curious about my research and intentions and had a good will to help and to participate. Some women expressed nervousness to speak to me since they felt they were not educated enough or thought they were not knowledgeable enough about Sufism. They feared I would ask deep theological or academic questions in relation to Sufism and hadra, and I made sure to explain and reassure them that this was not the case and none of these reasons would influence the interview. I felt that women who chose to participate in this research were open, and to a certain extent courageous to share their personal embodied experience in a way they would not normally do. My sense is that during the interview process the women had time to reflect on their practice and give voice to their thoughts and ideas about Sufism and embodied ritual experience, which was unique in some cases. (Each interview started with a brief explanation of my project, a recording of their consent, and time to answer their questions.) I would often start the interview with the question: ‘How did you learn about Sufism, and why did you become a Sufi?’ to open for further questions, and gradually progressed to subjects regarding the practice. Before interviews I would invite participants to choose the location. Some interviews took place at women’s homes, others in coffee shops, and one at a woman’s working space. The interview process would usually unfold naturally, and most participants would cover all my research themes. During the interview, some women would deviate from the topic, either they would spend too much on a subject or forget what they wanted to say and start again. Occasionally interviews were interrupted by their children, family

32  From theory to practice members, or neighbours. I made sure to subtly bring them back to the topic and to the space where we were and continue with the interview process. I used a method of interviewing which gave participants the time and space to freely express their thoughts, allowing them to simply think about their words, moments of silence, rephrase their ideas, or simply listen to the meaning they created from their personal experience. However, there was no other way of testing the validity of women’s responses apart from comparing everyone’s experiences with those of others and my own (which will be discussed in Chapter 7) while noticing their body language, reactions to the actions, and their actions. The interview process was personally touching. To meet and listen to these women was important to both research and my personal understanding of Sufism as another dimension of Islam I already knew. Women shared an intimate and unique viewpoint of their religious embodied experience and how this experience makes them embody their selfhood sense. They talked openly about what it means to be a Sufi, how they understand their bodies in ritual action, and how they relate their embodied experience to their sense of self. Women explained to me that these were not the sort of questions that they often think about, and for this reason, I am extremely grateful for their participation and sharing. The interview process opened doors to get in touch with the participants’ personal characters, opinions, and exchange of ideas and, ultimately, to provide moments of self-reflection for them and for myself. While I have no means to judge what women interiorised with this experience, their discourse seemed to reflect their innermost feelings and felt emotions regarding their embodied religious faith and practice. This process enabled them to share ideas about what they value most, which is the connection between their sense of self and their encounter with Allah. Ultimately, what Sufi women shared with me was beyond my expectations. Some women already knew me from seeing me at the ritual while others hardly knew anything about the research project or me. Unexpectedly, this seemed not to affect the way women shared their stories. I noticed that when they talked to me, they seemed to relate to someone who shared a common religious interest since they saw me present and participating in the ritual. Initially, I sensed that my reason for participating in hadra was mainly an academic interest. Yet, later I understood this reason went beyond an academic thinking, as I will discuss later in this book. For now, the following section continues to address other ways of data collection.

Online film collection The analysis and interpretation of the ritual practice and its physical movement were achieved by film observation and taking notes. I have watched selected videos of hadra rituals available on the official Naqshbandi website.2 During fieldwork, I was unable to film the actual hadra in Cape Town, since

From theory to practice  33 I was not given permission either by Muhammad Saleigh, who leads the hadra at Maika’s house, or by Mahid who leads the other ritual. However, I was welcome to make voice recordings. Although there is more video data available on the Internet, I chose data which is officially selected and posted by Naqshbandi on their website. The reason is that those in spiritual authority validate these videos, and they are longer videos of about 30–45 minutes, which is more useful for analysis. They are also recorded with one or more cameras, allowing quick access to more angles of movement. The videos present a full order of the hadra, with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Videos recorded in July/August 2013 contain speeches by Sheikh Kabanni about the overall practices or other topics related to Sufism. The online video data collection of the Naqshbandi can be traced back to 2007, the first year the Naqshbandi introduced this ritual as part of their practice, and the reasons behind this choice will be addressed in Chapter 4. Most of the videos available are from the rituals performed in Lefke, and some in Malaysia. As of 2016, there are no videos available of this practice being performed in Cape Town. Additionally, I did not find videos performed specifically by female members of the Naqshbandi. In some cases, the videos display women performing in the background, captured as the camera moves, but most of the focus is on the men. The apparent absence of a recorded collection of female participation in hadra was questioned during fieldwork. However, the answers I received from women were vague, or simply the response: ‘I don’t know’. Faced with this limitation, I chose to watch videos performed by men, in addition to my own observations of hadra in Cape Town and in Lefke. The following section discusses the method chosen for the analysis of the body movement performance in the ritual.

Embodied experience and fieldwork research: a self-reflexive and spiritual approach to hadra practice In dance studies, scholar Jane Bacon uses the term ‘performance ethnography’ (Bacon 2010: 116) and explains that this developed method ‘aims to value the experience of both researcher and researched within a creative environment such as the applied arts’ (Bacon 2010: 116). Speaking of ethnographic embodied experience in the context of performing arts, Bacon suggests that a creative embodied engagement with the subject of study aims to assist the researcher in her ability to speak from experience, in an attempt to find a common language of experience where both researcher and researched might speak about creative work (Bacon 2010: 116). In this context, and considering I was a professional dancer and involved in other types of bodily practices, Bacon’s notion of ‘embodied engagement’ that meshes well came to be my embodied experience of ritual practice. The topic which will be addressed next presents my personal experience and invites the reader into my private world and the process of the ‘living

34  From theory to practice experience’ of hadra as an embodied somatic process and spiritual knowledge. However, before I do this, it is important to unpack what notions of embodied experience mean to contextualise and contextualise the use of the term ‘spiritual’ regarding this particular context. As a dance researcher, I tried to relate my personal felt experience to what I observed, and, consequently, to what Sufi women seem to claim to experience during their ritual performance. In this way, I become both a ritual performer and the academic writer of this experience. I see that this self-reflective approach, and the consequent narrative about this experience, opens up new dialogues about the Sufi practice of hadra that come primarily from dance, anthropology, and somatic perspectives, which to my knowledge has not been investigated. For this to happen, there were unavoidable moments when I also had to pause and ask myself the same questions, I have put to the Naqshbandi Sufi women in Cape Town. I took time to read the interviews repeatedly and respond to the questions I posed to women, in the most honest way I could. I answered them loud so that I could hear the sound of my voice as I articulated the answers, and I also wrote them down in a notebook so that I could go back to them when need it. As I did this, I could not avoid noticing the influence of my background in dealing with the moving body and my own notions of ritual practice and what it means to be and to have a spiritual embodied experience. This led me to understand that my notion of religious ritual practice and its embodiment is a combination of a felt sensorial and somatic experience, which is shaped by a cultural behavioural pattern and subjective approach. Here, for example, I remember Sklar’s dance and anthropological perspective that ‘ways of moving are ways of thinking’ or David’s approach of ‘emplaced ethnography that might allow us, in differing ways, to watch, feel, experience, and to listen to the body and understand through the body, whatever movement practice is under consideration’ (David 2012: 16). I paused and questioned: what sort of knowledge does my body display in hadra rituals? In which way does my body become the platform for critical enquiry or self-knowledge that is revealed while performing a religious ceremony? What did I learn from this performance, and how do I relate that which I see as a spiritual experience pertaining to the body and the mind to Sufi women’s discourse? Ultimately, how different or similar are my answers in relation to women’s answers and points of view? In order to answer these complex questions, I found that this book needed an important amount of self-reflexivity and an understanding of the implications of using this in the writing and analysis of this particular context. Here I am using sociologist definition of reflexive. Hertz maintains that voice can have multiple dimensions such as the author’s voice or the representation of the participant’s voice, as well as the author’s voice when he/she is the subject of investigation. Ethnographer also uses this same notion of voice when discussing ethnographic research in

From theory to practice  35 women’s studies and reinforces the idea that ‘understanding the self in fieldwork releases us from the epistemological tension between unreflexive positivism, on the one hand, and navel gazing, on the other’ (Reinharz 1997: 18). Bacon proposes that an embodied self-reflective approach is a helpful tool to bring clarity to the researcher, and illustrates an aptness for decision-making concerning the sort of written interpretations and representations, she decides to do. Bacon suggests, by speaking and writing the doing I may be writing performance but, more importantly, I am giving primacy to the experience and, by default, to things of and from (my) body (Bacon 2014: 115). With these ideas in mind, I like to think that in writing about this experience I give myself the same opportunity for self-reflection and selfanalysis as I proposed for Sufi women, and use my own self-embodied knowledge and voice to compare to their verbalised experiences and arguments about what this practice might be or might feel like. Bacon also reminds us that when the subject of study is the other person, it becomes much easier to write and analyse keeping one’s personal feelings or emotions out of the picture and to simply analyse data using theoretical frameworks to guide the main argument or viewpoint. Thus, when the focus shifts to the researcher, ‘we become blind whilst at the same time thinking we can see more clearly than everyone else’ (Bacon 2014: 117). Just as she suggests, I too am aware that my bodily experience alone cannot grasp or decipher the embodied journey of this Sufi practice. It is for this reason that I am interested to approach this experience as a body and mind relationship and adopt this somatic way of thinking as the basis for my embodied practice, while not forgetting that I too embody certain cultural patterns, which play a role in deciphering this embodied experience.

The construction of a model of body movement analysis The body movement analysis I chose for hadra is a self-constructed model based on dance studies and movement analysis, as well as observation and participation, and the film footage mentioned above. I am aware that this self-constructed model is only one of the various systems of body movement available for analysis proposes. There are other scholars in dance and dance anthropology studies who developed their own methods of movement analysis (Novack 1988 and Sklar 2000) and so my method was also inspired by their ideas. An in-depth discussion of these scholars’ own methods is beyond the scope of this book. Thus, they still need to be addressed briefly in relation to my method. A self-constructed method allows the researcher who is interested in body movement to make use of a movement analysis description and interpretation, which attends to some existing dance vocabulary but is not limited to a formalised method of dance analysis.

36  From theory to practice Dance vocabularies such as Laban movement analysis, for example, prove to be helpful in describing the dynamics of body movement, the rhythm of this movement in relation to the body parts being used, the gestural actions, and corporeal and facial expressions that occur in the body during the ceremony. My model uses Laban’s movement principles (effort–shape analysis) when describing, for example, particular body steps or body actions in relation to the space, time, and external factors involved in the hadra ritual. I look at the features in relation to ritual components and how they seem to influence the body movement. These factors include space, time, music, sacred text, and the presence of other people. My interpretation of the body movement in Sufi practice follows the integration of the cultural and religious aspects it entails. In dance studies, scholar suggests that movement analysis in dance forms ‘provides a structure for the knowledge that is needed to frame interpretations and increases the possibility of becoming imaginatively and creatively involved in a work’ (Ashead 1988: 12). This viewpoint suggests that dance forms are not merely based on spontaneous or uninformed feeling, but they should be examined as part of a system of codes, manners, and assemblies that support its attributed meaning. Ashead’s idea can well be applied to Sufi rituals. Hadra as a praxis can be regarded as an embodied representation and reflection of its social and cultural background. To study body movement in hadra is to study the people or the bodies that create the actual movement and the meaning they give to it. Following this idea, Novack (1988) and Ness (1992) have expressed a similar idea of body movement as an emanating and felt experience that works in a conceptual and metaphorical manner in relation to the wider social and cultural habits and meanings. For Ness, human movement is encoded in and expresses the values of particular historical and cultural foundations (Ness 1992). In her fieldwork in the Philippines, Ness (1992) analysed the dance tradition of sinulog. This practice follows three different functions: as a healing ritual, a theatrical-based dance form, and a platform that portrays Cebuano and Filipino culture to a worldwide audience. Ness uses performance-orientated ethnography to describe and interpret the sinulog tradition in all these forms. In this way, Ness’ work demonstrates that the analysis of embodied traditional forms can reveal cultural forms and values that are encoded in the dance. When analysing the body movement vocabulary of a particular martial arts performer from Cebu City, Ness notes that the gestural actions or movements performed in this fighting style visibly relate to the cultural style of movement by the community. In this regard, she claims that ‘even the simplest gesture can make visible a culture’s most cherished and carefully shaped relationships’ (Ness 1992: 15). Novack suggests that dance analysis should be used in the context of forming a system, meaning that either this can be based on existing formalised methods such as Laban analysis or Benesh or it can be developed by the researcher (Novack 1988). When analysing movement in contact

From theory to practice  37 improvisation performance, she uses methods like viewing live performances and videotaped recordings. Novack also created a method of movement analysis to describe the body movement in contact improvisation, which draws from Laban’s vocabulary, as well as other types of dance composition. Their examples go in hand with my interest in movement analysis and ritual practice and the choice of developing a unique method for the study of hadra. My method of movement analysis responds to ‘the particular skills of the observer, the circumstances of the observation, the nature of what is being observed, and the questions being asked’ (Novack 1988: 120). With this in mind, I also use my skills as a trained dancer to propose an analytic view that helps to capture the body movement and interpret it in the context of hadra. What I experienced and observed, together with the questions I then asked, and the answers I received, would suggest that the body and the body movement in ritual practice are meaningful or valid, according to the Sufi women who chose to discuss this. This idea will be examined in Chapter 5 when analysing the symbolic meanings women use to refer to the relationship between the body and ritual practice. To appreciate the complexity of a dance movement or a ritual embodied form, researchers need to acknowledge the intricate process of using their skills of noting and observing and whether they can perceive those features as related or unrelated actions. The researcher must also consider the cultural, social, or historical contexts that can help with the interpretation of the dance or the body movement, and how this becomes acceptable. Hence, I suggest that dance analysis frameworks can contribute to the understanding and analysis of body movement in Sufi practice. Like a dance, religious embodied practice also means that there are multiple and valid interpretations of the subject matter.

Dance and anthropology: embodied religious ritual practice In dance anthropology, scholars understand that body movement expressions in religious rituals are seen as tangible systems of embodied ideology, community, and individual cultural learning and key for social change (Kaeppler 1978; Reed 1998; Williams 2004). Following this idea, dance anthropologist Adrienne Kaeppler maintains that movement analyses from anthropological points of view encompass all structured movement systems, including those associated with religious and secular ritual, ceremony, entertainment, martial arts, sign languages, sports, and games. (Kaeppler 2000: 117) Kaeppler uses the term structured movement systems of analyses to speak of body movement as a source of knowledge and as an interactive process that takes place in human activity, including religion. She maintains that these

38  From theory to practice systems are ‘socially and culturally constructed’ (2000: 116) and transmitted across generations. This notion of embodied culturally religious activity is visible in Sufi communities in Cape Town and their performance of hadra. Brenda Farnell also argues that ‘human beings everywhere engage in complex structured systems of bodily action that are laden with social and cultural significance’ (Farnell 1999: 343). This cultural and social meaningful bodily action that Farnell mentions is also present in hadra ceremonies. Hadra is embodied as a symbolic act of religious piety, communal engagement, and self-expression, for example. Thus, it is useful to consider Farnell’s further suggestion that body movement in ritual practice generate an enormous variety of forms of embodied knowledge, systematized in various ways and to varying degrees, involving cultural convention as well as creative performativity. (Farnell 1999: 343) Farnell is here referring to specific dance language and choreographic patterns of body movement. When applied to ritual performance, Farnell’s idea of movement expression and embodied culture becomes, the dialogical, inter-subjective means by which persons, social institutions, and cultural knowledge are socially constructed, historically transmitted, and revised and so are constitutive of culture and self (1999: 343). In other words, Sufi women’s body movement forms a link between the subjective and the culturally established framework of the experience, translated into a tangible pattern, or as Sklar simply says, ‘ways of moving are ways of thinking’. The following case studies sustain this idea. Dance ethnography scholar Ann R. David (2013) conducted fieldwork within a UK-based community of Indian women that performs a traditional Indian folk dance called garba (part of the Hindu religious festival Navrati). David proposes that to embody and experience the physical movements and actions of this ritual practice are ways of underpinning ‘concealed cultural codes and displays the conceptual thought and words that bind a community and in which their history, practices, beliefs, knowledge, and communications are held’ (David 2013: 48). David suggests that such ritual practices can offer women a platform where ‘they can embody and perform the divine’ (David 2013: 48) as ways of religious agency. In a further study, David claims that for Tamil women in East London, Hindu worship becomes a doorway to performing and acquiring religious agency, ‘that is commonly taboo in the more orthodox Brahminical Hindu worship’. Similar kinds of meanings are also presented in this case study of hadra and Sufi women’s verbalised ideas of their practices as means of embodied religious identity and selfhood expression. In this way, women in Cape

From theory to practice  39 Town can give meaning and context to their fears, joys, frustrations, or other emotions and states, contributing to a sense of spiritual wholeness. In ritual practices features like music, song, language, somatic, and kinetic realms of movement come together. In dance anthropology, Grau studied ritual practice amidst Tiwi people in Australia and observed how this community gives particular emphasis to evocative song and text and to cosmological aspects like kin and land. In rituals, different physical areas and domains of experience are brought together creating a sense of plenitude that reinforces what it means to be Tiwi (Grau 2011: 18). Grau maintains that the success of a ritual is understood not only through an individual experiential performance but also through group participation as a way of cultural and traditional identification. In the same way that the Tiwi perform ritual actions in order to achieve a sense of ‘what it is to be Tiwi’, Sufi women discuss the importance of group dynamics in the context of hadra. Similarly, to the Tiwi people, the symbolism of the ritual and the body movement is what gives meaning to hadra as a construction of Sufi religious and communal identity and sense of self in the world. Grau maintains that through embodied ritual practice cultural values can be transmitted. With Grau’s idea in mind, I suggest that meanings of cultural identity, or a sense of communal belonging, are as well visibly present in Sufi communities in Cape Town. Kaeppler, mentioned above, wrote about Hawaiian dance forms. She suggests that Hawaiian ritual practices are not static, as they develop alongside human ideologies, ways of thinking and bringing new perspectives to old ones (Kaeppler 2004). Although hadra is well known in Sufism, the ritual is a relatively new praxis amongst the Naqshbandi communities in Cape Town and worldwide as I will explain in detail in Chapter 4. Just as in Hawaiian ritual forms, Sufi praxis can also evolve, be transformed, and adapt to or respond to new contexts, or community needs. When Kaeppler described the religious ritual forms like the Hawaiian ha’a or the hula, she explains that ha’a was part of a Hawaiian ritual form used in mourning ceremonies performed in outdoor temples. Hula was described by Kaeppler as ‘a structured movement system used in formal and informal entertainment’ (Kaeppler 2004: 297). She noticed how these recycled practices ‘have become the most important element of Hawaiian ethnic identity’ (Kaeppler 2004: 295). In a similar way, hadra, now a noticeable practice amongst the Naqshbandi, follows this idea of community sharing of ideas, values, and meanings that are subject to change and development. The introduction of hadra and its structural form as followed by the Naqshbandi will be addressed in detail later in this book. Ritual body movements are elaborated, moulded, and shaped, in different ways, according to the communities’ own development and necessities. Following this idea, Kaeppler suggests that the Hawaiian ritual movements can be ‘visual manifestations of social relations, the subjects of elaborated

40  From theory to practice aesthetics systems, and they may assist in understanding cultural values’ (Kaeppler 2004: 296). The same applies in relation to Sufism and its praxis as an example of how values can be learned, embodied, and adapted from one society to another. Despite the interest and development of topics of ritual and embodiment in dance anthropology studies, scholars in the field (Reed 1998, Sklar 2000, Williams 2004) note that such research still remains under investigated and critically unexplored due to the stigmatised nature of religion and its relation to ritual and the senses. Thus, I also note that there is clearly an area in anthropological studies in which little research has been attempted about Sufi-embodied practice in Cape Town and hadra ritual. Therefore, this study will build upon ongoing literature that links anthropology of human movement, symbolic anthropology, and dance anthropology in religious ritual practice. This book aims to broaden the scope of what ritual embodiment means anthropologically and build on existing work about Sufism and embodied practice. From a dance anthropological idea, body movement expression is a key tool of Sufi religious performance.

Soma and somatic practice in the fields of dance and performing art studies It is important to mention that an in-depth history of the somatic and somatic methodologies is beyond the scope of this book, but I am aware of other scholars who contributed to this work. For example, dance scholar Marta Eddy (2002, 2009) gives an in-depth account of the history of somatic studies. Additionally, the work of dance scholars Glenna Batson (2014) and Jane Bacon (2010) and the performance studies by Mark Evans (2011) are also useful, and they will be discussed throughout this book. Their ideas are used in Chapters 6 and 7 when analysing Sufi women’s discourse of their experience and when addressing a self-reflexive approach about hadra. From a historical perspective, Eddy (2002) notes that somatics as a form of study first appeared in the Westernised countries of Europe and North America, developed by practitioners that were already using body movement methods to understand how bodily experiences can become a source of knowledge. Eddy explains Somatic pioneers discovered that by being engaged in attentive dialogue with one’s bodily self we, as humans, can learn newly, become pain free, move more easily, do our life work more efficiently, and perform with greater vitality and expressiveness. (Eddy 2009: 6) Eddy argues that a framework of existentialism and phenomenology helped practitioners to develop a theoretical platform for experimental ‘body learning’ or ‘body play’ as a scaffold for sensorial research. Somatic practitioners also

From theory to practice  41 drew from Freudian and Jungian ideas in psychology, John Dewey’s ideas in the educational field, and Rudolf Laban’s movement approach in dance. Methods like F.M. Alexander, Feldenkrais, Gindler, or Middendorf and Trager are just a few examples of the way practitioners involved in body and body movement engage with this notion of soma and somatic thinking (Eddy 2009). Yet, it was in 1970 that Thomas Hanna first devised the term ‘somatics’ from the Greek word ‘soma’, taken to mean ‘the body in its wholeness’ (Eddy 2009). He suggested that a somatic kind of awareness allows the individual to garner wisdom from within. In his words, Living organisms are somas: that is they are an integral and ordered process of embodied elements which cannot be separated either from their evolved past or their adaptive future. A soma is any individual embodiment of a process, which endures and adapts through time, and it remains a soma as long as it lives. (Hanna 1976: 31) Practitioners in the field of somatic studies took Hanna’s idea of ‘individual embodiment of a process’ and understood soma to be a union of the mind, body, and spirit. This is the key to the individual’s self-knowledge. Such way of thinking gave birth to numerous therapeutic approaches that promote the connection between ‘human potential’ and notions of ‘holistic health’ (Eddy 2009). Dance scholar Glenna Batson maintains that somatic practice ‘offered a whole new language of consciousness and body wisdom through self-awareness and self-guidance’ (Batson 2014: 2). Although this movement was initiated in the West, practitioners are aware of its multicultural dimension or approach. In this regard, Eddy reminds us, The transmigration of people and ideas from the east to the western part of the globe also shaped the development of somatic practices, by fostering exposure to the philosophies and practices of mind-body practices such as the eastern martial arts and yoga. (Eddy 2009: 7) Eastern inspirations, such as martial arts, Judo, or forms of yoga practice, had a significant influence on the works of somatic practitioners like, for instance, Moshe Feldenkrais, Joseph Pilates, or Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. In this sense, Evans also brings awareness that cultural and social historical contexts are inextricably linked to somatics. He maintains: Somatics and movement practices must be understood as having their own social and cultural histories, and (that) the body, its practices and those truths it seeks to reveal are thus historically and socially constituted. (Evans 2011: 117)

42  From theory to practice I am aware that somatic thinking and its methods must be accredited within the different sociocultural contexts from which they stem and are, therefore, not homogeneous. Nevertheless, scholars understand that somatic methods can be used as platforms from which people act, sense, and relate to themselves and their bodies (Evans 2011). It is based on this idea of body and mind relationship that this study regards the hadra practice as a somatic process and analyses women’s ideas about the experience to support this idea. For example, in somatic practice, qualities of touch, or verbal exchange, interlinked with sensitive and complex movement experiences help the individual to become aware of the natural movement of life action within the body. As Evan explains, somatic processes are part of ‘a set of practices that exists in the relationship between notions of the body and notions of the self as a knowing subject’ (Evans 2011: 118). Sufi women in Cape Town describe similar kinds of qualities, as explored throughout this book. Finally, one of the most important aims of this study is to attend to embodied selfhood expression. Evans suggests that an intertwined relationship between body movement and somatics is ‘a set of practices that exists in the relationship between notions of the body and notions of the self as a knowing subject’ (Evans 2011: 117). Just as Evans proposes, this study will show that a somatic way of thinking can provide the answer that the body needs to communicate knowledge. Thus, it is a kind of framework that helps in the analysis of religious embodied experience and conceptualised ideas of Sufi hadra practice in Cape Town. The following section moves from theory to practice. It explains the ethnographic nature of this research and addresses notions of participant observer as well as methods of data collection and analysis.

Conclusion Conclusion: where Allah is waiting Reflecting on my personal experience, I conclude that hadra as ritual praxis focuses on the mind and body relationship and invites the body knowledge to embody selfhood expression. My experience tells me that through ritual practice Sufi women can gradually learn about their selves through their selves. Knowledge and spiritual growth are not just found in Sufi texts or theological thinking, they are also gained through the body and mind relationship. By reflecting on my embodied experience, I realise that this chapter was also written partly to help me connect to my self-understanding and to better understand the nature of my being through the limit of this religious ritual practice. My dance, sports, and yoga training, together with my experience as a participant in a Sufi ritual form that deals with body movement, have opened me up for this particular experience. By doing this, I came to better appreciate Sufi women’s notions of their embodied experiences of hadra, and to suggest that the more self-awareness exists, the more self-embodied moments can visibly arise through body knowledge. Images, sounds, recital words, other people, or the theological

From theory to practice  43 and symbolic background in which hadra is placed by Sufis are all sources of features that give women the opportunity to engage with themselves in a body and mind relation. I too recall similar kinds of features during my experience, and so my personal embodied practice has generated a meaningful transformation process in my sense of self. I sought to represent Sufi women’s opinions that had a general knowledge of Islam, Sufism, and its practice. I observed that women’s degree of commitment to the practice varied. In some cases, women would attend hadra every week while others do not attend the practice so regularly. I also noticed that some women were more articulate about the depth of theological aspects than others, while some were more comfortable in speaking about bodily sensations and body-related issues than others. Although women’s interpretations of Sufism followed a common line of thought, their individual experiences of the practice and what they considered to be a Sufi were obviously different. The same applied to the way they spoke about their embodied experience and their notions of body and body movement in hadra. In the broad sense, women saw Sufism as a way of living a religious life, and hadra as an embodied tool through which they could gain a sense of embodied religious piety. This study accounts for one particular community in Cape Town, with the acknowledgement that there are many other Sufi communities worldwide also practice this ritual, as well as other Sufi ritual forms. My attempt in this study was to interlace Sufi women’s different opinions in such a manner that their discourse innately follows one another. Again, this does not mean that all participants encountered and described the embodied experience the same way. Further, my personal understanding of hadra has also influenced the research process. With this, I mean that it was not only by observing and collecting data, but also by participating and embodying the ritual experience, I could relate to some notions, which are shared by the participants, and on a personal note, to understand hadra on sensorial, anthropological, and somatic levels. Thus, I claim that ritual embodied practice in Sufism is linked with selfhood expression, and this offers women a more universal and deep understanding of an aim in life. For the Sufi, the aim is love. Love is at the core of Sufism, or as Islamic and gender studies scholar Margaret Malumud suggests, ‘Sufis argued that human love (ishq) could be an aid reaching God’. Hadra is an embodied experience of that love for God. To contemplate, to accept, to find, and to feel the divine essence is the core aspect of Sufi practice. I see that to love and ‘find Allah’ is a truly personal, intimate moment of self-discovery and self-acknowledgement. In this context, it is useful to consider Malumud’s suggestion, Just as human love can bring about the loss of one’s own identity and acceptance of the beloved’s identity, so too can love of God lead to loss of self and the replacement of human attributes with divine ones.

44  From theory to practice Nevertheless, given my participation in and observation of this practice, I question to what extent this model of love and submission to God applies to the way Sufi women relate to their bodies? For some Sufi women, their experience of practice is too habitual to reflect on or be open to other potential avenues, such as the ones I propose, namely, as a bodily practice, and the somatic process that it entails. These are just a few perspectives my research data revealed. I am aware of other potential perspectives, which are beyond the scope of this book, and which will briefly be discussed in the conclusion chapter of this book.

Notes 1 Rabia al Basri (717–801) is one of the first female Sufi poets to be known for her mystical poetry. This poem is quoted from the book: Islamic Mystical Poetry: Sufi Verse from the Early Mystics to Rumi. 2 The link: http://sufilive​.com​/Hadra​-1238​.html (accessed on 02/01/14). I am also aware of other videos posted on websites, such as https://www​.youtube​.com​/ watch​?v=​_pliJuE​_Dwc or https://vimeo.com/1448710.

3

The inner Islam An overview of Sufism and Sufi notions of the body

The bird is the soul, and the cage is your own physical body, and the materialistic cage. In other words, everything that personifies Tania, [speaking of herself], everything that makes up Tania is the cage. (Tania 2014)

Introduction In Sufi practice, the faithful are encouraged to play the complex role of distancing oneself from the self (Schimmel 1975), or as one of my interviewees Tania suggests above, for ‘the bird inside the cage’, to get closer to God. However, this ‘bird’ refers to body impulses, motivations, or wishes; therefore, Tania defines her sense of self not through the body, but through the interior realm that exists inside the body. This chapter discusses notions of the body in Sufi theological thinking and analyses some data collected throughout fieldwork research in Cape Town, during February and May 2014. Data will be examined to understand the complex notions Sufi women in Cape Town have in regard to the body and how they position the body in relationship to the soul. This chapter exposes women’s notions of the body and how these notions can possibly be influenced, not only from an Islamic background but considering the cultural context it sits in. Yet, as previously explained in Chapter 2, it is important to provide background information about the nature of Sufism and its praxis. Ideas of mysticism will also be discussed and an explanation of the core of Sufi practice, which is the sacred prayer of dhikr, will be exposed in order to understand how these notions influence Sufi women’s ideas of the body in Cape Town. Studies in Sufism (Karamustafa 2007; Nasr 2007) will help to understand the nature of this Islamic ramification. Sufism and anthropology (Pinto 2010; Saniotis 2012) studies will help in the consideration of how Sufism follows spiritual exercises that can be defined as ‘mystical’. In this way, mysticism is a term used to carry a sense of becoming intimate with God through what Sufis refer to as the ‘mystical’ pathway. Mystical features, DOI: 10.4324/9780429353574-3

46  The inner Islam as they will be presented, are mainly the ones that distinguish Sufism and Sufis from other forms of Islam. Nevertheless, like any other theological ideals, or concepts, Sufism is often subject to controversy. Thus, it is difficult to understand Sufism without attending to the context in which it figures. Practices like the dhikr, and the use of this religious exercise in hadra, are notions inextricably related to the body. They will also need to be addressed using the viewpoints of scholars of Islam and Sufism studies (Schimmel 1975, 1983; Hoffman 1995; Chittick 2000; Kugle 2007). These scholars’ studies provide meaningful insights that allow one to understand the Sufi discourse about the body and body movement and to appreciate Sufi practice as part of bodily experiential practice. The devotees regard their praxis as platforms to exercise certain acquired physical mastery skills and their performance. They assist the Sufi to develop a sense of religious and spiritual communal belonging, and individually embodied religious self-expression, as Chapter 5 will further explain. In this book, I maintain that bodily actions manifested in Sufi rituals are sources of body knowledge and selfhood. The body and its movement not only provide a sense of religious and communal belonging, but it can also be a site of cultural and social observation, the concern of religious identity, or a mode of selfhood expression for example. In this chapter, these notions are going to be unpacked in relation to Sufism, and the beliefs about the nature and importance of the body amongst Sufi females in Cape Town. As previously mentioned, Chapter 5 will extend this discussion in relation to the Sufi female body and the symbolic ritual religious embodiment context. The following section presents a brief discussion about the nature of Sufism.

Sufism: the innermost of Islam This book does not intend to present a detailed history of Sufism, as scholars1 in the field of Islamic and Sufism studies have done so. However, it is important to provide a brief account of the origin of Sufism, and some insightful notions about its nature. Islamic studies scholar Ahmet Karamustafa (2007) has traced the roots of Sufism from early medieval times, and the appearance of the initial socalled ‘renunciants’, a term used for those who abstained from mainstream life to the development and establishment of the first set of Sufi communities. He focused on the Sufis of the city of Baghdad and the development of Sufism throughout other regions. Karamustafa informs us that Sufism was originally, the major mystical tradition in Islam, which emerged from within renunciatory modes of piety (zuhd) during a period that extended from the last decades of the second/eighth to the beginning of the fourth/tenth century. (Karamustafa 2007: 1)

The inner Islam  47 Karamustafa (2007) mentions that such new renunciation (zahid) forms of Muslim piety initiated the first Islamic mystical movements that then spread widely throughout the many Muslim communities in Iraq, Eastern Iran, and Central Asia. Some of the common features of the renunciants’ movement originally lay in embracing a drastic aversion to the conventional social life, the detachment from material sources, strict dietary habits, and the search for purity often involved in spiritual retreat (ribat). He also explains that the so-called renunciants were usually seen to be wearing wool (suf), which is a possible reason why Sufis were later called by this name. In Sufism studies, Scott Kugle (2007) explains that Sufis were often seen as the radicals in the movement and retreated from actively operating in their societies in favour of other unearthly types of devotion: they wore only wool; renounced ownership of property, the saving of money, and the establishment of routine family life; and retreated to devotional centers outside urban areas. (Kugle 2007: 3) On this note, Karamustafa also states that the pioneers of the so-called mystical movement approached a full commitment to the cultivation of the inner life. This way of living was described as a search for new meaning about spiritual growth and intimacy with God. He explains, This inward turn manifested itself especially in new discourses on spiritual states, stages of spiritual development, closeness to God, and love; it also led to a clear emphasis on ‘knowledge of the interior’ (ilm al-batin) acquired through ardent examination and training of the human soul. (Karamustafa 2007: 2) The initiators of the mystical movement explored the psychological features of penance and turning towards God (tawba). They advocated that this could not be reached safely through a laborious search of the conscience and the soul. Thus, their major pre-occupation became the disdaining of the material world to cultivate ‘the ultimate realm’ (Karamustafa 2007: 2). Yet, Karamustafa points out that at the start of this movement, the so-called renunciant people were not part of a homogeneous group. He maintains that renunciants were initially individuals who became key figures in the development of the mystical movement throughout the different regions. The author refers to the female RÅbiaa al-Adawiyya (d. 185/801) in Basra, Shaqea al-Balkhe (d. 194/810) in northern Khurasan, and Abe Sulayman al-Darane (d. 215/830) in Syria, as important figures for example. Others like Dhu’l-NËn al-MirÈ (d. 245/860) in Egypt and alÓÅrith al-Mu˙ÅsibÈ (d. 243/857) in Baghdad are examples of other people who were involved in the introduction of the movement across regions (Karamustafa 2007: 1).

48  The inner Islam Nonetheless, while these renunciants certainly started a new Islamic trend towards inner knowledge and the pathway to God, it was only by the second half of the third century that Sufism, as we know it today, became a coherent form of the spiritual domain, predominantly apparent amongst the so-called mystics of Baghdad. During this time, a group of renunciants in Baghdad, called ‘nascent mystics’, began to organise themselves and ‘form a distinct type of piety that became the foundation of what would prove to be one of the most durable pietistic approaches in Islam’ (Karamustafa 2007: 6). The spread of the Iraq-based Sufism started to manifest amongst different Muslim communities and regions and became a sign of the growing attractiveness of Sufism and the Sufi way of life. Kugle writes that the Sufi’s way of life embraced a non-rational dimension of humanity ‘calling Muslims to living faith through mystical experience’ (2007: 4). Also, Karamustafa mentions that the term ‘Sufi’ began to be used as a technical term to describe individuals, or groups of people, who established a distinctive type of Islamic piousness. In this regard, the author suggests that Sufism became, A mystical mode of piety that had started among a limited number of middle-class urbanites had become a way of pious living that attracted followers, devotees, and enthusiasts from all social strata in Muslim communities. Sufism had arrived. (Karamustafa 2007: 175) Since the emergence of Sufism, Sufis have been teaching a kind of gnostic understanding, based on individual practice, towards inward enlightenment and mystical intuition. It has become a practice of many Muslim communities worldwide, as well as a theme of study across academia. Stjernholm (2011) mentions that the field of Sufism studies has expanded across disciplines and explains that the past decade’s work on Sufism has helped to open a scholarship that acknowledges the importance and, in some cases, the predominant way of living among different Muslim groups in Islamic and non-Islamic countries. Some scholars in Islam and Sufism studies (Schimmel 1975; Werbner 1998; Chittick 2002) have analysed the religion within a contemporary socio-political context. Others (Hoffman 2005; Pinto 2007; Vicente 2007) have focused on case studies in Sufi practices amidst different Muslim communities worldwide. Overall, these scholars discuss Sufism in a sense of spiritual connection, which accounts for a predominantly metaphysical essence. Islamic and Sufism studies scholar, Seyyed Hossein Nasr (2007), maintains that The metaphysical reality of Sufism has been manifested in many times and climes, among diverse ethnic groups and in numerous languages,

The inner Islam  49 without its essential reality ever becoming simply an accident of particular social and historical circumstances. (Nasr 2007: 164) Nasr suggests that Sufism transcends particular geographical, social, and historical points; thus, it should not be reduced to a single truth, place, claim, or historical context. In its metaphysical understanding, Nasr claims that the source of Sufism ‘is none other than God Himself’ (Nasr 2007: 166). However, Stjernholm highlights that some other Islamic Muslim groups have often criticised Sufism and its relevance and legitimacy in connection to other ways of living Islam. The author maintains that Sufism in the form of twentieth century turuq2 was seen as a superstitious, illogical ‘folk’ religion with little if any resemblance to proper, serious Islam; not to mention the proper, serious Sufism of the historical masters of past centuries. (Stjernholm 2011: 8) Despite these challenges, Sufism is still visibly performed and has a significant role in the shape of some Muslim societies around the world. Scholar of Islam Paul L. Heck (2006) claims that notwithstanding the challenges that certain Muslim fundamentalist groups have raised about Sufism and its validity, Sufism continues to be acknowledged by many Muslim groups as an integral part of Islam. In this sense, Sufism follows the same Islamic laws common to all Muslims. Heck suggests that The expansive networks and institutional organization of Sufism brought its higher morality, cultivated intensely by its spiritual followers, to wider circles of Muslims, mainly through orally communicated instruction from sheikh to followers, eventually set down in manuals that enjoy wide prestige and authority in the Islamic world today. (Heck 2006: 254) In light of this, Sufism can be regarded as an integral part of Islam and, in the broad sense of the term, the innermost or the secretive dimension, which is also present in Sunni and Shi’i versions of Islam (Pinto 2007). Nevertheless, Sufism draws heavily on the Qur’an and Islamic laws that offer meaningful understandings about the nature of many Muslim societies, in their respective Islamic and meta-Islamic characters (Heck 2006). Pinto (2007) also describes Sufism as the mystical dimension of Islam, where the faithful aims to experience direct intimate contact with God. Pinto mentions that to achieve this goal, the Sufi devotee embarks on a spiritual pathway, or a process of initiation, often through a vow of commitment, called the bay'ah, to a spiritual master or Sheikh, who guides the Sufi onto the so-called mystical path. Pinto’s anthropological research is based on Sufi

50  The inner Islam ritual practices in the region of Syria, and on how religious identity in Syria is embodied through the experience of this mystical path through the performance of Sufi rituals. He suggests that the mystical pathway of the Sufi, does not consist of a completely subjective religious trajectory free of external constraints, for it requires each mystical state experienced by the individual to be in accord with the doctrines and practices transmitted by the texts. (Pinto 2007: 4) William Chittick (2002) suggests that finding a unified description of Sufism appears to be difficult, particularly because it is often regarded as intricately mystical by nature. However, the term mystic or mystical experiences in religious practice always depend on the meaning one recognises these terms to have; thus, it requires some unpacking.

Mystical by nature The Oxford Dictionary refers to mysticism as describing something as a ‘vague or ill-defined religious or spiritual belief, especially as associated with a belief in the occult’ (http://oxforddictionaries​.com​/definition​/english​/mystical​.htm). Although this label can offer a useful orientation, it is too broad to discuss Sufi religious living and practice. The focus here is to understand how this term sits in the context of Sufism. Chittick is of the opinion that the intricacy of the term mystic is ‘far too broad and far too narrow to designate the diverse teachings and phenomena that have been identified with Sufism over history’ (2000: 2). He prefers to describe Sufism as the ‘way by which man transcends his own individual self and reaches God’ (Chittick 2006: 21). Although he writes that the term ‘mysticism’ has often been used in the West to understand, or to categorise, Sufism and the nature of Sufi practices, he argues that Sufism cannot be fully placed into a single notion. Rather than trying to domesticate Sufism by giving it a more familiar label, we should recognize at the outset that there is something in the Sufi tradition that abhors domestication and definition. (Chittick 2006: 4) However, other scholars have openly used the term mystical to describe some aspects of Sufism. For example, Kugle speaks of Sufism as an integral part of Islam that relies on mysticism, ‘Sufism is Islamic mysticism, comparable to the mystical sub-streams of other religious traditions, but also distinct from them in many ways’ (Kugle 2007: 1). When the author speaks of a distinction from other religious practices, he refers to the Sufi mystical discourse that focuses upon love and intention, which is regarded by Sufi as states of the heart, aiming to understand God and to love and be loved by God.

The inner Islam  51 Scholar of Islam and Sufism studies, Titus Burckhardt (2006), shares that mysticism is also a term used by the Greek Fathers of the early Christian Church to describe those who follow a spiritual line related to knowledge of the mysteries. Burckhardt claims that in this sense, the word mysticism could be comparably applied, if given its strict meaning, with the Islamic term of tasawwuf, which is described by some adherents as the inner part of Islam. He explains that ‘if the word were understood in that sense it would clearly be legitimate to compare Sufis to true Christians mystics. (Burckhardt 2006: 7) Also in Islamic studies, Earle Waugh (2004) describes mysticism to be an arena in which spiritual or religious experience plays a role. However, when referring to Sufism, he suggests that it is more accurate to focus on mysticism ‘as a process or way of life’ (Waugh 2004: 334). Hoffman (1995), who conducted fieldwork in Sufi practices in Egypt, also acknowledges the difficulties in giving a complete description of Sufism. The author explains that Sufism is seen by Sufis in Egypt as secret, or mystical by nature, suggesting that Sufism ‘may take time for its depth to become manifest, whereas the scum rises at once to the surface’ (Hoffman 1995: 35). Hoffman understands Sufism to be an inner experience, an individual devotional practice, and a way of living, which requires stages, or phases, of spiritual levels to be opened and revealed to the Sufi through persistent practice. To reach an inner state, or an immaterial level of experience, shows that the Sufi is not so much involved in rational knowledge, but focused on the immediate experience that brings him or her closer to God. The scholarly examples mentioned above have shown a common conception of Sufism as spiritual practice, secretive, or mystical by nature, where the importance is focused on the Sufi pathway to reach intimacy with God. My understanding of mysticism and mystical practices shares the idea that mysticism as a notion can be considered a type of thought and language found within many religious praxes. However, I am aware that such notions cannot be fundamentally set, or even well defined, and I also chose to use the terms ‘mysticism’ and ‘mystical practices’ as some of the many possible descriptions related to Sufism and their ritual practices. The so-called ‘mystical’ categories of religious praxis share common features, such as distinctive types of practices, sacred texts, ways of articulating the nature of the human being, or the divine essence, and other sources of illuminating experiences that connect the human being to an inner transformation, and, ultimately, bring them closer to a non-material Divine or spiritual essence. Sufism studies scholar Martin Lings (2006) explains that religious branches, such as the Quaker tradition in Christianity, the Kabbalah of Judaism, the Zen practices of Buddhism, or Yoga practices in Hinduism, are modes of spirituality too central for them not to be integrated as part of a traditional way, or concept, of mysticism. Lings understands that these

52  The inner Islam religious practices are known for their common features, such as ‘initiation, doctrine and method’ (Lings 2006: 105). In this context, religious studies scholar Peter Connolly also suggests, In religious circles mystical experiences are generally understood in terms of making contact with or realizing one’s unity with some kind of supernatural reality, the transcendent focus of a particular religious tradition, a being or dimension which gives meaning to the entire religious enterprise. (Connolly 2000: 1) Sufism requires a commitment to devotional ritualistic actions that take the devotee to a non-material, spiritual level, to reach intimacy with Allah. The mystical practice of dhikr is the core of the all-Sufi tradition, and the most valuable way of connecting with God (Geels 1996), as I will discuss next. Sufism studies scholar, Ashazad Bashir (2011), suggests that Sufism is connected to the Arabic noun ‘tasawwuf’, which, in his opinion, means that, etymologically speaking, it refers to a sense of ‘making oneself into Sufism’ (Bashir 2011: 38). In this regard, Sultanova also suggests that, The Sufi path leading to God and the higher mysteries of the human ‘self’ is based on the doctrine of stations (maqamat) and ‘states’ (hal or ahwal), which retains its importance for the Muslim mysteries, and is considered to be the cornerstone of Sufism. (Sultanova 2011: 30) Sufi practice follows the idea of reaching different states of belief, codes (adab), and instructions, which are displayed in hadra. Through this meticulous mystical process and the exercises, the Sufi learns about purification from and renunciation of the external order to achieve complete devotion to God. In the same thought, Pinto proposes that for the Sufi this is done by distancing oneself from the self (naf) and becoming closer to God. The author maintains that These stages correspond to states of the soul (hal, p i ahw al), which are achieved by the continuous transformation of the different forms of existence of the self/ego (nafs). (Pinto 2002: 102) The naf in Sufism is regarded as the carnal material, which is responsible for the individual’s material wishes. Sufis believe that this creates a distraction and distances one from the ultimate goal, which is closeness to God. Sufis consider that the material wishes need to be controlled by the jihad (or fight) against the self, the naf. The Sufi is in a constant fight with the self, (m ujahadat al-nafs) through several states, which eventually cease and dissolve

The inner Islam  53 into God through the extermination of the naf (fana’ fi-lla h). Sultanova maintains, Through following a series of devotional practices, which lead to higher levels of ecstasy, Sufis aspire to realise a condition in which they are in direct communion with God. Ultimately, the individual human personality passes away and the Sufi feels his soul absorbed into God. (Sultanova 2011: 31) Sufis believe that in order to achieve this ultimate state, spiritual ritualistic practices need to be performed. Therefore, the following subsection examines the core of Sufi praxis, dhikr.

The Sufi practice of dhikr In Sufism studies dhikr has been described as a form of repetitive ritualistic prayer similar to the repetitive prayer practices found in Nembutsu Japanese Buddhism or Japa prayer in Hinduism (Chittick 2004). These types of ritualistic prayers follow a similar kind of structure to dhikr, where the prayer evokes specific sacred words, or sacred texts, repetitively recited by the faithful in order to connect to a Divine power or a spiritual essence beyond the material world. As part of this inner transformation process, Sufis believe that performing dhikr and repeating God’s many names leave no space for the mind and the consciousness to remember anything else. Although the Qur’an only refers to 99 different names used to describe God, the idea of God’s numerable names draws from the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings that God had ‘ninety-nine beautiful names’.3 Geels mentions that dhikr is supposed to lead the Sufi into a so-called ‘union’, or intimate state, with God (Geels 2006). Dhikr, as discussed, is performed amongst the Naqshbandi community in Cape Town and worldwide. According to Naqshbandi Sheikh Hisham Kabanni, dhikr is enforced by the Qur’an, and mentioned in other Islamic sacred texts, such as the hadiths.4 In the book Classical Islam and the Naqshbandi Sufi Tradition (2004), Kabanni claims that dhikr can be found in Qur’an texts more than a hundred times (Kabanni 2004). The Sheikh notes the importance of this practice as, It is the most praiseworthy practice to earn God’s pleasure, the most effective weapon to overcome the enemy, and the deed most deserving reward. (Kabanni 2004: 657) For the Sufi, every prayer is meant to remember God (dhikr), and God’s many Divine names, and as Kabanni suggests the most rewarding effort for the Sufi follower. Chittick maintains that although the practice of dhikr is a Sufi practice sustainable by Qu’ranic evidence, Sufis still believe

54  The inner Islam that this prayer goes beyond human reasoning. In this sense, Chittick suggests, Every rational attempt to understand these names is propelled by the intuition that God lies infinitely beyond human conceptualization. (Chittick 2007: 88) Chittick maintains that the word dhikr defines some of the most relevant ideas in the Qur’an, and not only means ‘to remind’, but ‘to remember’ as well. He writes. In the sense of reminder, it indicates the primary function of the prophets, and in the sense of remembrance, it designates the proper human response to the prophetic reminder. (Chittick 2007: 113) Sufis based this idea on particular verses of the Qur’an that refer to the necessity of remembering God. An example is found in the words of the Qur’an ‘And remember your Lord when you forget [it]’ (Surah 18:24). The verse of the Surah (13:28) is often cited by Sufis to justify their practice, ‘those who have believed and whose hearts are assured by the remembrance of Allah. Unquestionably, by the remembrance of Allah hearts are assured’. Another common text, used by the Naqshbandi Tariqa, is the Surah (3:191), ‘those who remember their Lord standing, sitting, and laying on their sides’. Sufi acknowledges the relevance to remember God as something to be present at all times, as Sheikh Kabanni suggests, ‘those who remember Him at all times of the day and night‘ (2004: 659). Based on Islamic evidence, Sheikh Kabanni claims, ‘the one who engages in dhikr has the highest rank of all before God’ (Kabanni 2004: 662). The Naqshbandi believe that dhikr is the way by which they can purify the heart, and it is the foremost key to all Sufi spiritual success. Hoffman explains that this idea is shared by all Sufis, meaning that dhikr is not only the best form of worship, but they believe that the Qur’an says that it is greater even than salat, the ritual prayer, which is an obligation for all Muslims (Hoffman 1995). In Islamic and Sufi studies, Annemarie Schimmel (1975) explains that dhikr is structurally divided into what Sufi refers to as recollection with the tongue, (dhikr jail) and recollection in the heart, or dhikr kafi. The dhikr jail is often performed in groups, such as the gatherings of hadra. Schimmel mentions that some classical Sufi texts suggest that dhikr kafi, performed in solitude, is often regarded as the greater way of achieving closeness to God (Schimmel 1975). The main goal of dhikr is to achieve an experience of such an overwhelming sense of the power of God that the Sufi is able to lose their sense of selfhood. This state, which Sufis enter during the dhikr process is called the fana, or the pass away. Geels refers to this state as, ‘to be near God simultaneously means to be at a distance to yourself (nafs),

The inner Islam  55 the components of the human personality’ (Geels 1991: 230). Words such as lā ʾilāha ʾillā llāhu (there is no God but Allah) are recited in the dhikr and serve as meaningful acts of purification; in other words, to recite dhikr is a constant cleansing process from material human wishes. Some of these sacred texts recited by the Naqshbandi during hadra will be revealed in the next chapter. In Chapter 6, these sacred texts will be used to understand how Sufi women use external features, such as recitations, music, and internal features like visual imagery, and argues that these can be regarded as somatic experiences that contribute to women’s embodied religious expression. Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak (1988) from the Al-Jeharri Tariqa provides a useful description of the different stages of dhikr. Ozak explains that these stages are divided into public dhikr, private dhikr, the dhikr of the heart (or the mystery of the spirit), and the dhikr of the mystery of the mystery (Ozak 1988: 67). The Sheikh claims that these stages are related to degrees of spiritual progress on the Sufi path. The initial state is one of being the follower (muhib), who visits the dergah and joins the gatherings (sohbet), while working on the Divine names. This is followed by the state of becoming a Sufi disciple, or murid, who pledges to the Sheikh’s authority. A third level relates to the Sufi who progressed into the group and became a follower of the Sacred Law. In this state, the Sufi is in constant struggle with the carnal or bodily self (nafs). During fieldwork, Sufi women in Cape Town spoke about these states, and where they considered themselves to be in regard to their Sufi path. Some Sufi women saw themselves as beginners, or followers, others as disciples, or murids, and a few have expressed a higher spiritual progression. In any of these cases, all Sufi women seemed to be aware of Sufi notions about the spiritual stages. Most of the Sufi women I encountered have expressed certain levels of spiritual commitment and religious integration within the Naqshbandi community. They also understand the concepts such as the idea of fighting the nafs, (the ego), or the material desires, which Sufis relate directly to the body and to bodily wishes, emotions, or states. Although the structure of dhikr is commonly used in Sufism, it is still debatable amongst the different groups whether dhikr should be recited only in silence, or collectively, or both (Schimmel 1975). Nevertheless, it is not my intention to engage in this discussion, as others have done so (Gardet 1978; Algar 1996; Weismann 2007). Regarding the Naqshbandi Tariqa, Sheikh Kabanni also mentions that, originally, dhirk was recited in silence, brought in by Sheikh Abu Bakr As-Siddiq, who was the second Sheikh in the Golden chain,5 or lineage, of Naqshbandi Sheikhs. However, Kabanni proceeds to explain that the third in the chain, Sheikh Salam al-Farsi, was commonly seen reciting dhikr loud. Kabanni writes it was common to see Sheikh al-Farsi, ‘each night he prayed, and when he got tired, he would start reciting dhikr with his tongue’ (Kabanni 2004: 102).

56  The inner Islam Weismann (2007) also shares that vocal practice of dhikr has been used ever since the third Master in the chain of the Naqshbandi Tariqa and followed by other Sufis, such as Mahumud Anjar Faghnawi, Muhammad Parsa, and Ya’qub Charki. According to Weismann, the reintroduction of the vocal dhikr challenged the idea of Sufi practice in the Naqshbandi tradition. In modern days, Weismann observes that vocal reciting continues to be accepted. However, the author notes that in some cases, the Naqsbhandi group seems to use dhikr as a kind of spiritual or Sufi religious moral session. In this sense, Weismann claims that dhikr often recalls proselytising. Thus, the silent form of dhikr, generally recognized as the mainstream of the Naqshbandi ritual, was often accompanied by vocal forms of recollection, while in more recent times it sometimes resembles a religious lesson or preaching. (Weismann 2007: 13) These new ways of using practices as a means of religious preaching are seen by Weismann as a response by the Naqshbandi group to the changes in the wider network of Sufism, but also reflections of the changes in the Naqshbandi organisation. According to Weismann, some of these changes happened during the period between 2007 and 2011 and reflect the implementation of Naqshbandi Sufi lodges as a new approach to the Naqshbandi spiritual way of living, and adopting other Sufi customs, such as hereditary succession. These changes allow the Naqshbandi to expand in multiple chains of transmission as a source of spiritual reputation. Stjernholm (2011) also maintains that changes in ritual approaches, or religious moral conduct, cannot be regarded as static. Chapter 2 already addressed this topic and shows how the Naqshbandi Tariqa is an example of how Sufi ritual practice can adapt and develop within the modern world of Sufism. So far, this chapter introduced Sufism within a historical context and discussed its nature, commonly seen as secretive and often regarded as mystical and introduced the main Sufi practice of dhikr. Having established this, the following subsections discuss notions of the body in Sufi theological discourse and relate these to data collection and data analysis.

The body in Sufi discourse As previously discussed, dhikr and the hadra are considered important disciplinary arenas in which the disciple acquires the practical dispositions and body movement techniques that enable them to frame and embody their experiences according to the normative models of Sufism. This allows participants to reach various levels of symbolic and experiential processes in the universe of the non-material encounter. I note that the mystical path individualises the Sufi according to the reconfiguration of their sense of selfhood, while mastering the dimension of the praxis. Based on this idea, this

The inner Islam  57 study claims that analysing the dimension of this embodied pathway opens discussions about the importance of the body in Sufism, to achieve such physical and emotional integration in ritualistic performance. As Pinto suggests, one can look at the final aim of Sufi rituals as an idealised form constructed through a series of moral codes and conducts (Pinto 2007). In this way, it is possible to understand that the body needs to adopt certain components of breathing, posture, and movement, which are embodied and practised reaching a spiritual meaning. Through observation and analysis, I noticed that Sufi women in Cape Town understand and learn about the body in the ritual. Yet, the way they express this is not necessarily seen as an experience that gives dominance or importance to the body. Through a dance anthropological perspective, I note that the body of the Sufi can be assessed through the visible demonstration of their movement expression, as religious embodied knowledge, which is embedded through cultural and religious ritual patterns. In Cape Town, Sufi women’s understanding and articulation of concepts of the body continually challenged my own notions about the body and embodied religious experience. Certainly, I agree that Sufism can offer an insight into the richness of the individual religious imagination. However, notions discussed above such as nafs, material wishes, and ruh, referred to as the spirit, are all interwoven with the body’s landscape. In this regard, it is useful to remember Kugle’s suggestion that in Sufi thought the body plays the intricate role of becoming the container for the sacred other (Kugle 2007). My understanding is that, externally observed, Sufis cannot go through this spiritual journey without mastering the practice. This process pertains to the body and the body’s movement. In other words, it is through this bodily process, that Sufis can regain personal autonomy and connection to God. This concern with a connection to God is apparent in the Sufi’s body movement while practising hadra. Data collected in Cape Town from February to May 2013 reveals how the opinions of some Sufi women encourage me to re-analyse my system of knowing and understanding the body and body movement. Their notions recall that Sufi modes of knowing can invite different options in accepting the nature of the body. In this chapter, Kugle’s (2007) and Bashir’s (2011) ideas will link to Sufi women’s discourse in regard to their bodies, and I will extend this discussion and analyse how women’s notions of the symbolism of hadra instigate an embodied sense of selfhood. Chittick explains that a key factor in Sufi theory is to understand the two different ‘states’ assumed by the Sufi on the pathway to God. One state is referred to as the state of ‘intoxication’ (sukr), a profound exaltation of God, and the perception that God exists within everything. The other state is the sober state (sahw), where the Sufi understands the difference between God (Creator) and the external, the world, and the human (creature). Chittick explains that whichever state the Sufi follows can only be achieved through the embodiment of ritual praxis as a form of corporeality (Chittick 2000). It is beyond the scope of this book to present a detailed analysis of

58  The inner Islam all body matters and body practices that concern Sufi practice. I am aware of other scholars who discussed topics concerning Sufi praxis, for example, the spiritual concerts of sema (Michon 2005), or the ‘whirling dance’ of the Sufi Dervishes (Vicente 2007). This chapter focuses on particular scholars’ viewpoints about Sufi’s notions of the body. In the book Sufi Saints and Sufi Bodies (2007), Kugle enlightens that in Sufism the body and its subjectivity are constantly shifting meaning. He argues that in Sufism, the body is placed within a context of sacred and symbolic meaning. This complexity of discourse means that the body in Sufism is regarded both as the receiver and the vehicle of communication and interaction with the exterior and interior realm, and most importantly, in the relationship with God (Kugle 2007). Therefore, the body assumes a paradoxical role: on the one hand, it is the medium of practice or the platform where expressions of faith are performed. On the other hand, it is the channel that needs to be reduced in order to achieve true closeness to God and his wishes. Kugle raises an interesting rhetorical question about one’s self-identity in the Sufi context. While debating the topic with a custodian of a Sufi shrine in Boranda (India), the Sufi explains to Kugle that in Sufism the body is not what defines him or herself (Kugle 2007:,12). During my fieldwork in Cape Town, I too was confronted with the idea that the body does not define oneself. Despite understanding and acknowledging the presence of the body in ritual praxis, Tania, who was named above, defined her sense of self as not through her body, but through the interior realm that exists inside the body. This chapter opened with her quotation, where she speaks of her body as compared to a cage that captures the spirit, or the soul, as her true self. Here I cite Tania’s full explanation, The bird is the soul, and the cage is your own physical body, and the materialistic cage, in other words, everything that personifies Tania [speaking of herself], everything that makes up Tania is the cage. So it consists on various dimensions. It’s like the physicality, the physical, it is your mental, your emotion, it’s the materialistic, where you think you are in life, it’s me the I, the (pause)… that’s why I say, all those trappings together makes the cage. So the soul is your bird. Kugle’s suggestion that for the Sufi, ‘the person is not a person’s identity, and yet the body is not so easily left behind’ (Kugle 2007: 3) can be very well applied. For Tania, the body seems to be present, but becomes the material deceiver of the soul. Kugle poses the question that although the body in Sufism can be the site for distraction from ‘deeper tides of the soul’, how ‘can we feel the soul’s force except with and through the body?’ (Kugle 2007: 4). From dance and anthropological perspectives, I have posed similar questions to the Sufi women I encountered in Cape Town, questions that have been constantly contested throughout many conversations with them. Sufi women’s arguments are strongly influenced by Sufi theological discourse. In this regard, their way

The inner Islam  59 of thinking agrees with Kugle’s idea of how Sufis understand the body beyond its materiality, ‘in ways to achieve beneath the skin of the human existence, beneath its routine and rules’ (2007: 13). Kugle’s work analyses the perspectives of the body as imagined in Sufi communities and the bodies of holy people in Sufism, known as saints or spiritual guides. He examines the role of these saints during medieval times as key figures in Islamic religious life, which often played the role of political leaders and moral examples (Kugle 2007). The scholar made use of feminist approaches in order to analyse the specific case of the Sufi female, Saint Sayyida Amina, and the symbolism of her belly. Kugle argues that Amina’s body is an example of a gendered body as a site of political, pious, and moral conduct in the early period of Islamic societies in Morocco (Kugle 2007: 102). The example of Sufi Saint Amina and her belly was a symbol of procreation, sustenance, and human life. Kugle claims that during her life Saint Amina and her gendered body were the cause of debate regarding the patriarchal Muslim society in which she lived and that her corporeal nature as female saint challenged such patriarchal values. The author claims that examples such as Saint Amina suggest that before the Muslim female can become a saint, she needs to be affirmed or recognised by Islamic society. the woman must overcome her social construction as a woman and must further overcome the pressures of a routine life to become not just a person but also a saint. (Kugle 2007: 103) Kugle argues for the need that Muslim females have to overcome their gender and its concerns. In other words, the woman first needs to overcome her female body, before she can proceed to a complete spiritual plenitude (Kugle 2007). I suggest that although Sufi women in Cape Town seem to understand and explain the meaning of Sufi thinking about the body, they still chose not to use a discourse on the body acting as the source of knowledge. I argue that Sufi women seem to follow a culturally embedded patriarchal Sufi and Islamic notion that seems to disregard the body for complete surrender to God. If this is the case, why do women choose to disregard the body? What are the possible hidden agendas behind this conscious or unconscious choice? Kugle claims that Sufis stress the importance of the body with religious experience and understand that the connection they seek can only be achieved through so-called ‘mystical exercises’, those performed through the body. If this is the case, the intense focus of the Sufi on the body, its religious and cosmic qualities, makes the study of female bodies in movement an ideal place to understand how Muslim female bodies are perceived and articulated in Islamic cultures and beyond. As this book continues, such topics are also addressed through a somatic approach. Chapter 7 of this book discusses hadra as the basis for somatic methods of body movement, which can support self-healing, self-reflexivity, and embodied self-expression.

60  The inner Islam Bashir (2011) uses a similar discourse to Kugle to investigate notions of Sufi corporeal performances, but he uses the context of the socio-religious environment of the medieval Persianate societies. Bashir’s studies are based on Sufi references to bodily themes encountered in texts and paintings of the Mongol and Timurid periods of Persianate Sufism (the first half of the 13th century). The author analyses this material to frame Sufi ideas and practices within the context of the human body. Bashir suggests that in a Sufi context, it is useful to consider human bodies as ‘doorways that connect the exterior and interior aspects of reality’ (Bashir 2011: 27). The scholar explains that Sufi notions of the world are that of an apparent interior (batin) and exterior (zahir). For the Sufi, to pursue interior experience is the goal of the spiritual practice. Bashir focused on a particular time in Sufi history and literature, dated from the 14th and 15th centuries, and provides insightful information about the Sufi notions of corporeal performances in their socio-religious environment. Similar notions are being taught in contemporary Sufi communities across the world, as well as within the Naqshbandi in Cape Town. During my conversations, I observed that some of the basic ideas shared by the members are based on this paradoxical discourse, which portrays the necessity of controlling the body’s material wishes. Sufi women also speak of the need for controlling the body and its movement during ritual practice. At other times, they speak of a need to release the body through the body movement to achieve spiritual heights. An example of this complex discourse is present in the way, one of my interviewees, Filipa speaks of the body as ‘body energy’ during the practice of hadra. For Filipa, the body seems to be in constant tension between the Sufi idea of ‘lost control’ to reach God, and the same time, the body movement ‘in control’. She refers to the necessity for control to revere God. In her words, it’s a kind of energy that you need to control, you can’t go wild and mad, and lose control of yourself, but you can lose some control of yourself, enough to be in the presence, in a respectful way. (Filipa 2014) In this sense, it is useful to consider Bashir’s suggestion that for the Sufi the body should be considered ‘as an entity suspended in a kind of matrix consisting of varying but interrelated meanings’ (Bashir 2011: 28). Despite the apparent complexity of this relationship of material and non-material inner and outer realms, I still understand that there is no way of reaching the interior save through the external realm. However, in Sufi terms, knowledge of the inside is the ability to interpret and comprehend the exterior in a correct way (Bashir 2011). Bashir uses this example of interior and exterior dominions to analyse the meaning of the female womb in Sufi thinking, and the relationship between the body and the spirit. Thus, it is useful to consider here the relationship between the body and the spirit in Sufism.

The inner Islam  61

A story of the body and the spirit In Sufi thinking there is the notion that during the maturation process in the mother’s womb (in the seventh month), Allah allocates the spirit to the body. For the Sufi, the spirit is the animated principle that is initially attached to the body and seen as part of an essential coexistence with the body (Bashir 2011). For the Sufi, the body becomes ‘un-active’ or ‘un-operational’ if there is no spirit inside. Sufis believe that the spirit and the body need mutual nourishment, the body being the physical, and the other being the spiritual. Bashir explains that Sufis understand the generation of the human body as an operation between the exterior and interior realms. Thus, in the procreation process, the man’s sperm (zahir) is classified as exterior and the woman’s eggs (batin) as interior. Within this view of external and internal aspects of existence, Bashir explains that the embryo crosses the natural process through which the human body acquires a material form. In other words, Sufis view this process through an interior–exterior way of thinking. Thus, accessing interior knowledge at a later stage in human life is seen as a kind of ‘recovery of the body’s own pre-existence and past’ (Bashir 2011: 33). This metaphorical idea, used to reach the body’s interior, is compared to how a Muslim begins to read the Qur’an verses, and searches for deeper and higher spiritual levels of interiorising its meaning. Bashir claims that notions of the body in Sufism are webbed in cosmic reality. From its moment of inception to full maturation, the physical body is enmeshed in social and cosmological relations that stick to it like strings attached to a puppet. (Bashir 2011: 33) I suggest that to understand ideas of the body in Sufism thinking, the body needs to be the subject of knowledge, beyond its material skin and bone. This complex relationship is articulated through the theological Sufi discourse of Sufi masters who teach that the spirit works as a separate identity to the body. According to this logic, I ask the questions: In which ways does the spirit constrain the body, and can they possibly influence one another? Is this the notion Sufi women have of their bodies? If so, how do they relate Sufi teachings to their corporeal experience in the religious experience? What happens to the spirit when separated from the body? These, and other questions, were raised during my fieldwork and discussed with Sufi women and their positions in relation to their bodies, as this book continues to reveal. Bashir’s discussion of the teachings of some influential Sufi masters, who influenced the way Sufis learn about the human body and the spirit, is helpful. Sufi Master Khwja Muhammad Parsa’s work, entitled Fasl al-khitab (The Decisive Speech), explains that the body is composed of four elements (fire, wind, water, and earth) nested into each other. While the spirit is truly

62  The inner Islam present in every particle of the body, it is not contained in a particular place. Parsa explains, ‘Containment and transfer are accidentals related to the bodies, none of which can be applied to the spirit’ (Parsa quoted in Bashir 2011: 36). Following this idea, the spirit can permeate all elements but does not hold a set place. In other words, a ‘free spirit’ serves no body. Bashir explains that for the Sufi Parsa, the role of the body is that of an acknowledger and a receiver of the experience of the travelled spirit. It is perhaps based on the teaching that a Sufi woman, named Riana, explained to me that the body is merely momentary in the outward world, and it becomes depleted if God decided to take the spirit away. But the body is temporary! If I … [pause] … if Allah must take the soul out of the body, it will collapse, it’s got no functions … its completely dead. It cannot move, it can do nothing, whatever you are doing, it cannot be without the soul. (Riana 2014) For Riana, the spirit and the body have clearly different identities, and the one, the spirit, can operate without the other, the body, but not vice versa. Here, the spirit is detached and autonomous from the body, it can always penetrate the body, but the body is passive, it can only exist in physical form, and it is that physicality that constricts the body. In other words, Riana’s view is that the body acquires no purpose if the spirit is not present. Thus, the question is, can Riana’s body be acknowledged as the main actor? Is there any moment where Sufi women reflect on the importance of the body in this experience? The Sufi Master, Amin ad-Din Balyani, claims that the body is the ultimate prison for the spirit self-realisation. Balyani explains that in the beginning the spirit is created before the body. Here, the body is a submissive matter, the same idea that Riana shared with me, and subjected to the animation of a spirit. Initially, the spirit does not have a physical container, and thus, it cannot fully understand its magnitude since it travels without witnessing itself. For this reason, God creates the body because the spirit, Needed a mirror in which to witness its own beauty and a secluded place where it could do spiritual exercises and acquire perfection. (Balyadi quoted in Bashir 2011: 36) In this context, the body is a set frame, not the beautiful container, but the container of real beauty, which is the spirit. Another woman interviewed named Nadia explains the body as the container, or ‘the shell’ that helps ‘the soul’, to remember God during the hadra.

The inner Islam  63 This shell is just helping us but is just basically us … our soul is what comes alive. Don’t you think? It’s not this … (pause) … the … body … the arms, the legs, that is just the outside. But it is inside our hearts, joy, and screaming, shouting, dancing in remembrance of God. In that sense hadra helps, it is not the physical body that helps. (Nadia 2013) For Nadia, the ‘shell-body’ is perceived as the reflection of the spirit, while the materiality, which she explains as ‘arms, legs’ is the outside, that which allows the interior, the spirit, to experience its essence. Even though the body and the spirit seem to need one another, Balyadi refers to a particular physical part, the heart, as the mirror of the soul. Nadia speaks of ‘inside our hearts’ as this reflection of the soul. In other words, the rest of the body becomes the chamber of the spirit. She acknowledges that spiritual exercises are indeed done through the body and slowly progress to perfection, which she regards as a remembrance of God. However, the complexity arises when Sufi women speak of this progression to spiritual perfection via the annihilation of the body, in unity with God. Bashir maintains that the ‘spirit must endeavour to overcome the body’ (Bashir 2011: 36). Thus, the body is regarded as the prison, or the cavity, of the spiritual essence. The spirit reaches out to the corporeal limits imprisoned inside the body, which is only overcome through the body. The body is regarded as a passive mediator, rooted in a materialistic nature, which needs to be overwhelmed by the spirit. Sufi women in Cape Town regard the body as a way to enable the individual to excavate through materiality or externality, to the interior, or the inner self (Bashir 2011). Salome maintains that one can ‘cut through the body’, in the sense of a spirit breaking through the material, wishing to move freely. You can actually cut it. You can cut it through, the body is there … and it’s like the hard … but the soul can move. The body is at hadra to bring the soul and the heart together … [laughs] … I am taking a chance here … [laughs] … The body is important to be there to do that rhythmical emotion, so it can get rid of that negativity and bring positive, the feeling, well-being and connection to Allah. Do you think? Completely so? (Salome 2013) I notice how Salome understands the need to access spiritual needs through her body. However, it is acknowledged as a mere facilitator of the ‘real’ encountering experience. Following Sufi women’s idea that the physical helps to cure the spirit, why is it that the body is not recognised as part of a tangible, sensorial experience? Bashir’s suggestion is relevant,

64  The inner Islam Although attached to a particular body, each spirit connects to God via the interior realm on one side and to other human beings through what it can induce into the heart and tongue in the exterior realm on the other. (Bashir 2011: 27) In Sufism, the connection between what is recited through the heart and is heard constitutes the basis on which different types of bodies and spirits are able to interact and connect across their particular boundaries (Bashir 2011). The bridge between the two is what Sufis call the imaginative world (‘alam-I missal). In regard to the role of the body in this particular context can be regarded as Bashir suggest, spiritual bodies as references that Sufis do to certain inner states of experience, often described as ‘alternative states of consciousness, like dreams and visions’. (Bashir 2011: 37) During these stages, the Sufi can journey inwards to the imaginative realm, which is different from the material one. The imaginative contains no physical matter, but ‘forms the images of material bodies’ (Bashir 2011: 37). The imaginative world can be referred to as being ‘corporeous’, instead of ‘corporeal’. Thus, it appears to embrace notions, images, and forms of everyday experience, but without the material limitation. Bashir writes that the corporeous body in the imaginative world ‘is predicated on the presumed existence of an imaginal or corporeous body that is formed in the image of the physical body’ (Bashir 2011: 37). Following this notion, it seems that for the Sufi even to describe the experience in the non-material or imagined world still requires the embedded figurative presence of a body, though the real physical body does not enter the imagined realm. This imagination is charged with symbolic meaning, which is learned and shared amongst Sufi communities as the ways of embodying the ritual experience, as Chapter 5 will discuss in depth. So far, Sufi women’s dialogues reveal that an image of the physical body is used in Sufism, to cross the broader aspect of its physicality, as the vessel for higher states of spiritual connection. However, Kugle brings to the attention that Sufis do not see the body as the rival of arduous ascetic work, but they understand that the body is to be ‘a sign of the creator’ (Kugle 2007: 29). In its complexity, the examples of women cited above show that similar notions were shared with me during fieldwork. In the outward element, the body becomes the embodiment of beauty in the material world. On the inward dimension, the body becomes the form of the manifestation of God’s names and qualities, or as Kugle suggests, ‘the body is matter that acts as the locus for the manifestation of the divine spirit in the world’ (Kugle 2007: 30).

The inner Islam  65

Conclusion This chapter started with a brief on the nature of Sufism and used Islamic and Sufism studies’ viewpoints to discuss this topic (Schimmel 1975; Chittick 2002; Hoffman 2005; Karamustafa 2012). It was explained that Sufism is the innermost part of Islam, and that which can be regarded as mystical by nature (Burckhardt 2006). It was argued that Sufi practice follows determinate spiritual exercises, often recognised as mystical. In addition, the discussion helped to understand some similarities that Sufi practice seems to have with other types of ritualistic praxis, such as Hatha Yoga, and the Yogis’ practice (Ernst 2003, 2005). I discussed the main core of the Sufi ritual prayer of dhikr and explained how this practice is experienced through the body. Sufis related this practice to a notion of self-transformative processes, to connect to the divine essence. Only through the performance of this practice is the Sufi able to achieve higher spiritual states, or levels, which are acquired through the constant practice of the annihilation of the ego to get close to God. It is based on this notion of annihilation of the ego that some Sufi women’s ideas of the body and its relationship to the spirit have been exposed. In this way, the first part of this chapter set up the discussion that women have in relation to the meaning of their bodies. I noticed that Sufi discourse enjoys considerable respect for the manner in which women construct ideas about the body. However, I claim that through a Sufi way of thinking, the Sufi female body seems to become constrained to other types of dialogue. In this sense, I found it problematic that Sufi women’s ideas about the body might seem to be merely articulated through a Sufi theological discourse. I argue that the body and body movement in ritual practices can, and should be, open to dialogues of human action that are physically and emotionally accomplished. Yet, Sufi women’s discourse has challenged my own notions of the body as the site of knowledge, which ‘invites’ the ritual experience to be part of the somatic and sensorial bodily experience, as well as being culturally and symbolically embedded. As data continues to be revealed, Sufi women’s arguments are often juxtaposed according to the ways in which they chose to contextualise their bodies, or the way they justify certain ways of body movement. In this first data analysis, I concluded that, on the one hand, Sufi women in Cape Town regard the body as a mere vessel. On the other hand, they are also fully aware and acknowledge the body as the place of ritual practice, or as a Sufi woman later explains, ‘no body, no hadra!’ (Salome 2014). Therefore, it is possible to maintain that the body and the body in movement in hadra is the landscape, where women’s actions of embodied selfhood take place, and that this can and does happen in constant correlation. However, as this book journeys to understand women’s embodied religious experiences, their dialogue defies this ‘body and mind’ perspective. In hadra the body seems to be involved in a mystical ritual action that gives the body

66  The inner Islam and its movement a performative character, as a container for showing spiritual devotion to God. Chapter 4 discusses and introduces hadra and explores this practice as a ‘sacred dance’ (Michon 2006) form and a cultural way of behaviour.

Notes 1 For a detailed literature review on the history of Sufism, it is worth looking at the work of the scholars Dina Le Gall (2010), Laury Silvers (2010), John Renard (2008), Ayman Shihadeh (2007), Ahmet Karamustafa (2007), or Kristin Sands (2006), to mention a few examples. 2 Turuq is another way of saying Tariqa, in reference to a Sufi brotherhood, or a Sufi Order. 3 David Burrell and Nazih Daher’s (1995a) translation of the book The NinetyNine Beautiful Names of God by al-Ghazzali Abu Hamid provides an analytical review on al-Ghazzali’s discourse on the meaning and resonance of each of the so-called divine names. 4 The word hadith is usually translated as ‘tradition’. It is regarded as a compilation of several deeds and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. 5 The Golden Chain is referred to as the lineage of the spiritual masters of the Naqshbandi Tariqa, who relate to one another going back to the Prophet Muhammad. In this chain, each Sufi masters was given the permission (ijazat) of God, by his own master, to spread to others the Sufi knowledge in accordance to the Naqshbandi traditional way.

4

Dancing with God Hadra as sacred dance and cultural embodiment

The skins of those who fear their Lord shiver from it (when they recite it or hear it). Then their skin and their heart soften to the remembrance of Allah. [The Holy Qur’an, Surat Az-Zumar, 39: 23]

Introduction The previous chapter has explained the nature of Sufism and its context in relation to broader Islam. It also described how Sufi ritual practices are based on the idea of ‘remembering God’ and the goal of reaching intimacy with the Divine essence. This idea is based on Qur’an text like Surah 2:152 that says, ‘Remember Me, then, and I will remember you’ as an example. Sufis refer to these and other texts to sustain the core idea behind the practice of dhikr and hadra, or other practices like sema (meaning audition), which is referring to Sufi spiritual concerts. Similar to dhikr, sema or sama is another type of Sufi ritual that involves listening to music, text, chanting, and body movement to obtain a level of religious emotion that connects the individual to God. Sema is the key concept, which defines the usage of poetry and music among Sufis. In Sufism, the presence of music is seen as the vehicle or an element that Sufis use to reach the heart and attain a state of enlightenment or inner knowledge. In this sense, Sultanova maintains, ‘music has always been the favourite Sufi means of spiritual development for those orders’ (Sultanova 2011: 71). Sufi spiritual guides lead their disciples towards God through ritual practice that includes movement, voice, and music. The use of music is important because it widens the scope of what is normally meant by Sufi ritual practice. In fact, Sufi music in general and elsewhere in the Islamic world is not understood by Western divisions as ‘classical’ or ‘folk’, but rather by the presence of mystical spiritual essence. Writing about Sufism and music, scholar Jean During suggests that the term sema may have more to do with spiritual meaning than anything characteristically musical. He maintains, DOI: 10.4324/9780429353574-4

68  Dancing with God Now, without the active participation of the subject who performs or listens to the music, no music is per se mystical. Let us remember that even the most evocative dhikr does not work ‘automatically’; it is merely a technique employed during sama‘ [‘spiritual audition’] to activate the intention of the individual and to assist concentration. (During 1999: 283) During also argues that ‘the true Sufi may interpret the most mundane of melodies as “music of the spheres”, hearing in it the Divine summons to heed the primordial Covenant’ (During 1999: 284). Yet he defines Sufi music broadly as ‘music made by, and/or listened to by, Sufis’, nevertheless ultimately sets rather arbitrary restrictions on his ‘proposed union of sacred and profane genres of music’ (During 1999: 285). This chapter examines the nature of hadra and how this practice has been referred to in Sufism and scholarly work in Sufism studies as a form of a ‘sacred dance’ (Chittick 2000) or body movement expression. It also presents and discusses hadra as an embodied practice of cultural behaviour, drawing this idea from Sufism and anthropology studies. Although a great deal Hoffman 2005; Pinto 2010; Saniotis 2007) of anthropological and ethnographic studies about Sufism and its practice has been conducted and will be discussed throughout this chapter, very little literature focuses on the female body movement and its particularities in hadra ceremonies of the Naqshbandi Tariqa in Cape Town. This chapter argues there is a lack of research on gendered body movement analysis in the context of hadra and corporeal movements as embodied self-expression. Yet I am aware of other anthropological case studies that show a concern towards discussions on notions of embodiment and Sufism in the broader cultural, social, political, or physiological context (Saniotos 2008; Pinto 2010), which will be addressed in this chapter. Although hadra has been referred to as ‘sacred dance’, Chittick also reminds the readers that the term ‘dance’ in Sufism has generated some controversy. While the previous chapter addressed theological notions of the body, this chapter discloses some Sufi thinking regarding body movement and ideas of a sacred dance in the context of hadra. This discussion is assisted by early medieval Sufi thinkers such as the Master Al-Ghazzali (d.505/1111) and work conducted by scholars in Islamic and Sufism studies (Chittick 2000, Michon 2006). My position draws from both early Sufi textual and historical evidence and scholarly work in Sufism studies to understand to what extent the term ‘sacred dance’ is used in the context of ritual practice. The following section gives a detailed explanation of hadra.

The religious gathering It was already mentioned that hadra is at the core of Sufi practice as the platform where dhikr takes place. This praxis may vary in its form depending on

Dancing with God  69 the Sufi group, the country, or the spaces where it is performed. Anthropologist Nicolaas H. Biegman argues that hadra is about ‘cleansing the heart of anything but God and filling it with nothing but God’ (Biegman 2009: 11). On an apparent level, hadra establishes structures of space, text, rhythm, and physical movement. While this chapter discusses the ritual as a dance or body movement practice, these features are again revisited in the next chapter when describing the Naqshbandi group in Cape Town and women’s body movement. The gathering is performed in a circle formation at mosques at the dargah or at private homes. Dargah is a Persian-influenced term commonly used to describe an Islamic shrine. This term is used in Lefke (Cyprus) to refer to the building where hadra takes place; however, in Cape Town the term keramat is more commonly used, which is influenced by the Cape Malay culture. In some situations, private spaces are entitled to hold hadra with consent from the main spiritual leader. Sufi groups slightly differ from a single circle to rows of circle formation but normally men are separated from women, or in some cases there will be a simultaneous circle of men and women in the same ritual but still divided in space. Sheikh Noah Ha mim Keller (2011) from the Shadhilli Sufi Group explains that it is the Sheikh who guides most of the hadra and his function is to alternate the pace around the group while conducting the tempo of the group’s motion and breathing. He explains that in situations where hadra is performed at the same time among men and women the leader will conduct the overall session, but there will be a designated woman amongst the women’s circle that leads the women in accordance with the Sheikh’s leadership. This is also a noticeable one in Cape Town, as it will be discussed in the following chapter. In the overall sense, the physical movements that make up hadra slightly differ from each group; however, the common movements or body actions involve standing in a circle formation holding hands and bowing in unison moving the body up and down bending the knees, falling and rising, and breathing in union. Michon (2006) describes that in hadra, the body movement is usually initiated by a spontaneous expressive movement, in a metaphorical way. He explains that Sufis call this act as one that is provoked by the coming of good news. The so-called good news is referred to by Sufis as the words of the Prophet Muhammad towards his Companions. Michon describes, It is thus that the words of the prophet addressed to certain of his Companions would have caused physical expressions of overflowing joy, which, imitated by other Companions and repeated from generation to generation would be at the base of hadra. (Michon 2006: 175) Michon’s idea implies that the physical or visual performativity of hadra is taken from initial spontaneous and joyful movement expression, which seems to be central to the initiation of the movement in the ritual. He notes that this

70  Dancing with God impulsive bodily movement is encouraged by recalling in loud, the prophet’s words. From this preliminary movement, other bodily movements develop and gradually increase with intensity and corporal expression. The movement as described by Michon can sometimes be rapid like the dropping of the upper part of the body and passing from a vertical to horizontal position or rotating the head alternating right and left hitting the right hand in the direction of the heart or sometimes some subtle jumps. A similar kind of movement is found through my observations of hadra in Cape Town as is explained in detail in the next chapter. I notice that in Cape Town women’s body movement also follows what Michon refers to as ‘spontaneous bodily expressions’ that are provoked by words. This is particularly visibly evident when women go through high states of excitement. Yet, based on my participation, I have learned that this apparent free movement also follows a clear set of combining steps or systems of movements that are taught and implied during practice. This topic is addressed in Chapter 6, which examines women’s ideas of their ritual practice and the meaning attached to this action. Burckhardt also suggests that ‘the first Sufis founded their dancing dhikr on the dances of the Arab warriors’ (Burckhardt 2007: 19). These movements are present in the way the Sufi moves the torso from a standing to a bending position, and the right hand that hits the heart, the head that moves side to side, the bend of the knees or the occasional jumps, and the holding of hands. These seem to be all body movements that are set and presented throughout most communities that perform hadra. During my fieldwork in Cape Town, I found another local Sufi community, the Shadhilli, that performs hadra in the same manner as the Naqshbandi. There are of course slight variations between the groups even within the Naqshbandi communities. However, through observation I noticed a similar link between the group that refers to inner emotional states and physical components that Sufi expressed throughout the practice. I see this combination as culturally embedded bodily forms of behaviour that assist the faithful to release from the apparent or material world towards unison with the Divine essence. This body movement can be at times slow and harmonious or sometimes fast as it reaches states of great excitement to the words and music that the Sufi is reciting and auditioning. Michon also indicates that the so-called ‘spontaneous’ movements have some original roots. He mentions that the movements resemble or, derive without doubt from the motions of the canonical prayer and appear linked to the punctuations of Semitic speech, which provoke a spontaneous rocking of the body during Quranic psalmody. (Michon 2006: 175) I noticed that through the movement the body becomes the substance that induces such existential states, possibly before or simultaneously as in verbal

Dancing with God  71 communication. Following this idea, Pinto mentions that ‘the body is the main focus of the disciplinary dimension of the Sufi ritual and a performative arena for the communication of mystical experiences’ (Pinto 2010: 465). If this is the case, practices like hadra serve women in Cape Town as ways of an individual encounter with the Divine through body experiences that manifest women’s ways of certitude and how to conduct their lives according to Sufism. As this study relates directly to body movement or corporal expression that occurs during hadra, it is important to unpack some relationships between the term dance in Sufism and Sufi practice.

Dance and Sufi practice Regardless of exclusions against art forms like dance or music, Islam could never fully eliminate these from some Muslim cultural practices. Although it is not the intention to discuss this topic in detail, I am aware of a great deal of scholarly work done in ritual dance practices such as the case of the whirling dervishes in Turkey or traditional folk Islamic ceremonies in Southwestern Pakistan for example. Although dance is still a controversial debate in common Islam, some Sufis looked to dance in a more tolerant way. Chittick notes that often the West connects Sufism to dance, mostly through the better-known Sufi dervishes and the ‘whirling dervishes’1 dance from the Middle East (Chittick 2000). Although no Qur’an prescription explicitly aims at dance, Sufis who support dance as a term or a form used in ritual practice have adduced this position based on legal precedents found in the prophet’s hadith to justify the bodily movements of those engaged in embodied Sufi ritual practices. For instance, the hadith where Prophet Muhammad says, ‘He who does not vibrate at the remembrance of the friend has no friend’ has been one of the most important scriptural foundations for the use of dance forms amongst the Sufi dervishes (Vicente 2007). Yet Chittick argues that ‘dance has played a minor role in Sufism, even in the Mawlawiyya order, where the whirling dance has had a certain importance’ (Chittick, 103). The term dance comes up often in Sufi debates through teaching and theological thinking, frequently cited in Sufi literature. It is beyond the scope of this book to account for all the debates in Sufism about the meanings of dance in Sufi practice. What is relevant here is to show a few examples of the ambiguous discourse that the term has been subject to amongst Sufis and its practice and how hadra can be related to this topic. In early medieval times, Sufi jurists and theological authors like Ibn l’Dunya (d.281/894) and Ibn al-Jawzi (d.597/1200) disfavoured the involvement of dance and song in Sufi practices. They advocated that such practices were condemnable distractions from the real intentions of Sufism. Yet others like the Sufi Master Al-Ghazzali (d.501) have embraced the reality of dance in Sufism, suggesting that dance forms need it to attend to some Divine principles that give rise to the rhythmic movement. Al-Ghazzali explained

72  Dancing with God certain conditions, which dance forms, were acceptable as ‘melodies which stir up gladness, joy and emotion, their manifestation through poetry, airs, dancing and movement are praiseworthy’.2 Al-Ghazzali alluded to the hadith ‘If ye weep not, try to weep’ to justify certain Sufi practices such as ritualistic dance forms. Sufi dervishes also used this hadith to validate body movement actions in their rituals. However, Al-Ghazzali says that dance needs to be taken into account and contextualised within the time, place, social usages, one’s ability, and the environment saying that only ‘genuine ecstasy will make his movements light and brisk’ Michon (2006). Sufis themselves are cautious with the usage of the term dance, ‘generally avoiding the Arabic word raqs, which properly signifies “dance”, and substitute other conventional expressions’ (Michon, 174). Dance seems to be regarded as physical movement demonstrations that are visibly expressed and displayed in the context and for the meaning of the ritual. When referring to hadra Michon notes that some Sufis may here use the term ‘ecstatic dance’ or ‘sacred dance’ to realise the presence of the Prophet Muhammad and the angels at the centre of the ritual. Additionally, the term is used to acknowledge the rhythmic movement, which is present in the Sufi body and believed to be formed by a supreme or Divine power, so that it is not the man who dances but God who makes him dance’ (Michon, 174). In this sense, the devotee appears to be removed from the tangible or real world to find him/herself with the Divine or the Creator, whom Sufi call ‘friend’, or ‘lover’. Here the term dance can be seen as a demonstration of some kind of inner process, stimulated or provoked by an elusive external factor, a superhuman force, that leads the body into movement. In Sufi literacy this is exemplified by the evocative words of Sufi author Fakhr ad-Din Iraqi (d.1289) in his Persian classical prose entitled Lama (means Flashes), where he writes about how God’s command crowds all humans to ecstatic dance. The lover was at ease in the being of nonbeing. He was resting in the retreat-house of witnessing, not having seen the Beloved’s face. All at once the melody of being stirred him up from the sleep of nonexistence. The audition of that melody made manifest an ecstasy, and from that ecstasy [wajd] he found existence [wujud]. The taste of that melody fell to his head ‘Love threw turmoil into our soul’. After all, ‘Sometimes the ear falls in love before the eye’. Love overmastered the stillness of his outward and inward self with the song of ‘The lover pays a visit to the one he loves’. Then the spirit fell into dance and movement. (Chittick 2000: 98–99) This prose suggests that the term dance expresses a moment in the Sufi ritual or a moment within the process of the ritualistic experience. It is then assumed that dance here represents the instant of joy when the devotee is released from the individual self towards God. Baqli writes, ‘Dancing is not to keep jumping up, floating in air without pain like dust. Dancing is to jump out from the two worlds – to shatter your heart, to leap from your soul!’3 Baqli uses the term dance as symbolic usage to represent a moment

Dancing with God  73 of transition between a material and an unseen world where the body seems to bridge in between. Finally, Chittick suggests that dance as a term used in the West to represent a popular art form or a form of style is not suitable in the Sufi context and explains that in Sufism dance ‘has no necessary connection with the body, since it is experienced by the soul that has been delivered from limitations’ (Chittick, 131). I suggest that for the Sufi the real dance cannot be seen with human eyes, as the dance is this metaphorical expression particular to those who have set out on the journey, or pathway to God. Sufis believe that the human soul begins in the underlying world, as the bridge amid the inert body and the luminous spirit. Thus, the body moving or the dance expression that occurs in ritual forms is here used by the Sufis as a metaphorical representation of a state ‘of being’, in which ‘the goal is the wipeout, or vanish of the individual that is taken over by the being who knows no limits’ (Michon, 176). On the one hand, dance is and can be discussed in Sufism by its physical aspect, as a physical manner or form that shapes some of Sufi praxis. On the other hand, dance can also represent something that is not material. In Sufi practice dance is also referred to as a state, or the mood or nature of the Sufi, when reaching the unseen world and re-joins the Divine kernel. The physical components of hadra follow a rhythmical structure, in a particular sway on breathing, which is regarded by the Sufi, as a manifestation of life, and it is used symbolically, as an intimate expression of the whole of existence as Chapter 5 will address. Despite the apparent ambiguous discourses about dance in Sufi practice, I sustain that dance or body movement expression offers important spiritual support to the Sufi and is regarded as an important part of Sufi-embodied religious practice. Through body movement expression, the Sufi female can communicate an embodied expression of joyful states, and at the same time portray a visible representation of moral, religious, cultural, or social values for example. These values can be seen as involving embodied manifestations of selfhood representation. Sufi-embodied practice: Sufism and anthropology studies Anthropological studies in Sufism have significantly contributed to the advance of theoretical discussions about Sufi practice and the various kinds of experiential aspects this practice entails. This section follows the work of selected anthropologists and relates them to the dance and anthropology premises of this study. This discussion does not account for the totality of the anthropological work and research done in Sufi practices, which is beyond the scope of this book. It does not aim to review a scholarship that covers all the geographic areas where Sufism and its practice are present, knowing that anthropological studies in Sufism as the object of study and analysis vary within the social, cultural, and historical configurations it occupies (Vicente 2007; Pinto 2010). However, some helpful examples from

74  Dancing with God those who have studied Sufi practice with the context of the embodiment of religious practice are found in studies conducted in regions like the Middle East, North Africa, and India. These examples resemble and support my studies on how demonstrations of embodied piety are happening amongst the female members of the Naqshbandi Tariqa in Cape Town. This review is relevant to acknowledge the importance of prior anthropological scholarly work that offered great insights and opened up the field of studies in Sufi practice. I am thinking of scholars predominantly throughout the regions of the Middle East (some contributors of Sufi studies in the region of the Middle East are, for example, scholars Gellner (1973); Seurat (1980); and Gilsenan (1974)) and North Africa (a detailed review on work conducted in North Africa can be found in the work of). In their respective fields of study, these scholars dedicated much time to studying how Sufi practice might influence the political, social, and cultural movements of societies where Sufism appears to be present. Prichard’s studies on Sufi healing practices as the form of political value in Libya (Pritchard 1969), or Gellner’s analysis of Sufi faith religious practices in Moroccan tribal communities as important communal spiritual values and psychological relief, are only examples. Also, studies in Sufi practice and their communities in countries like Egypt (Valerie Hoffman 1995, 2009, 2011), Syria (Paulo Pinto 2007, 2010, 2016), and Turkey (Erzen 2008) are examples. In the work Sufism, Mystics and Saints in Modern Egypt, Hoffman (1995, 2005) explored the situation of Sufism present in Egypt and discussed topics of Sufi women and sexuality in Egyptian Sufi life. Hoffman mentions that the Egyptian Supreme Council of Sufi Orders (groups) officially bans female membership in the order to preserve the propriety and morality for mixing genders, which is already incumbent in Islam. However, as Hoffman observes, Sufi women are still involved in Sufi activities. Although the rule is eminent in Egyptian society, Hoffman explains that women often participate in saint’s shrine activities and become disciples of sheikh and sheikhas (female shaikhs) in their own right; however, this is not officially recognised (Hoffman 2009). Through her fieldwork, Hoffman was able to observe that Sufism acts as a religious ‘alternative’ sphere where religious devotion is performed outside the regular domestic environment that Muslim women are accustomed to. She argues that the apparent integration of Egyptian Sufism covers a flourishing movement hidden from the Western world, offering new insights into Sufism and its development in Egypt, the key role that women play in Sufism, and some of the Sufi perspectives on gender and sexuality. Hoffman’s work also pays attention to the importance of displaying the meaning of Egyptian Sufi shrines as sacred spaces, often regarded as places of female association instead of the mosque. Thus, this suggests that Sufi practice plays an important role in the religious and social life of Egyptian female Sufis (Hoffman 1995, 2005, 2009). In light of this,

Dancing with God  75 Hoffman’s research seems to reveal a world of informal female participation and leadership that is subtly encountered through the Sufi order in Egypt. In India, the fieldwork conducted by medical anthropologist Arthur Saniotis (2007; 2012) looks at modern Sufi practices that also foreground their mystical repertoire. Saniotis conducted research at the Sufi shrines of the Nizamuddin Auliya Sufi community in Delhi and noticed how Sufis spend many years absorbed in the demanding procedure of their mystical practices. Just like Pinto, Saniotis also explored the notions of mystical mastery among the Sufi Indian community, and ways in which their puritan, ascetic practices are produced to reach a so-called mystical body. Saniotis contends that mystical mastery is a form of reauthoring the self, in that Sufis’ mystical complexes permit them to transform and modify themselves through various operations on their bodies (Saniotis 2012: 65). This case study is later addressed in detail in Chapter 5 in relation to my fieldwork amongst Sufi women in Cape Town and women’s discourse about their religious identity and their embodiment of Sufi practices. So far, the selected case studies illustrated how Sufi practices around the world are being exposed, articulated, and embraced by followers.

Conclusion This chapter brought into discussion the nature of Sufi hadra and some key notions about the use of the term dance in Sufi ritual practice. Hadra was described and discussed from its physical, psychological, and religious components, drawing from Sufi theology and scholarly work (Chittick 2000, Michon 2006). I reveal how hadra is considered to be an important religious act in Sufism and describe some of the physical aspects as having a circle formation, in regard to space, the recitation of dhikr, as in the sacred text, and then listen to the rhythm that accompanies the ritual, as in audition, or sema (Michon 2006). From dance and anthropology perspectives, I focused on the body in movement and the relationship between the physical components and the emotional inner feeling that the Sufi experiences as a moment of closeness with God. I claim that these combined factors are at the core of the body movement, or as Biegman suggested, by doing so, Sufis are ‘dancing with God’ (2009: 11). With this in mind I propose that due to these apparent facts, the Sufi is clearly involved in some sort of bodily action and movement expression, or as Chittick suggests, the Sufi is performing a ‘sacred dance’ (Chittick 2000). However, this chapter also highlights that although Sufis acknowledge hadra in relation to body movement, using the term dance to define this action or other Sufi rituals that involve movement is rather complex and subject to ambiguous discourse.

76  Dancing with God This topic was discussed through some Sufi theological discourse such as Sufi Master Al-Ghazzali’s teachings that favoured the term dance to justify the body movement of those who engaged with ritual practices and current scholars that also explain how sometimes expressions like ‘dancing with God’ (Biegman 2009), or ‘sacred dance’ (Chittick 2000, Burckhardt 2006) can be used in relation to Sufi rituals for example. However, Michon (2006) also reminds readers that even early Sufi thinkers and masters were cautious in using the term, avoiding the word for other conventional expressions. Because of the complexity of the term and the nature of this ritual practice, instead of using dance, I also chose an alternative, more flexible way of looking into the body movement of this practice. Thus, in this book I made use of terms like body movement, gestural, and body dispositions to trace the complex understanding of the body in movement and the embodiment of the experience itself. Because the nature of this book draws heavily on ideas of culture and religious values, a literature review based on anthropological and Sufi studies was considered through some case studies on Sufi ritual practices. Just as dance cannot be universally justified, anthropologists also refer that Sufi practice is influenced by the social, cultural, historical, and political patterns across Sufi global communities. For this reason, this chapter discussed some anthropological work that relates to Sufi practice as meaningful embodied ritual religious experience, across different regions like the Middle East, North Africa, and India as examples to show how globalised Sufi communities reveal practical values, through these embodying practices. A strong component of this research lies in ideas of culture and in the anthropological perspective that culture is used to construct people’s values, symbolic meanings, and moral attitudes. Anthropologist argues that in Syria, Sufism plays a valuable role in shaping religious values and frameworks for social and cultural actions amongst Sufi groups in the country. He claims that embodied religious practice, like the hadra, is part of an individual experience that helps the devotee to form the means of cultural communications and self-constructions. Religious cultural values are shared and transmitted from generations to generations, assume norms, and give people a sense of communal belonging. These norms undertake a ‘mechanism of survival’ so that people can make sense of the world (Murphy 1986). In the same way, I understand that by embodying hadra, the Sufi is also acknowledging these cultural and religious values that are shared and learned with other community members. Thus, when women engage in this practice, they are assuming a role as cultural agents within their communal context. The patterns of embodied religious action that are present in hadra ceremonies can provide answers to how these systems are used as tools for women’s embodied individual and collective demonstrations of values, meanings, and ways of moving in and understanding the world Kaeppler (1978).

Dancing with God  77 With this in mind, we move from a general introduction of hadra to the particular geographic and social contexts of this ritual in Cape Town. It exposes and describes the physical components of the ritual as practised amongst the Naqshbandi communities in Cape Town and uses a self-constructed method of body movement analysis to examine the particularity of movement occurring during the practice.

Notes 1 For a detailed discussion on this topic, the ethnographic work of scholar Victor Amaro Vicente (2007) is useful. He conducted fieldwork research amidst the whirling dervishes belonging to the Sufi Mevlana Tariqa in Turkey and investigated the concept of motion as a key aesthetic element of the Sufi ritual practice that involve music, dance, and in honour of the Sufi saint, Muhammad Rumi. 2 Al-Ghazzali cited in Michon 2006:1 58. 3 Cited in Chittick 2000: 125.

5

‘De-code’ hadra Body movement analysis of the ritual practice

I am late to hadra. And I am happy otherwise I would have never paid attention to what happens outside Maika’s house … This street is dark and long, it’s easy to get lost around Pinelands … streets look all the same. Without light, how is it possible to recognise the place? But Maika’s house is possible. The amount of cars parked outside one single house tells that there is something happening. Once you arrive, a little light guides you to the entrance gate. As you go through the main garden you reach the main door and another little light invites you to take your shoes off and enter the sacred place … By now, I can tell who’s in the house from the shoes lay outside … and the sound of the Sufi men and the Sufi women, reciting the Qasidah invites me to get in … I try to make the less noise possible but it wouldn’t really matter because the sound of people reciting and the bodies moving inside the house is louder than my feet’s noise rushing through the kitchen into the women’s room … I stopped for a moment and wonder, what will the neighbours think of this? A house with hardly any lights on and many cars parked outside, women and men singing and moving evoking the name of Allah loudly … But Maika already answered me a while ago. ‘Oh they’re fine! We told them when we started that on Monday nights there we will be having a praying ritual at our house, no one complained really … maybe they’re too scared! [Laughs]’ – she said. And so hadra it is. (Rodrigues 2014, field notes)

Introduction The field notes mentioned above are drawn from a particular occasion where I was able to contemplate the outside environment of Maika’s house. The external features that are part of the hadra structure are as important for this study as the analysis of women’s embodied experience itself because they set the background of the embodied experience. This chapter addresses the external features of hadra through data collected in two different ceremonies amidst the Naqshbandi community in Cape Town and its geographical and social contexts. It analyses the female body movement DOI: 10.4324/9780429353574-5

‘De-code’ hadra  79 that is present in the ritual and in relation to these elements. It describes the physical aspects captured during hadra and translates from Arabic to English some of the most common sacred texts that are recited during the hadra which were already referred to as Qasidas. So far, this book has discussed the nature of Sufism and the idea of body as subjected to the spirit and offered some of the women’s discourse that explained the way they understand the spirit as the genuine self as opposed to the body as the source of carnality. However, from a dance anthropology perspective, I argue that women seem not to attribute meaning to the body movement as the site of primordial experience during the actual ritual praxis. This viewpoint helps me to argue that in contrast to what some Sufi women think of the meaning, or no meaning of their bodies and the body movement in ritual practice, the body can hardly be detached from the inner experience, thus serving as a reflector. While these ideas will continue to be discussed throughout this book, this chapter focuses on analysing data collected in Cape Town from February to June 2014 through observation of the female body movement during the ritual. I am aware that an observational position cannot evaluate the internal experience that women claim to have when performing hadra. In other words, what is externally observed by the researcher cannot fully account for a whole explanation of the inner emotional states that women feel during the actual performance. However, the objective of observing the ritual was to learn from the group’s experience and stand back and notice how the female body movement, the facial expressions, and the group interaction and its dynamic operation in relation to what surrounds them. By doing this, I began to think critically about what involves hadra and how to interpret my observations and experiential forms of body movement in the context of the practice. Speaking in a dance analysis context, scholar Victoria Watts (2010) explains that ‘through observation it is possible to understand the symbolism and practicality of a dance form, but this alone cannot constitute “understanding the score”’ (Watts 2010: 10). This suggestion is applied in the context of this study; thus, the researcher should not only observe but engage in participation so that she can relate to the women’s experience in their bodies. On this note, Chapter 7 presents my own embodied experience and how I came to understand this experience as something pertinent to a somatic process. As a dance researcher trying to decipher ritual body movement in action, I am aware of the challenges one can find when attempting to textually reproduce the physical body movement that constitutes ritual practices, especially for the purposes of research. For the description of the physical components of hadra, the chosen method will be by means of written descriptions when appropriate reference to Rudolf Laban’s principles from Laban dance analysis was used. This method also draws on the viewpoints of other scholars in dance studies (Adshead-Lansdale, 1999;) who discuss how to articulate

80 ‘De-code’ hadra dance or body movement through an analytic and interpretative approach. I found these scholars’ approaches useful in terms of body movement analytic and interpretative description of hadra. The body movement analysis and interpretation will be based on data available from video, fieldwork observations, notes, and photography collected during the periods of February to May 2013. The variety of material is important since it provides richer avenues for subject interpretation. The following section contextualises the practice in Cape Town and describes how it is set in the houses of the respective hosts.

Hadra practice in Cape Town In Cape Town, hadra is held in two separate houses. The ritual started in 2009 is held on a Monday night straight after Maghrib (this is the commonly known Islamic evening prayer that starts straight after sunset and is the fourth of the five formal daily prayers in Islam) at Maika’s home. Maika and her husband held the hadra since this time as ordered by the main spiritual leader Sheikh Moulana Nazim. The second one is held on a Sunday evening at the home of Mahid also after Maghrib. The practice was introduced in 2011 and ordered by the local representative Sheikh Yusuf da Costa. The numbers of attendees vary. At Mahid’s house, I have counted about 20–30 men who attend regularly and about 20–25 women. The number of attendees at Maika’s place is less, with around 20 men attending on a regular basis and 12–15 women. The settings in each house are slightly different from each other, as will be presented next.

The setting at Maika’s house Maika’s house is situated in a southern suburb of Cape Town called Pinelands. Pinelands is a green area surrounded by parks and trees; it is mainly a residential area popularly known for being a place for retirement. Originally a township area, the land was granted the name Pinelands in 1919 after a South African, Richard Stuttaford, who gave a significant financial contribution to its development and landscape redesign. In 2013, Pinelands habits a mixture of habitants from -white middle-class to upper-class families, retired people, and the so-called ‘coloured’1 communities which include Muslim families. Since 2006, the area became the home base for the Multi-Function Islamic Center that belongs to the Pinelands Muslim Association situated in Nursery Way, Pinelands. The usual structure of a hadra ritual is to have men and women in separate spaces. In Lefke (Cyprus), the hadra is conducted at the dergah.2 The space has two levels: the bottom floor and the biggest is dedicated to the men, and the second floor is reserved for women and children. At Maika’s house, people are required to leave shoes at the lounge entrance. As you come into the lounge, there are two separate rooms; the one

‘De-code’ hadra  81 on the left is usually used as the main living room and the biggest room of the house serves the men. Usually, this room is full of furniture: I recall two sofas, a coffee table, carpets, and paintings. The décor is filled with Islamic religious paintings, some pictures of the word Allah in the Arabic script and pictures of Sheikh Moulana Nazim and of Maika’s family. Carpets look Middle Eastern style as well as pillows and other little furniture details like coffee stands, light bulbs, amongst others. Before the hadra begins, her husband and children take the sofas and other furniture away to the back of their house and the paintings are covered with blankets. When you pass this big living room, the kitchen is situated on the righthand side and another small size living room is connected to the big living room through a wood door. The small living room is allocated to the women reasoning that women are fewer in number and that the kitchen is close so women can prepare the food after the ritual. During the days when there are no rituals, the small living room has a small couch and a dining table as well as two large bookshelves with Islamic books and pictures of the family and of Sheikh Moulana Nazim. On ritual night, the sofa, the dining table, and the bookshelves are left in the room and the carpets are covered with a big white carpet similar to the men’s room. There are also extra chairs for the women who cannot stand for the entire ritual or prefer to sit down to have their food after the ritual ends. The wood door is kept open during the ceremonial ritual so women can listen to the leader conducting the hadra; in this way, women can always listen to the men reciting from the next room. There is also a small sound recorder in the men’s room that projects the sound for the women’s room. At the hadra night, the kitchen is always spotlessly clean with food and plates and cups of tea ready for after the ritual. During my time with the community, I would regularly assist Maika and her sister-in-law to serve food for the other women after the ceremony. Men are served first, and the food is taken by Maika’s sons, meaning neither I nor any other woman enters that room during this particular time, even at the end of the ritual. It is a general protocol to switch mobile phones off although I have noticed on some occasions women kept their mobiles on to record the sound of hadra. This seems acceptable to the hosts of both hadra rituals I have attended. As I previously explained, I have also asked permission to record the sound and did so by using a professional sound recorder. However, I was not permitted to take any photographs or videos during the ritual. Although I was never given a specific answer to both hosts who did not want me to record the hadra, I am inclined to believe that Sufis in Cape Town are more at ease with the sound of their voices than having pictures or videos of their bodies during the ritual action. At the end of the ritual, the lights are slowly switched back on and people sit on the couches or on the floor with a relaxed attitude. Most of the time, by the end of the ritual, most Sufi women are chatty, exchanging conversations about their daily activities or activities related to their families, friends,

82 ‘De-code’ hadra or the community. It is common in this house that each person contributes food: some bring fruit, others juice, and sweets, and Maika provides the tea, sweet rice pudding (also called kheer in some South Asian cultures), and savoury snacks. The food is placed at the centre of the room on the floor and women serve themselves (with the right hand) or sometimes we serve them before putting the plates on the floor. I assume that the furniture is then placed back in the original space once everyone departs. I tend to leave when others leave, respecting the late hours of the night and the host’s family time.

Mahid’s house Mahid’s house is situated in the suburb of Lansdowne, which is rather different from the Pinelands area. This suburb is part of a wider area in Cape Town called the Cape Flats in the Southeast of Cape Town city centre. The Cape Flats comprise the regions between the east of the northern and southern suburbs of Cape Town. Lansdowne follows under the label of the so-called ‘coloured’ community ghettoes region where most residents are Afrikaans-speaking. Mahid’s house is situated off the main street of the Lansdowne area in a narrow street with poor visibility and no signpost. At his house, shoes are also taken off outside before entering the lounge. As you enter the lounge, the living room where the ritual takes place is on the right-hand side. In this case, men and women share the spacious living room but they are placed in two circles: the men’s circle is in the front of the room next to the entrance door and lounge and women remain in the back of the room also in a circle formation. At the beginning of the ritual, everyone sits on the floor apart from some older members who sit in chairs. When Sheikh da Costa comes, he sits on a chair facing men and women but closer to the men’s circle. The space is also emptied of furniture for the night of the hadra and covered with Islamic prayer rugs. In contrast to Maika’s house, in this room, nothing remains except chairs and the rugs. I never arrive before the ritual starts, as I have not established the same familial relationship as I have at Maika’s. I assume that before the space is emptied of furniture, however, I never saw the furniture before or after the ritual. I suppose that Mahid may wait until after everyone has left. Although men and women in the same space are not often present in ritual ceremonies, a Sufi woman informed me that when the Naqshbandi Green Sheikh (a Palestinian Sheikh who is currently based in the UK) came as a visitor to South Africa in 2009, he also conducted hadra in a common space. When I asked other female participants why this happens, some informed me that the leaders of hadra each have their own personal way of where to place people and that any of the cases is acceptable for Sheikh Moulana Nazim. However, Maika informed that Sheikh Moulana gave her the order of having women and men in separate rooms.

‘De-code’ hadra  83 I noticed that the houses where the ritual takes place are therefore transformed, adapted, and re-imagined feeling the spiritual and ritualistic nature or ambience for the performative action to take place. In this sense, domestic places become sacred places for the embodiment of rituals. Thus, further questions arise: how does the Sufi conceptualise this notion of sacred and symbolism and how do they use it in relation to the embodied experience? How symbolism is expressed through women’s body movement, and are they aware of this idea? These and other related questions to religious symbolism are going to be addressed in Chapter 6. Given this background, the next section starts to break down the functional structure of the ritual with the opening stage in form of a recital prayer known as the ‘opening Qasida’.

The ‘Opening Qasida’ The ceremonial initiation is common to all rituals I attended. It starts when the group recites the common Islamic salat, or Islamic prayer, followed by an initial recital part that is called the Opening. The opening words are quoted as found in the official Naqshbandi book of recital dhikr and compiled by Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabanni (2004). The Qasidas are a form of lyric poetry originally started in pre-Islamic Arabia and commonly used in Sufi religious recitals such as dhikr. The opening recital (translated by Kabanni 2004) follows: Bismillahi’r- Rahmani r’ Rahim (In the name of God, most Gracious, most Compassionate) Al-Fatihatu lana wa lakum ya dirin recite the opening chapter of the Qu’ran for our benefit and for yours, O attendees together, Wa li-walidina wa-walidikun, wa li-ahalina wa li-awladina and for our parents and your parents and for our families and for our children, Wa li-mashayikhina wa liman hadaran wa liman ghava’anna and for our shaykhs and for whoever is attending this gathering with us and for whoever is absent, Wa li – ahya’ina wa li-amwatina wa li’ l-muwazibina’ ala hadha’ l-majlis wa liman kana sababan fi jam’ina and for our living ones and our deceased ones and for those who are consistent in attending this gathering and for whoever was cause for our coming together, Bi-anna Allahal-karima yunawiru’ l-qulub, wa yaghfiru ‘dh-dhunub, wa yasturu’ l’uyyub wa yahfaz una bima hafiz a bihi’dhi dhikr wa yansuruna bima nasar bihi’r’-rusul

84 ‘De-code’ hadra and that Allah the Most Generous enlighten the hearts and forgive the sins and that He protect us in the same manner he safeguarded the Quran, and that He supports and gives us victory in the same manner He supported and gave victory to His prophets, Wa- anna Allah ‘l-karima yaj’alu majlisana hadha muhatan bi’ l-khayrati wa l’massarat wa l’-anwari wa ‘l-barakt wa yaqdi lana jami’a l-hajat bi-jahi khayru l’bariyyat and that Allah the most Generous cause this gathering to be encompassed by goodness and happiness and light and blessings and that He takes care of all our needs for the sake of the Best on of all creation, Wa-anna Allaha yansuru ‘l-muslimin and that Allah will support and give victory to those who submit to Him, Wa’ ala niyyati anna Allaha ‘l- karima yansuru sultana al-awliya ashShaykh Muhammad Nazim ‘ Adil al- Haqqani, wa yahfaz uhu wa yuwaffiquhu ‘ala’ d-dawa bi-jahi khayri ‘ l-anam and with the intention that Allah the Most Generous support our master the Sultan of Saints, Shaykh Muhammad Nazim’ Adil al- Haqqani and protect abd preserve him and make him successful for all time and grant him wealth, longer life for the sake of the Best of all created beings, Wa ‘ala kulli niyyatin salihatin m’a husni ‘l-khatimat ‘inda’ l-mawt b’ada’ l-‘umri’ l-madid fi ta’ atillah wa ila hadrati ‘n –nabiyyi’ l’ Fatiha. and on every pure intention with most perfect of endings at the time of passing from this life after a long life in service and obedience to God, and to the ever-present Prophet, reci al-Fatihah.

Beginning stage After this opening recital has concluded, the Sufi stands up from an initial sitting position (some women sit on the floor; others, particularly the elders, use chairs) and stand in circle formation that continues a circulatory path for both women and men. I also noticed that the width of the circle formation changes from each group where I have attended hadra. For instance, in Lefke and at Maika’s house, the circle is closer, giving a sense of intimacy when performing the ritual. In both rituals, women do not constantly hold hands with one another and very often after some time they release their hands and continue the movement on their own keeping the circle formation. At Mahid’s house, women always keep holding each other throughout the entire duration of the ritual. However, there are times when women release their hands from their partner to continue the movement on its own. Often after some time, they either return to holding hands or keep separated (but in the group formation) until the end of the ritual. These different

‘De-code’ hadra  85 approaches of group interaction affect the way Sufi women move and the experience they have taking part in the ritual. Their verbalised embodied experiences will be shared in the following chapter. The initial salutation also changes according to the spaces I have been. In Lefke, the male Sufi devotees align behind each other to salute the main Sheikh Moulana Nazim. (This was recorded at the time Sheikh Moulana was still alive as he passed away in the month of May 2014.) The Sheikh used to sit in an allocated chair facing the men of the room and usually would not stand. When occasionally there is a record of him standing, he is seen using his stick to conduct the hadra or simply to touch some of the members performing the hadra, in a friendly supportive gesture. (An example can be found on the following YouTube link: https://youtu​.be​/oPZxrHchfCA, posted by Syed Haider in May 2013.) In Lefke, the salutation code also involves kissing the Sheikh’s hand or touching his feet. I saw this happening only in the men’s space, as women are located in a different space; thus, they did not have direct contact with the Sheikh. After this, the devotee also salutes the musicians and singers who proceed with the musical and recital parts of the ritual. In Lefke, singers and musicians vary in number depending on the people present in the ritual since Sufi devotees come and go in for a visit. When I was present, I noticed about four male singers and male musicians all together, and two leaders conducting the tempo in the middle of the circle. I saw musicians playing the duff (a circular frame drum with one skin-covered surface) and the darabuka (also known as the goblet drum and shaped like a chalice). Women follow the men who lead and play for the ritual. In Lefke, women remain on the second floor; thus they do not have the opportunity to follow the salutation code, and they simply wait until the ritual begins. This information was collected not only according to the videos accessible on the Naqshbandi website but through my own observation from the second floor where I was placed. Back in Cape Town, at Maika’s house, I am not allowed to enter the room reserved for the men; thus, my experience is that when salaat and initial dhikr are finished women stand and form the circle. In addition, there is no salutation code because there is no Sheikh present; thus, I assume that the highest in rank is Maika’s husband who conducts the ritual. Her husband informed me that in the beginning, men close the circle and whoever conducts the ritual comes into the middle and initiates the main movement. Women wait for that moment, and once they hear his recital, they begin their movement. The ritual moves toward a middle stage during which different Qasidas are recited. The most common Qasidas recited are named Ya Nabi Salaam’ Alayja; Qul Ya ‘Azim; Ya Imama ‘r-Rusli; Ya Sayyidi ya Rasula’ Lah; and The Muhammad Qasidah. There are 46 Qasidas from which the ritual leaders can choose; however, in conversation with both Maika’s and Mahid’s hadra ritual leaders I found these to be the preferred ones.

86 ‘De-code’ hadra

Middle stage Although I am aware of the several Qasidas recited, I have chosen two that were noticed and recited all the times I attended the hadra in both houses. In formal conversations with the group, I also found that most participants specifically enjoy them. The first one is called Ya Nabi Salam ‘Alayka, and the second one, which reaches the end and climax part of the ritual, is called Ya Sayyidi ya Rasulua’ Lah. Translation follows: Ashraqa ‘l- kawnu ‘btihajan Bi wujudi ‘l-mustaf’ Ahmad The universe shone with delight rejoicing in the existence of Chosen One, Ahamad, Wa li’ ahli l-kawni unsun Wa sururun qad tajaddad And the inhabitants of the universe found intimacy, And a renewed happiness, Fatrabu ya ahla’ l-mathani Fa hazaru ‘l-yumni gharrad The nightingale sang: ‘Be delighted, O settler of the two places (heavens and earth) with this good fortune’, Wa’stadi’u bi jamalin Faqa fil-husni tafarrad And seek the light from such beauty, That is exceedingly superior and unique, Wa lana ‘l-bushra bi sa’din Mustamirrin laysa yanfad We received the good news, With continuous happiness never ending, Haythu’ utina’ ata’an Jama’a ‘l-fakhra ‘-mu’abbad As we were given a gift, that encompassed eternal glory (for this life and the hereafter), Fa li Rabbi kullu hamdin Jalla an yahsurahu ‘l’ad For my Lord all praises and, Thanks that are countless in number, Idh Habana bi wujudi l ‘ Mustafa ‘l –hadi Muhammad Since He bestowed upon us, the presence (birth) of Muhammad, the Chosen One and the Guide. During the time of this recital, the devotee’s feet are in parallel position and the arms and hands relaxed alongside the hips. The following section will examine in detail the body movement that occurs during the standing circle formation and the actual form of hadra.

Body movement during the hadra The ritual follows a basic structure of body movement that applies to every ceremony I have attended. It is a combination of learned steps or body movements that are recognised as part of the ritual in both hadra in Cape

‘De-code’ hadra  87 Town and in Cyprus. However, variations are mentioned when referring to those women at Maika’s house that sometimes seems to move outside the pattern. At Mahid’s house, women are given orders by Sheikh Yusuf da Costa to hold hands. From this standing position, the female body initially stands still and begins to move in a slight shift of weight front and backwards in a slower pace. The bottom part of the body is firmly grounded on the floor with the feet in a parallel position supporting the weight of the body. The feet are sometimes close together and other times open as wide as the hips. This movement responds to the states of fatigue of each individual. This changing position of the feet begins usually after about half an hour to an hour after the ritual has started. The movement is initiated from the bottom part of the body, the knees slightly bend and extend, responding to the flexion of the hip which brings the upper part of the body forward. Knees are slightly bent, which results in a natural bend of the legs as well as the release of the upper body shaping a curve in the spine. The weight of the upper body goes back and forth in a block giving an image or a sensation of a body that plunges in and out of the sea while the lower body maintains its stability and the rhythm established through the flexing and extension of the knees. In this motion, the upper body is released from the vertical extension to fall forwards into a horizontal orientation through a bend in the hip joint. When reaching the horizontal, a small rebound ensures that the energy of the release is kept and the body is able, through an impulse, to move back into the vertical position maintaining the continuous flow of this sequence of movements while the lower body maintains its stability. In this motion, the upper body is released from the vertical extension to fall forwards into a horizontal orientation through a bend in the hip joint. When reaching the horizontal a small rebound ensures that the energy of the release is kept and the body is able to impulse the upper body back into the vertical position, maintaining the continuous flow of this sequence of movements. The image of plunging out into the sea was expressed by some of the participants when expressing the kinds of imagery experiences they have during the practice of the ritual. The use of visualisation that serves religious embodied practices is later addressed in Chapter 6. At the same time facing the centre of the circle, the upper body leans forward and backwards. The arms follow the release and recovery motion of the torso. When the body is upright, the arms are bent from the elbow and as the forearm approaches the chest when the trunk is released forward, the arms extend towards the floor. In this extension, motions are two variations that happen: one is a complete release of the arm that finishes the motions with a swing in the arm in full extension, so it can recover and bend again while the upper body straightens up. The second variation is when the forearm is released down; there is a small impact on the forearm when it reaches the vertical line of the body, and it bends again while the trunk extends.

88 ‘De-code’ hadra The Sufi women who attend hadra at Maika’s house repeat the same type of movements and can choose to hold or not to hold hands while in the circle. The palms are facing up, and the hands are mainly relaxed but opened, with the fingers extended, or, shell shape, with the fingers slightly curved. As the arms bend, and the hands move up towards the chest, they approach one another. When the hand impacts the chest, they are closed in a fist shape. This movement also presents some variations, for example, the right hand can come directly to the chest, and hits, rebounding fiercely against the left part of the chest, in direction of the heart. For the Sufi, this represents an idea of ‘waking up’ the heart. In fact, some of the female participants mentioned to me that they do this purposely, as an action of ‘awakening’ one’s soul or spirit, and to connect to Allah. Some women allude to this action as a symbolic idea of cleansing their heart, as it will be unpacked in the following chapter. The women who practice the hadra at Mahid’s house have similar types of movement structures of the lower and upper parts of the body, but with the variation of holding hands. In this case, I noticed that some women have the tendency to ‘drag’ their companion’s arms towards their own chest. This suggests that during the ritual, some women have the tendency to lead each other’s movements. During the interviews, some participants expressed their discontent and discomfort about the idea of holding hands with one another. Some told me that they feel a sense of frustration for not being able to ‘follow my natural body rhythm’ (Filipa 2013), meaning that holding hands can restrict their own natural movement impulse. Others seem to enjoy holding hands, expressing a sense of unison with the group, or ‘when I hold hands with someone in the group that I really like’ (Wanda 2013). Their embodied experiences will be examined in-depth in the following chapters. At this stage, the head and neck move gradually, curving and straightening the lines of the spine, the head does not relax down with the flexion of the upper body. After a certain time, as the rhythm of the ritual changes to a faster pace, the head and neck become looser. The head and neck follow the movement of the torso in the direction of the floor slightly bent forward like in a bowing position. The head and neck start to move from side to side, turning on the horizontal plane, and moving up and down, on the sagittal plane. I have also paid attention to the facial expressions that occur during the course of the ritual. The most common facial gesture is to see women with their eyes closed, but other times they quickly open although the rules of the hadra maintain that they should keep their eyes closed all the time. At Mahid’s house, before the ritual begins, some of the elder women remind the group of women to keep their eyes closed during the ritual. However, I observed, and in formal conversations, some of the participants mention that they often open their eyes to see if they are keeping pace with the rest of the group, and here they mean the women and the men of the group. Wanda admits to opening her eyes in particular circumstances. In her words,

‘De-code’ hadra  89 Sometimes I just close my eyes [pause] … I know sometimes I cheat, because sometimes I just open my eyes so I can look at the women’s hands or their faces or if my scarf is right or if the men went crazy or [laughs] … I am easily distracted! (Wanda 2013) The facial expressions also vary from person to person depending on the time of the ritual. For instance, at the beginning of the ritual, some women show a calm and relaxed facial expression, a focused expression, as if they are preparing for the ritual to start. In the middle section and as the Qasida develops and the ritual reaches its climax, I noticed that the facial expressions begin to change. To me, some appear to be expressions of joy while others are of sadness; sometimes they also have tears on their face or big wide-open smiles. When the ritual moves from the middle towards the climax, the following Qasida is sung, and then another one follows as the concluding one. The respective Qasidah as follows: Ya sayyida’ r- Rusli ya tahir ya ghayata’ lqadi wash-sha’ni Salla ‘alayka l’ali ‘lqadir fi kuli waqtin wa’ahyani Oh master of the Messengers, oh pure one; you are the highest goal and aim; Allah the High the Powerful has blessed you in every moment and time Ya sayyida r’ – Rusli ya tahir abduk’ ala babikum hani Da’im lima ‘rufikum shakir fi kulli waqtin w’ahyani Oh master of the Messengers oh pure one, your slave is waiting with humility at your door; ever thankful for your favors, in every moment and time.

Climax and end stage of the hadra When this Qasida is recited, the ritual reaches a climax stage and an end. In my experience of hadra, I observe that the climax arrives with the recitation of Muhammad Qasida, which can vary from half an hour to an hour after the start. This Qasida is dedicated to the prophet Muhammad and speaks of the prophet according to his attributes, his personal and spiritual qualities, and refers to him as the most perfect human who ever lived on earth, and the last of prophets. This recitation has expressions such as Muhammad is the most honored one amongst Arabs and non-Arabs; Muhammad is the best one who ever walked on two feet. (Kabanni 2004: 101). Another expression refers to the prophet, Muhammad is the crown jewel of all the messengers of Allah; Muhammad speaks the true and his words are true, [as well as] ‘Muhammad

90 ‘De-code’ hadra worships Allah with great devotion and effort; Muhammad is the seal of the Messengers. (Kabanni 2004: 102) When this recitation begins, the musical rhythm becomes faster and I note that the dynamic of the body changes. The pace of the movement accelerates, responding to the music and the text. During the climax stage, the arms and knees continue to give the impulse for the movement, but now, the body moves up and down faster. However, in some cases, I noticed that in some women’s bodies, it seems that the bouncing movement of the knees becomes more prominent than the release motions of the arms. From a bird’s eye view, the visual motion of these bodies moving all together towards the ceiling and towards the floor is like a jellyfish pumping from the inside out while surfing the sea. This idea of sea movement was also told to me by a French woman who took part in hadra in Cyprus. The woman explained that she tries to perform in her body as Sheikh Moulana advises. She explained that Moulana refers to the body moving ‘like seaweed in the oceans of beauty’. Perhaps this notion of seaweed, or sea waves, comes from the visual, aesthetic aspect of the ritual itself. She explained that Moulana speaks to us about oceans of beauty, of patience, of glorification … and while doing hadra we are the seaweed that moves in that ocean. (Zara 2013, author’s translation) It is evident that this recall of imagery seems to help women in their bodily movement dispositions as well as images that speak of a determinate mental state that they carry throughout the ritual to help to reach a sense of cleansing mainly in and through the heart, as I will discuss later. Although the pace of ritual changes during the climax stage, there are times when some individuals move slightly faster or slower than others in the group. I notice that this usually happens to those who maintain their eyes firmly closed during the entire duration of the practice. In Lefke, I noticed that during the climax stage, the leader of hadra reaches the devotee who keeps the eyes closed and signalling through a subtle gesture of the arm forward calls out the attention of the devotee so that the Sufi can remain in unison with the rest of the group. Here I question if this action is related to the idea that Sufis maintain about reaching unconscious or transcended levels during ritual practice and being able to be fully aware of their surroundings. Other times, also in Lefke, I noticed that the Sufi male devotee leaves the circle and goes towards the centre continuing the same movement patterns while others change the pattern completely. In Lefke it is often possible to see a male who chooses to leave the circle formation and come to the middle

‘De-code’ hadra  91 to perform their own hadra variations. This can happen in a solo or in a duet, where one dances to the other. In these variations, the feet become more mobile and acquire more complex footwork like tapping the feet, at times parallel, at times crossing the centre of the body. The arms gain horizontal and vertical motions, which are absent from the initial sagittal release of the arms, described earlier. However, I did not see this happening at rituals I attended in Cape Town, as some women explained was an uncommon practice. The climax stage is a time of exhilaration, as the rhythm now changes, and Sufis have been moving together in unison for about an hour. Here some important changes in body movement are apparent, mostly between genders. This description applies to the different rituals I have attended in Cape Town and Lefke. Watching the online video recordings and sometimes through glimpses through the men’s next-door room at Maika’s house, I could notice that suddenly when the climax of the ritual occurs, men alone, and in-group, accelerate the forward swinging motion of the body, which is visually more impressive than are the women. The flow of the body movement becomes more certain as men link their arms locking to one another (as opposed to women that hold hands). An interesting contrast in the body movement happens during the climax stage: at Maika’s and in Lefke I noticed that men have the tendency of forming a closer circle by locking their arms to one another and at this stage they usually start jumping. At Mahid’s house, men and women remain holding hands only. During hadra at Maika’s and in Lefke, some men began to jump as well as the normal forward and back bending and extending of the body. The men perform a vertical short-length jump, with both feet together, and landing on both feet, and the leg’s impulse elevates the body to rise vertically towards the ceiling. In Lefke, I also noticed that other members come to the middle to help the spiritual leader to conduct the tempo or simply to move freely from the group, as there is an apparent need for more space to express movement. In the case of the men, the jumps resemble those performed by the Massai warriors and the warrior dance of ‘adam’u or ‘aigus’, which means ‘to jump’. Like the Massai dance, the jumps that Sufi performs assume a straight posture, and the heels do not touch the ground. Usually, when one member initiates these jumps, the others follow and sometimes all men in the space start jumping, meaning that the entire group of men begins to jump in unison. Until this date, I have not come across any woman who performs these sorts of jumps; however, women are aware of male jumps. Yolanda who attends regular hadra told me that sometimes hadra becomes very intense on the men’s side, they start jumping, and everything, it becomes very intense. (Yolanda 2013)

92 ‘De-code’ hadra This shows that during the ritual performance, the woman is aware of what is external to her not only sensing the male performance and their performance but that she is also aware of external ritual features such as the music, listening, and reciting the Qasida and other women who take part. I notice that the combining feature is what influences the woman’s body movement.

Conclusion, comments, and observations This chapter shows how hadra follows a particular set of learned movements, gestures, and postures that are performed by Sufi members of the Naqshbandi. It also placed the ritual in the context of Sufi practices and the structures that the ritual is set in Cape Town houses. While observing these features, some data also reveal how women have been initiated and informed about the bodily movement of this practice. Some women told me they would observe the body movement of the ritual and simply follow what others would do. Others said they were given instructions by the local Sheikh da Costa or by other Sufi members of the community on how to perform the movements of hadra. When asked to describe the physical elements of hadra in terms of the body movement, women often explain that the arms, hands, knees, and head are the most relevant body parts for the practice. They also described the direction of the body in relation to space, the rocking up backwards and forwards, in the direction to the centre of the circle. They refer to these aspects as the physical features or physical codes of the hadra. To exemplify this to me, some women would physically stand up and show me the body movement as if they were teaching me a part of a dance piece. Although I did not record this action on video, I have recorded their voices and description where is possible to listen to the sound of them speaking and doing movement with the body at the same time. In this case, when standing, they would accentuate the importance of the movement of the arms, and the rocking of the body, as the most recognisable body movement path that is used to perform this ritual. In addition to the given information, the description here presented also highlights the external features of the ritual that accompany the body movement in relation to space. This chapter has shown that the ritual combines a relationship between the body movement that is intertwined with the oral recitation of the Qasidha (dhikr), and the music, played by the daff. The combination of the elements is what is considered the physical and visual aspects of the ritual of the hadra. Although I have found women’s descriptions useful in comparison to my own body movement analysis, I continued to inquire about the bodily sensations or the process through which the body movement assists this ritualistic experience. For the women I spoke to, the body movement in hadra is charged with symbolic meaning. Thus, the following chapter will analyse notions of

‘De-code’ hadra  93 symbolic meaning in Sufi practice and how women seem to relate this to the experience of their body movement. In conversations with a member about the meaning of the hadra, I was told that ‘hadra is not a game. It is an intense spiritual practice’. For the Sufi, this ‘serious piousness’ way of religious practice and dedication is visually embodied in hadra. Thus, I suggest that through the body movement, women are able to create and perform symbolic values as expressions of religious, moral, and spiritual values. The following discussion continues to be based upon interviews with Sufi women from Cape Town between 2013 and 2014. Their stories, experiences, and sometimes-defensive arguments against certain rationale of mine are discussed in depth. Drawing from a symbolic anthropological perspective, the next chapter presents an in-depth analysis that shows how Sufi women not only speak of their bodies and the importance of the movement through a symbolic codified language but how this discourse can be subjective to the cultural habits.

Notes 1 In South Africa, the term coloured is referred to people of mix ethical origins, mainly from Europe, Asia, and some Koisan and Bantu tribes from Southern Africa (Rodrigues, 2011). 2 Dergah is the Arabic word for lodge (or also named as tekke, or zawiyya). The dergah usually serves as a gathering space for Sufi devotees and a usual space for Sufi ceremonies, like the hadra.

6

Symbolic embodied practice The Sufi ‘mystical body’ and women’s religious identity

Before man expresses his experience of life through materials, he does so with his own body. (Wosien 1974: 8)

Introduction In the book entitled Sacred Dance (1975), dance scholar Maria-Gabriele Wosien1 maintains that religious rituals and body movement forms are intrinsic types of human performance that connect people with divine essences. Wosien opens her book with an interesting suggestion that a person encountering a divine being is ‘a self-revelation of god; and yet, because of the limitation and fragmentation inherent in matter, is also his veiling’ (Wosien 1974: 10). With Wosien’s idea in mind, I question in which ways are Sufi women in Cape Town connecting with the divine matter through a symbolic meaning and how does this connection grant them embodied selfexpression? How do Sufi women interpret symbolically what they embodied through practice, and how is hadra being constructed and imagined by women? If Sufi women agree that the body and body movement can be used to symbolically represent religious identity and self-expression, do they also acknowledge the body as a site of knowledge? If not, how can they possibly negotiate symbolic religious practice and embodied selfhood? Does selfreflexivity play a role in cultural behaviour? This chapter seeks to answer these and other questions by analysing Sufi women’s ideas about their bodies in relation to hadra and its symbolism. In dance anthropology studies, some scholars show how rituals are connected to symbolic attachment as tools for embodied cultural identity, self-expression, and communal religious belonging (Singer 2014). Also in cultural anthropology, Thomas Csordas claims that ritual embodiment is a relationship between body and culture and ‘experience insofar as these can be understood from the standpoint of bodily being-in-the-world’ (Csordas 1993: 143). Following this idea, dance scholar Allison J. Singer (2014) also suggests that the embodiment of symbolism ‘can be used as part of a process DOI: 10.4324/9780429353574-6

Symbolic embodied practice  95 of symbolic and personal transformation’ (Singer 2014: 135). This chapter draws from anthropological ideas on symbolic or interpretative anthropology to analyse hadra practice as ‘cultural artifacts’ (Kaeppler 1999: 310) that can shape the Sufi individual or communal body movement expression. Data collected in Cape Town reveals that Sufi women perceive hadra as the symbolic platform through which they can relate and speak of their bodies. This symbolic attribute helps women to perpetuate Sufi values, and to connect with the community through a collective process that embodies religious beliefs and moral values as shared and learned knowledge. Embodied action is conceived as women’s individual ability to express their sense of self through body movement and in relation to the symbolic meaning. Data also opens further discussions on the relation of ritual experience as part of a somatic experience. While this chapter addresses these topics in relation to interpretative symbolism, the following chapter analyses hadra in its several stages and contextualises the practice as part of a somatic process and method of embodied ritual form. Data collected identify four predominant symbolic meanings that are described by women in reference to hadra as: (i) circles of remembrance; (ii) love for Allah and the encounter with God and the Prophet Muhammad; (iii) spiritual cleansing; and (iv) religious communal practice. These features will be addressed next followed by a discussion of these attributes in relation to ideas of the mystical body, embodied religious identity, and bodily practice.

The symbolic attributes of hadra: circles of remembrance Sufism teaches about the world with exterior (zahir) and interior (batin) aspects. For the devotee, the interior aspect is most relevant and only achieved through practice (Bashir 2011). Sufi women in Cape Town understand that hadra is the way in which the exterior, which they regard as the body, allows for the interior, which they refer to as the spirit, to reach the goal of intimacy with God. In this context, a young Sufi girl named Aida explained her way of understanding the symbolic meaning of hadra. So, basically the hadra is about praising the creator, and praying. Hadra is just another form of praying, of praising the creator, a remembrance. (Aida 2013) Nadia uses the expression of ‘circle of remembrance’, often learned in Sufi teaching as the act of praying to God. Nadia understands that the circle form is a symbolic form to remember God and to induce movement to happen. In her words, ‘Ok, hadra is, basically, circles of remembrance of God, and that is where the all movement comes from’ (Nadia 2013). The previous chapter already explained that one of the external features of this ritual is that it is performed in a circle figuration. The circle shape is part of

96  Symbolic embodied practice the symbolic method of prayer and signifies God’s love towards the human being. In another interview, Tania explains that to perform in this circle is to be remembered by God. Allah remembers you, and that is why you remember Allah. It’s not me remembering Allah, you see, we always say, “I am remembering Allah, I am doing dhikr”, or “I am going to hadra, I am thinking about Allah”, its not right. It’s Allah remembering us, and because Allah wants us to remember Allah, Allah will touch us. The idealised notion of an encounter with and remembrance of God creates the opportunity for women like Nadia and Tania’s body movement to happen. The ritual not only creates the occasion for the Sufi to be remembered by God, but it is also the symbol of embodied love for the divine essence.

Love for Allah Zita describes hadra as the platform for the expression of love. This is one of the rituals that maybe … we try to reach Allah in all ways you know? Maybe this is the physical means of us getting closer to Allah. I think it’s an expression of love, but the physical expression of that. Zita understands the practice as an embodied action of love towards God. She understands this action as bodily expression, or ‘the physical expression of love’, which carries the Sufi across the line that divides the exterior and interior categories. To show that love, the follower is required to enact a certain physical performance of ritualistic actions. I notice that the symbolic embodied meaning that Zita carries through her body movement becomes her ‘actions of love’. At a later stage of the interview, Zita reflects again on this idea of love and admits she is not entirely sure of the real Sufi meaning. In her words, my understanding, well, my experience why we do hadra is to feel love, but to strengthen our love, but I don’t know the true meaning of it. When Zita continues to reflect on the symbolic action, she realises that her association with love is partly based upon her embodied experience and partly as a reflection on the Sufi teaching. Here I am reminded of Geertz’s ideas that the combining of features in ritual practice ‘transcends its logical meaning’ (Geertz 1973: 91). For Geertz, symbols are ways of instilling knowledge and how people communicate about their perspectives of the world. When applied to hadra, I note that the metaphysical and secretive association that the Sufi gives to ritual also ‘serves as a vehicle for a conception – the conception is the symbol’s meaning’ (Geertz 1973: 91). Body movement in hadra praxis becomes one of these features

Symbolic embodied practice  97 or part of a context that follows patterns of cultural systems. For now, we continue to explore what other symbolic meanings are being carried by Sufi women.

Encountering God and the Prophet Riana explains that the symbolic idea of love is to project an image and love towards the Prophet Muhammad. It means, it’s a way of expression of love for the Prophet Muhammad, that’s ultimately … It’s a special time, when you are doing or having hadra. They say that the Prophet enters the hadra, so, for me it’s a way of showing your love, and you want the lover, in other words, you want to be with your beloved. In other words, you want your Lord Allah to take you in [pause] … his arms, are you with me? So, it’s like the lover and the beloved. (Riana 2013) Riana explains her practice in a metaphorical expression of love that connects with God and the Prophet Muhammad. However, unlike Zita’s idea that love is a physical act of worship performed through the body, Riana describes this expression as the metaphorical idea of a ‘lover and the beloved’. In this way, Riana suggests a symbolic love relationship between the Sufi and God as intimate lovers. Riana’s articulation might seem spontaneous and her way of imagining it. However, her discourse is moulded through Sufi theological thinking. Notions of God as ‘lover and beloved’ have long been expressed in Sufism during early medieval times. In Islamic feminism, scholar Laury Silvers notes that ‘Sufi sayings on divine love are expressed as deeply personal revelations of intimate experiences with the object of their attachment’ (Silvers 2010: 35). Silvers analysed early medieval texts that mention Sufi women’s notions of divine love and collected by the Sufi Abu al-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi (d.597/1201). Silvers draws from the work of others in Islamic feminism studies such as Maria Dakake to argue that during this formative period Sufi women ‘expressed love as confidence that their protector would accept their works and return to intimacy with them during their time spent alone in worship’ (Silvers 2010: 36). The devotional attitudes of Sufi women during the early periods of the emergence of Sufism are similar to those reported by women in Cape Town in the present day. The attributed symbolic meaning of love suggests that women are learning through Sufism how to imagine the divine essence as the lover and the beloved and metaphorically conceptualised as their object of belonging. Zita and Riana’s discourse appeals to Silver’s idea of how women ‘imagined their souls as faithful lovers who enjoyed regular or event constant states of intimacy with God’ (Silvers 2010: 38).

98  Symbolic embodied practice Hoffman’s (1999) ethnographic work amidst Sufi women in Egypt also notes that the remembrance of God and the image of the Prophet Muhammad is key in Sufi practice. She shares that Muhammad’s perfection often went beyond the standard affirmation of his immunity from error, and sometimes went so far as the assertions of the Spanish Arab Qadi Iyad (d. 1149/50) that Muhammad had assumed all the qualities embodied in the Ninety-nine Beautiful Names of God. (Hoffman 1999: 351) Hoffman explains that popular devotion to the Prophet Muhammad is found in the forms of prayer like dhikr and rituals like hadra. Sufi masters such as Ibn Arabi (560/1165) have taught that the Prophet Muhammad is the perfect link between God and humanity. Symbolic representations, such as the ones explained by Hoffman are similar to the ones described by women in Cape Town, as learned ways of celebrating the Prophet’s honour which is essential to Sufi piety. Yolanda explains she was taught about the meaning of hadra as an encounter between herself, God, and the Prophet Muhammad. They would be in a circle, and it’s also like a group coming together, and you put yourself around the Prophet and Allah Almighty. That is why you bow … [pause] … and this is like … this is how I understand it. I will stand in front of my Almighty and in the presence of Muhammadun Rasulu-Llah, sall-Allahu ta’ ala’ alayhi wa salaam.2 (Yolanda 2013) Yolanda’s description of standing in front of the Prophet calls back to the teachings of the Sufi Master Ibn Arabi (d. 1240) who said, ‘place him before you like the mirror in which you see your form’ (Corbin 1970: 261). To Yolanda this implies a kind of visualisation practice that is explained as a symbolic embodied act, referring to the ritual meaning as something learned. Thus, hadra becomes the platform where she learns how to perform to and in relation to God. In Yolanda’s words, I am in the presence of Allah, and this is my way of presenting myself to him, this is my creator, you take what Allah gives. (Yolanda 2013) Yolanda’s way of expressing her embodied practice agrees with Hoffman’s idea that visual images which induce God and the Prophet Muhammad appear to the Sufi, and this results in a total inner immersion (Hoffman 1999). To honour and to be able to achieve a so-called closeness to God, women must attend to the aspects of the inner, or interior self. I note that hadra is the symbolic medium, and the body and body movement are

Symbolic embodied practice  99 the axes through which the Sufi shows love and encounters God and the Prophet Muhammad. However, I also notice that the symbolic aspects of which women speak go beyond Sufi thinking, and also call to women’s subjectivity, as I will present next.

Spiritual cleansing During informal conversations, I observed that women’s dialogue is articulated through religious thinking and personal constructions. These notions represent women’s moral values or attitudes about hadra that are not necessarily all fundamental to Sufism. An example is when women speak of hadra as the place to ‘clean the soul’ (Riana 2013). The so-called cleansing of the soul is explained as an embodied experience. Another woman Salome tells me how hadra represents the place to empty herself before God. In her opinion hadra is not only the place where God draws closer to the individual, but it is the individual’s ultimate choice to become closer to God. She explains that during the ritual she can detach herself from her body. Cleansing … [long pause] … I think that is what hadra means to me. I need to be cleansed, so it means to me my path to Allah. Is that the correct answer? I don’t know. I think that we all struggle to be there for Allah, for His love, just to be with Him, that is what we need, that is what we want, its your detachment from this place and knowing this reality out there. (Salome 2013) This necessity to release inner tension and her sense of being beyond the body as a way of self-cleansing is shared by another Sufi woman, Bianca, who explains hadra as the place to release pessimism or negative emotions that she accumulates throughout the day. In her words, one needs to sweat in the hadra, one needs to sweat the negativities out in the hadra, like … [pause] … you have shed the negativities of the day. (Bianca 2013) These women’s ideas bring an interesting layer to the meaning of hadra, suggesting that despite their understanding of the praxis, they also attach their personal views and needs to what they learn. Their explanations suggest a personal motivation or a necessity for the inner release of the emotional and physical tension, which naturally accumulates throughout people’s daily life. Expressions such as ‘cleansing’ or ‘sweat’ and ‘shed off’ are used by women to refer to a sense of release that is ultimately associated with the

100  Symbolic embodied practice concept of detachment of the body that Sufis must go through to encounter God. James Peacock (1984) anthropological work on religious healing experiences in American Pentecostal churches also contends that the kind of healing processes are deeply personal sources of embodied experience. He notes, How one is moved to radically transcend a sinful mode of being, an alchemy which is part of being healed. The testimony itself is a miracle of transformation, for one is moved ("by the spirit") to take the radical step of leaving the pew to stand and speak of one's experience, thus claiming and therefore creating the experience. (Peacock 1984: 41) I suggest that by acting out their inner experiences, Sufi women gain clarity about their sense of selfhood, which they physically represent in the ritual. Women understand the release of inner tensions during the ritual as Peacock proposes a ‘miracle of transformation’ (1984: 42) that comes with the practice and the body movement action. I suggest that Sufi women are creating an embodied experience that speaks in terms of both symbolic meaning and subjective values. In this way, Sufi women’s dialogues agree with the notion that to learn ritual ‘and its symbolic forms lead us toward construction of the believer’s world’ (Peacock 1984: 42). Further, data also shows that women chose how to discuss and represent for themselves this symbolic embodiment that goes beyond theological teaching. Salome and Bianca’s ideas suggest that, in some cases, women are able to relate to an embodied ‘feeling good’ sensation through the practice, or as Wanda, expresses, ‘that feeling of happiness is more important for me to feel than to imagine’ (Wanda 2014). This complex idea shows that for instance Wanda’s ‘feeling good’ sensation is partly constructed through her imagination, and truly appreciated and meaningful when this is felt through her body. Women’s allusion to a bodily felt sensation reinforces my argument that ritual practice can indeed be seen as embodied self-knowledge. Speaking of self and religion, Csordas mentions the notion of ‘sacred self’ and alterity as interlinked ideas. He suggests that this state of being other is the ‘kernel of religion’ (2004: 163). The scholar proposes that alterity (or the state of being other) is part of the construction of the self being-inthe-world, and religion is inevitably a part of human existence. In other words, Csordas means that for the ritual to accomplish its purpose, it must always be a symbolic statement of an ‘ultimate reality’ (Csordas 2004: 164). Csordas investigated the notions of intimacy with God within a community of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal group in North America. He notes that the evocation of images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary is also used in healing prayer and ‘take the form of visualization in which one of these divine presences would speak and engage the affiliated person in a healing embrace’ (Csordas 2004: 169).

Symbolic embodied practice  101 Csordas claims that these religious presences are not only to be seen as internal in-between objects in a psychoanalytic notion but that they serve as examples of intimacy, as a feature of the sacred self. He explains, this experience is a genuine intimacy with a primordial aspect of the self that is the existential ground for both its fundamental indeterminacy and the possibility of an intersubjective relationship – its own inherent otherness. In other words, the imaginal Jesus is the alterity of the self. (Csordas 2004: 57) Similar experiences are happening to Sufi women when they refer to the symbolic meaning hadra. They see a strong connection with self and selfimagination as a condition for connecting to God, and with others. Just as Csordas maintains that Catholic Christians evoke images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary so do Sufi women evoke images of God and the Prophet Muhammad. This embodied practice carries a performative aspect that is referred to by Csordas as ‘sacred self’ (Csordas 2004: 57). In this way, Sufi women’s discussions about the symbolism of hadra and the expression of intimacy with one self can be seen as the ability for intimacy experience to come in terms with the ‘alterity of the self’ (Csordas 2004: 57). In other words, the dialogues that women maintain with the outward realm begin with the reliability of the physical self while simultaneously the outward context shapes the self and identity (Csordas 2004). What is more, embodied religious experience and practice are ‘constituted in the bodily synthesis of projective self-processes’ (Csordas 1994: 169), and this can be regarded as a cultural phenomenon, which ‘is an objectification of embodiment itself’ (Csordas 2004: 58). If this is the case, I propose that Sufi religious subjectivity is shaped by the manners women project towards the world, as well as by cultural conditions that inform the individual’s and communal values, conventions, morals, and patterns embedded within it. The next example explores this idea and analyses hadra as a collective religious practice.

Communal practice: ‘all of us for the sake of Allah’ Hadra is conceptualised in Sufism as a communal spiritual gathering and a means of collective ‘wholeness’. This sort of collective embodied demonstration helps Sufis to ascertain their status as part of the religious community. From an anthropological perspective, I see that the experience of religious collective practice is one way for women to embody what they imagine and learn. In religious studies, for example, scholar Rebecca Sachs Norris (2001, 2003) also discusses notions of embodiment and community within folk dance traditions. She states that ritual bodily forms involve the assimilation of symbolic meanings as embodied knowledge learned through the ritual performance.

102  Symbolic embodied practice To understand how bodily practices such as folk dance encourage or create community, we must examine the processes that underlie the formation of community feeling and participation (Norris 2001: 111). Similarly, the symbolic action that gives meaning to the ritual brings Sufi women together while it reinforces and supports their individual emotional and spiritual needs. When I observed Sufi women after the ritual practice, I noticed how they greet one another by kissing each other and wishing each other baraka (spiritual blessings). This action means appreciation for both the practice and the gathering. The ritual itself not only presents the opportunity for spiritual practice but also means social interaction. As Nadia explains, ‘it is nice to see the same faces every Monday night and say “hey salaam”, and “how are you?” and off you go …’ (Nadia 2013). Sufi women understand hadra to be a gathering where spiritual benefits are shared. Nevertheless, spiritual practices lead to other activities, such as the ordinary social gathering, as I previously explained in Chapter 2. During my fieldwork, I noticed that Sufi women and men (in their respectively allocated rooms of the house) share a meal after the ritual before returning to their homes. During this time, women engage in daily conversation with one another outside of their religious context. They share stories about their daily life and tell others about their issues or troubles often related to work, families, lovers, and friends. Other times, I noticed they comment about other members of the community and question family or friends of those regular Sufis who might be missing. I experienced a similar attitude when I was absent due to sickness. The following week I too was questioned by some of the women about my non-attendance. I began to realise that the women regarded my presence at the ritual as that of a regular attendee. They would be concerned about my travelling alone late at night, and sometimes they would call or send me a text message to make sure I arrived home safely. This behaviour shows how women make sense of their religious community by caring for one another. Sharing a religious belief keeps the community together. Following this idea, Grau maintains that in Tiwi tradition, dance practices are part of the everyday communal involvement, and ‘everyone needs to participate at one time or another’ (Grau 2011: 17). She maintains that dance becomes a social and spiritual duty that acts upon every member of the Tiwi. In the same way, Sufi hadra is the social, cultural, and spiritual platform that acts upon the devotee. The embodiment of the practice in relation to its social and cultural context allows Sufis to teach and share with one another values, ideologies, and relationships to places and people. To embody hadra is to negotiate individual and collective identity. This negotiation is represented through the body movement, which processes these ‘states of being’ where belief systems are being symbolised. In one interview, a woman named Filipa explains how

Symbolic embodied practice  103 hadra means a place where men and women gather on the same spiritual level. It represents oneness. It represents … [pause] … whenever everyone is doing the hadra at the same time, in rhythm, the same direction that men are going in, the women are also going in, and out, the same thing …[pause] … then it kind of feels like there’s no separation between us and the men, on a spiritual level. It’s just like …[pause] … so hard to explain … [long pause] … a whirling energy that is taking force. That is what is in the middle. (Filipa 2013) Filipa’s way of thinking links with the sense of collective ‘wholeness’, which she relates to the rhythm and time of the ritual. She also mentions ‘spiritual wholeness’ as a means to represent gender sameness. This leads me to question: Is hadra the only place for gender empowerment in Sufi praxis? How do Sufi women negotiate this in relation to Muslim men? Can gender in Sufism be discussed outside ritual practice? These thoughtprovoking questions are perhaps territory for future discussions that are beyond the scope of this book. Here, I am using Filipa’s description to analyse hadra as a collective ritualistic movement and a way of achieving a collective religious identity. For example, historian William McNeill uses the term ‘muscular bonding’ when referring to a group or individual religious rhythmic manifestation as, ‘an important way of creating emotionally vibrant primary groups within which human lives found meaning and direction’ (McNeill 1995: 5). McNeill’s work discusses religious group movements including the Mormons, the Pentecostals, or the Sufi Dervishes. He analyses how religious ritualistic dances can induce ‘muscular bonding’, which emotionally ties people together. When referring to dance movement in ritual practice, McNeill argues that dance, may relieve tension and impress or challenge others, but its distinctive capability of enhancing group solidarity probable depends on keeping time together for a prolonged period, thus, translating individual discharge of anxiety into a collective catharsis. (McNeill 1995: 17) Similar kinds of release sensations through a group activity are present in Nadia’s speech. She speaks of hadra as communal ritual participation and explains,

104  Symbolic embodied practice Hadra is a collective everyone influences, as a collective everyone … we all have influence, as a group, the sounds, the group movement influences, how fast we move … [pause] … (Nadia 2013) Nadia’s explanation suggests that group unison, or group dynamic, helps to create a subjective reality in which the principle of reverence is shared. Thus, Nadia understands that she participates in the collective creation of the movement itself. Another woman named Judina discusses her sense of individual performance, which sits against this background. So, if you are in your own rhythm, but we will all come together, it’s like when you take any musical instrument, it’s the guitar, the strings, and every string will give you a different note. That is us, is it not a symphony of love? A symphony of … [pause] …. Isn’t that why we are all coming together? (Judina 2013) The joy and engrossment that is required for a positive ritual performance outcome are caused by the embodied symbolic Sufi principles. Zulaika explains that hadra means spiritual binding. In her words, It’s like ‘all of us for the sake of Allah’. Like our connection, the reason why we are all here, we gather here. The group and the intimate experience people create for themselves are crucial for the embodied religious experience. In Sufi practice, rituals are not particularly aimed at an audience. Rather, ritual participation is performed by a selective group of people. While attending hadra in Cape Town, I noticed that only members of the Naqshbandi community, and, occasionally, other Sufis, came to take part in the ritual. My presence at the ritual was justified to the community as that of a young academic interested in studying the ritual of hadra. I was invited by Maika’s family to attend their hadra on a Monday night and received the consent of Sheikh Yusuf da Costa to take part in the ritual at Mahid’s house on a Sunday night. This shows that hadra in Cape Town is a selective ritual performance, placed within a safe environment, close to the public eye, and special to the community. The particularity of the situation shows that rituals, as such, become both ‘actual physical and physic states’ (Rappaport 1998: 189) of communal expression. In this context, I suggest that during the practice the individual body and the body movement respond to the collective physical, physic, and spiritual group experience. Riana speaks of hadra as the space to ‘be there for Allah, for His love, just to be with Him’ (Riana 2013). The idea of existing for God is described in relation to communal practice, as Riana maintains, ‘that is what we need, that is what we want’ (Riana 2013). Her way of thinking reinforces the idea that rituals are important domains of cultural identity, and how they are integrated in thought and action, social, and cultural

Symbolic embodied practice  105 interaction. Whichever meanings are associated, they are given by the group, or the individual according to their frameworks of interpretative structure (Hall 1997). Culture incorporates a related and created meaning, or as Grau suggests, ‘frameworks are often implicit and part of our tacit cultural knowledge, rather than explicit and fully thought through’ (Grau 2011: 6). Sufi women’s ideas reinforce my notion that people share cultural knowledge in understanding the kinds of cultural habits and behaviours that are expected from one’s societal group. Sufism is a way of living and inextricably linked to culture. Wanda’s example supports this idea. She explains the difference between her experience of practicing hadra in Cape Town and in Cyprus. For me it was like … [pause] … you can feel the biding, you can feel that you are connecting with a different type of people there, because they are Spanish, people from the UK, from India … because you are so different, but you are united because of the hadra, so you can feel that unity, you know? Whereas here in Cape Town, I know these people, I get along with them, so … [pause] … being at the hadra, is still … [pause] … is still, I don’t feel anything special because I already, I am already close to them, you understand? (Wanda 2013) Wanda’s opinion suggests that the embodied ritual experience changes according to the group environment in which she is involved. When Wanda reflects on the meaning of hadra, she compares the performative experience of a cross-cultural Sufi group in Cyprus and her local community in Cape Town. She admits to feeling a deeper sense of spiritual ‘unity’ during hadra ceremonies in Cyprus, whereas she feels ‘nothing special’ in her local community. Here I question what sort of cultural values Wanda is evoking in this particular context, and what communal behaviour seems to be different in Cyprus from her local community. Does hadra practice change from its place in Cape Town to that in Cyprus, or is it Wanda’s attitude towards the people that act upon her embodied experience? Why does Wanda feel more capable to sense unity with a group of strangers, although they are Sufis, than with her local community? My understanding is that although Wanda regards herself as a dedicated Sufi, ultimately, her personal cultural values and notions of group contribute to the embodied experience. Thus, despite what Sufis have learned about hadra and its practice, the values and attitudes of each individual influence his or her view of concepts such as the one discussed by Wanda of a religious community. Thus, in the way that culture ‘provides the means to satisfying lives’ (Erchak 1992: 6), hadra functions as a space where people’s thoughts and actions encounter and operate through the body movement in ritual practice.

106  Symbolic embodied practice Following this line of thought, dance, and ethnography studies, also discussed the religious embodied experience in the context of Christian communities who take part in the Fiesta or Tortugas in New Mexico. Sklar claims that ‘the body does not hold experience; rather, it is experience, a process rather than an object’. Just as Sklar notes, I observed how Sufi women’s body is placed in a complex relationship between symbolic and learned cultural behaviour, which I see as intertwined factors. From a dance anthropology perspective, my interest here is in the interlaced patterns that are translated through the body into movement. Therefore, I questioned, when women describe the symbolism of the ritual, are they aware of implying a notion that gives primacy and knowledge to the body? If not, what kind of paradoxical roles is the body potentially subjected to in relation to hadra? With this in mind, the following section analyses women’s complex ideas in relation to the body as marks of religious piety.

Embodied representations: the Sufi ‘mystical body’ I have previously discussed Sufi theological notions about the human body and analysed the many ways women have of referring to the body as a carrier between the exterior and interior. Kugles informs that Sufi thinking places the body beyond its materiality, ‘beneath the skin of the human existence, beneath its routine and rules’ (Kugle 2007: 13). In this way, Sufi practice is the ultimate way women in Cape Town used to justify speaking of their bodies in relation to the soul. They understand that in hadra the body is a secondary form, separated from the spirit that sets them free to experience an intimate moment with God. I suggest that body and its subjectivity can be seen as in constant meaningful shifts. Therefore, it is useful to consider some notions of Sufi practice and mystical body. I have discussed Pinto’s idea of Sufism as a mystical practice. The socalled ‘mystical body’ is explained by Pinto to be one of the many forms of embodiment subjectivity that constitute the Sufi religious universe of Islam in Syria. He suggests the ‘mystic body’ as a physical, emotional, and moral capacity that is embedded through the devotee’s body informed by bodily mechanisms that help frame their sense of self. Thus, referring to a ‘mystical body’ in Sufism can be used to refer to a scriptural body or pious body. I observe that the pious female body is represented through a series of actions, which are mastered during the practice of hadra aiming to achieve higher levels of spirituality. In Syria, Pinto analysed the practice darb al -shish (piercing the body with spears), which is practised by some communities of the Rifa’iyya Sufi group in Aleppo. Similar ‘mystical bodies’ are being constructed and exposed in the embodiment of hadra in the Sufi communities in Cape Town. Thus, Pinto’s notion of ‘mystical body’ is here re-used in this context. When Sufi women in Cape Town address their bodily-lived experience, they understand the body to be the material component. However, their

Symbolic embodied practice  107 discourse also reveals their ability to recognise and describe the body as an embodied construction and representation of mystical practice and pious integrity. Within this apparent complexity, Sufi women’s bodily ideas are detached from the physicality of the subject’s nature and become symbols of mystical practice and self-religious attainment. The following section discusses and analyses how mystical practices and notions of ‘mystical body’ can be seen as embodied ways of Sufi women’s pious commitment. Sufism teaches that the body becomes the embodiment of beauty in the material world, and on the inward dimension, the body converts into a form of the manifestation of God’s names and qualities, or as Kugle suggests, ‘the body is matter that acts as the locus for the manifestation of the divine spirit in the world’ (Kugle 2007: 30). Women’s notions encounter a similar tension, and it proves difficult to achieve a concrete answer. My data reveal that women seem to understand the codified body movement language. However, they also juxtapose ideas about this meaning. I argue that their ideas go beyond Sufism’s theological thinking, as I will present. Nevertheless, I am aware that the female body can be subject to many sources of analytic expression. These sources attribute different meanings to the body, depending on what women consider the most significant aspects of their socio-cultural sphere, or daily life, in which the body operates. This discussion will be assisted by the anthropological case study of Saniotis (2012) who demonstrates how Sufi notions of the mystical body are being expressed in other parts of the world and compare to the set of predispositions that women’s ‘mystical body’ accepts in order to embody religious identity as articulated by Sufis in Cape Town. Saniotis’ work amongst Sufi communities at the Nizamuddin Auliya shrine in Delhi, India, analysed the ways in which devotees regard mystical practices in relation to their bodies. His case study demonstrates how Sufis around the world can and are re-authoring their sense of self and their autonomy through a discourse focused on Sufism and the embodiment of mystical practice. Saniotis informs us that the Nizamuddin shrine is a place of worship for the Sufi saint Nizamuddin, and it is a well-known hajj for many Sufis in India. Thus, it is a sacred place for worship and conceptualised by visitors as a holy space. Saniotis notes that the group of Sufis who gathered around this shrine differ from other Muslims in India, and in this context, he explains that differences between Sufis are visually marked by the way they carry their bodies. He describes, Sufis also differ from other Muslims at the Nizamuddin shrine because of their mystical paraphernalia. These include rosary (tasbih ) and staff (asa ). Sufi rosaries are very long, sometimes consisting of several hundred beads. Their inordinate length can be understood in relation to Sufis’ incessant practice of chanting, a practice that often requires a Sufi to recite a certain Divine Attribute or spell tens of thousands of times over the course of days or weeks. (Saniotis 2012: 71)

108  Symbolic embodied practice He notes that Sufis who gather at Nizamuddin shrine are usually characterised by the untamed hairstyle look, while others are known to use turbans. Some wear sackcloth, which relates to their renunciation of the domestic lifestyle (Saniotis 2012). Other Sufi Muslims like the Nizamuddin’ descendants called Chisti pir prefer to be socially engaged and follow Islamic laws, such as marrying, working, and enjoying the family lifestyle. The nonChisti pir Sufis practice celibacy and regard women as ‘sexually dangerous’ (Saniotis 2012: 70). He notes how in this case Sufis’ distinct social behaviour is also marked by the way devotees embody their mystical practices in relation to the self, or the naf. ‘Sufis believe that mystical practices, such as ritual fasting, chanting, prayer and seclusion, allow them to gain control of the nafs’ (Saniotis 2012: 72). To reach mystical mastery, the devotee needs to attend to the way Sufism regards the body and how this enables Sufis to realise the aspects of their psyche, or ‘new ways of thinking and experiencing the body’ (Saniotis 2012: 73). In this regard, Saniotis explains that mystical mastery not only permits a Sufi to enter into different ‘domains of experience’ but allows him to develop a personalised repertoire for understanding his practices, experiences, and the sensations invoked by them (Saniotis 2012: 74). Speaking of his fieldwork research in India, Saniotis notices how Sufis focus on particular body members assisted by bodily techniques as a way to symbolically represent an inter-relationship between mystical mastery and sensorial awareness (Saniotis 2012). He describes the mystical practice of Wazifa, chanting Allah’s names, as a common practice that Sufis practice in the Nizamuddin shrine. Saniotis notes how Sufis sit in a determinate posture while using their rosary in their hand to assist with the prayer. Their specific gestural poses assist the devotee in order to perform this particular prayer. He describes Sufi’s corporeal attitudes, Wazifa is performed while a Sufi is sitting on the ground, either in a cross-legged position or sitting on their heels. The rosary is usually manipulated between the forefinger and thumb of the right hand. The left hand is not used; if it is, it is to commit sorcery. Wazifa is conducted silently, with the eyes usually closed. The Sufi’s rosary (tasbih) is central to the practice and is used in the process of counting the number of repetitions of a specific name or mystical formulae. (Sanitois 2012: 77) I observed that similar bodily movements or actions are also visibly represented and described by females in Cape Town. I noticed how women carry this correlation between the praxis, which intends to master and codify the exercise in its symbolic meanings, and a sensuous awareness of the physical. They allude to particular parts of their bodies as embodied symbolic and mystical marks of religious commitment. Ana explained an exercise during hadra that consists of envisioning Allah’s name being carved in her physical heart.

Symbolic embodied practice  109 I capture my heart, because the Naqshbandi says Allah, the name of Allah, should be engraved in your heart … [pause] … So, I engrave the name of Allah in my heart … [pause] … I physically close the eyes and I see the ventricles, and I see the veins, and I see the blood, and that’s what I capture, that I see God’s name in that you know? I physically try to write it out, the picture of my heart, the light that emanates even more, and the darkness of my heart, I try to see the darkness going, the name of God is now in my heart. (Ana 2013) This exercise, which can be called visual imagination, brings Ana into a state of self-satisfaction, because it works not only as a spiritual cleansing process but also as her embodied way to get closer to the divine essence. In this way, the body and the body movement are going through an inner process, where the Sufi woman gradually removes undesirable aspects of herself, such as thoughts, feelings, or emotional states. This transformative process, which she refers later to as ‘cleansing of the heart’, is clearly marked through her body movement while performing the ritual. The embodied representation of an improved attribute is symbolically represented as a sense of moral and pious integrity, which a Sufi following the mystical pathway is expected to attain. I note here for clarity that the next chapter also discusses imagery processing, but in the context of somatic practice and method of embodying ritual practice. It will analyse the embodied ritual experience through the several stages that are part of the ritual performance. Another woman named Caridad stood up and asked me to fix my gaze at her navel and chin, and analyse her standing posture. Caridad’s body is out of alignment due to a car accident. She explained that although the car accident has physically changed her life, it is also the reason why she embraced Sufism, and consequently why she attends hadra. It was in 2007, I was involved in a major car accident, I never used to wear hijab,3 I was … [pause] … very modern, very image conscious … and then I was in a car accident and … [pause] … and I was supposed to die, and I was … [pause] …. All of a sudden, I said, oh my word, oh my God, Allah gave me another chance to start living my life properly. (Caridad 2013) Caridad believes that the car accident experience was the opportunity to reassess her lifestyle according to Sufism. Through this experience, she believes she regained a new sense of pious and moral conduct and feels blessed by this traumatic episode. The heart being clean, the scars on the left shoulder, or the body out of alignment are all features, which help women to speak and to give meaning to their bodies as embodied ritual involvement. In this manner, the so-called ‘mystical body’ becomes a symbol of

110  Symbolic embodied practice women’s religious pledge. Embodied mystical exercises, such as the cleansing of the heart are used to represent women’s spiritual gain, creating a sense of self-satisfaction and closeness to God. Saniotis recalls a similar experience during his fieldwork with an unusual introduction to an Indian Sufi, named Shah Alam. The Sufi, who did not engage in conversation due to an oath (manat) never to speak, introduced himself to the researcher by exposing his penis, grabbing the researcher’s head, and ‘violently pulled it towards his chest’ (Saniotis 2012: 74). Saniotis explains that Shah Alam’s apparently ‘awkward’ actions were genuine reflections of his embodied notion of Sufi piety. The exposure of his penis to my gaze, an act that had flummoxed me, was doubtless a way of showing me his rectitude (in this case, an allusion to his moral uprightness via celibacy), as was his urge to focus my attention on his ‘reinvented’ body itself – a body pulsating with the name of God. (Saniotis 2012: 75) Saniotis is of the opinion that such an engaging experience proved that for this Sufi, the embodied action was a means of sensing ‘his attainment of the mystical body that had been transformed into a plenum for the name of God’ (Saniotis 2012: 75). Although I never had such an overwhelming experience during fieldwork, I was also asked to contemplate some women’s bodies. This voluntary action of exposing their bodies reinforced my idea that bodies can become not only containers of past life experiences, but also embodiments of newly established relationships, and a way of commitment to the Sufi lifestyle and Sufi practice. Caridad further explains the meaning of her car accident, So, it is like … a life changing episode, right? But we are here, right? Because I made fine, but my bones didn’t make it that fine … but a lot of things happened, and a good thing that happened was that I became closer to God, and became more aware of … how I need to live my life and to … connect, you know? (Caridad 2013) Caridad believes that traumatic experiences, such as the car accident, are the result of her inner renovation process. In other words, to recreate the self is to live a life of Sufi pious conduct. This attitude shows how embodied mystical practices can affect women’s way of thinking about their bodies and allows them to speak and expose body safely in a way that they would not normally do in their secular environment. Their selfhood attends and relates to the environment of the ritual, and this generates a co-creation of their embodied self. Elements of the body, such as the heart which is symbolically used as a mediator of spiritual purity, ‘endows the body with life and makes

Symbolic embodied practice  111 it into a divine agent active in the material sphere’ (Bashir 2011: 37). Yet, I still question why the body is only used in a symbolical way, and why Sufi women do not recognise that their dialogue speaks of a tangible and somatic experience. It is for this reason that Bashir’s suggestion is relevant, Although attached to a particular body, each spirit connects to God via the interior realm on one side and to other human beings through what it can induce into the heart and tongue in the exterior realm on the other (Bashir 2011:27). Certainly, I agree that Sufi mystical practices can offer an insight into the richness of the Sufi religious imagination. However, I see nafs, or material wishes, and ruh, as the spirit, all interlaced with the body’s landscape. I suggest that through a Sufi way of thinking, the female body resists opening to other types of dialogue and I found it problematic that Sufi women’s discussions about their bodies might seem to be merely justified and articulated through a Sufi theological discourse. Nevertheless, their dialogue generates considerable respect not only for the woman and her construction of selfhood but also for the meaning she gives to the forms of Sufi piety. I am reminded of Turner’s notion that ritual and drama performances do not contain a ‘self’ but ‘selves’, in the sense that this variety of reflexivity ‘allows free play to a greater variability of action’ (Turner 1986: 26). The variety of action and understanding of one’s self is conditioned by the religious experience, and by contact with the physical space, the objects, the visual and hearing conscious, or other people’s presence. The reactions to these sensations, as Reed explains, ‘creates new events or habits in the world’ (Reed 2010) that are visibly embedded in the Sufi woman’s ritual performance. Thus, a sensorial and somatic investigative approach is useful since it is this multi- and interdisciplinary world that deals with the substance, or the essence of human perception, and the ways the self constructs, lives, and experiences the world (Eddy 2009).

Conclusion This chapter analysed Sufi women’s notions about the symbolic mean of hadra. It suggested that symbolic attributes and their embodiment through practice are one way in which women have to carry and express their religious identity as Sufis. Analysis of my data collected in Cape Town during 2013/2014 identified four main symbolic concepts of hadra, described as being circles of remembrance, love towards God and the Prophet Muhammad, the space for cleansing the soul, and a means of communal spiritual effort and religious gathering. Data reveals that women’s selfhood expression tends to be represented through an embodied religious identity, rather than bodily experience in itself. However, I noticed that the body carries the ritual experience through emotions, inner feelings, lived experiences,

112  Symbolic embodied practice or memories that are triggered by the symbolic attribute. Ritual activity is in some cases extremely codified for a particular group, or an individual, as Howe (2000) maintains, An important aspect of the roles participants play, of the manipulation of objects, of the incantation of unintelligible words, of the songs and dances, is the enacting and consolidating of specific, often hierarchical, social relationships. (Howe 2000: 66) I am aware that while the researcher may emphasise some aspects of the ritual meaning, such as in its socio-cultural relationships and environments, women in Cape Town seem to care more about whether the doing is applicable to their life as Sufi devotees, through embodying an identity that is based in their religious choice. I suggest that this religious choice is present during the ritual action and engraved in their bodily movements, patterns, memories, and personal experiences made visible in hadra. I recall Csordas’ discussion that in terms of perception, ‘it is not legitimate to distinguish between mind and body’, and instead Csordas proposes to ask ‘how our bodies may become objectified through processes of reflection’ (Csordas 1990: 36). Thus, reinforcing the idea of understanding the body in Sufi ritual practice not simply as a source of experience and activity that would be justified and/or controlled by the mind, but being itself a source of knowledge. Consequently, it becomes an embodied manifestation of religious piety and selfhood expression. Findings show that although the body and body movement are recognised by Sufi women as a part of the ritual process it is still regarded as the ‘doorway’ and consistently articulated as mere material that facilitates this passage of the existence of the interior. This chapter also analysed women’s ideas of mystical practices in relation to their bodies as embodied evidence of religious identity. Saniotis’s (2012) work was referred to relate how Sufis in other parts of the world are also claiming a sense of piety through embodying and carrying out mystical tradition. From the Islamic perspective, there are two basic ways of understanding knowledge. It is known that Prophet Muhammad said in the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet): ‘knowledge is two – knowledge of the body, and knowledge of the religion.’ This can potentially explain the way a Sufi woman sees her body as a ‘natural’ kind of knowledge that is obtained through a spiritual process. It is knowledge that gives women a perception and orientation of their place in the world. The second sort of knowledge, religion, is the one that permits the Sufi to relate to God. It is the second knowledge that demands practice and benefits the devotee on a lasting basis, not temporarily like the first one. I observed that the

Symbolic embodied practice  113 so-called ‘mystical’ action turns the body and its movement into a container for representations of spiritual devotion to the God. This manner of reaching the Sufi ‘mystical body’ requires certain levels of empirical mastery that are deeply connected to the symbolism of the ritual. Thus, the body, the symbol, and the mysticism of the intention of the practice are all related. This is apparent in the way women use their bodies through mystical practices, and how they chose to relate this experience as an embodied regaining of personal sovereignty. Women describe the symbolic attributes and the mystical practices not only through what they regard as subjectively meaningful but also in relation to what they have learned about the tradition. Rituals actions are clearly part of a cultural system that patterns and shapes the way women connect to the practice. Although their discourse is considered significantly valuable, I still argue for the idea that the individual body’s knowledge is equally as important and relevant to relations with other aspects of the practice. Sklar’s notion that the meaning of movement in ritual practices depends on the identity and a fundamental association of the self with the other can well be applied here. I see that Sufi women who take part in hadra ceremonies in Cape Town also enter a process of ‘doing and feeling’ their sense of selfhood. Moreover, I see this practice, or this ‘doing and feeling’, as a somatic experience that could be translated as the body, mind, and spirit working together towards an ‘intimacy state with Allah’. In this way, the female body movement becomes the main core, or the channel, that facilitates this transcending intimate moment and aids the connection embodied during the actual practice. The following chapter analyses Sufi women’s bodily experiences through a somatic approach. It argues that somatic methods of attention are valuable methods of practice through which women can connect and have an embodied self-knowing, self-transformative, and self-healing experience during the stages of ritual performance.

Notes 1 Maria-Gabriel Wosien (1974) studied Eastern and Western religious sacred traditions and investigated experiences of mythological images and symbols as part of the human healing experience. 2 A common Muslim expression which means ‘Muhammad is the Emissary of Allah, May Allah bless him and grant him peace’. 3 A hijab is a head covering, which is part of the Islamic religious dress code for women.

7

‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice and hadra performance, the embodied experience

It makes me feel light, beautiful you know? A light that is beautiful, you’re just no longer you … it’s not you it’s just your soul is like … [pause] … a bird in a cage and you keep it, and you open the cage and you release the bird and let the bird fly.

Introduction Tania’s voice emanates joy, excitement, and conviction when I ask her how the practice of hadra feels to her. Her feelings described an imaginative experience, where she sees beautiful light, birds and cages, and where her soul seems to move freely from her body. The kind of imaginative realm that Tania speaks of is the place where Sufi women’s inner creative processes become alive and flourish. From my observation and participation in hadra, I understand this process to be self-constructed, based on an inner imaginative and safe landscape where certain situations, events, objects, and other people are all projected by the individual at play. This is a somatic process as I argue in this chapter. From a dance perspective I note that when the body moves, Sufi women are processing a direct embodied experience, keeping it based on their physicality as they try to make sense of the body movement as it happens. This doing and feeling action can be seen as a somatic way of understanding and exploring the embodied self, to give knowledge to the body, or as dance movement psychotherapist Linda Hartley suggests, ‘when we are present to bodily sensation, we can be nowhere but in the present moment, here and now’ (Hartley 2014: 25). Previously, I discussed the fact that Sufi women embody this process through a symbolical way that is learned and imagined in relation hadra, and analysed how women talk of their bodies as marks of embodied Sufi values and hadra as the tool for religious piety and selfhood expression. This chapter continues to analyse women’s discourse and opens this discussion to the possibility for Sufi women to experience embodied religious practice and its attached symbolic meaning through a somatic process. DOI: 10.4324/9780429353574-7

‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice  115 Chapter 2 already explained that the term ‘soma’ was described as a terminology initially used by scholar Thomas Hanna (1975) and later adopted by other practitioners working with body movement practices. It mentions that this study also chooses a somatic investigative approach as a meaningful recourse in the study of hadra. This multi- and interdisciplinary world of somatic studies and its practice is a helpful tool to deal with women’s perceptions and the ways they construct their selves, their lives, and experiences in the world. In this way, I am reminded of anthropologist Susan Reed’s suggestion that ‘soma and symbol weave together and act as mnemonics for each other in the emergent process of performance’. Reed means that somatic ways of moving to emphasise sensory awareness and motor action, and so this study claims that similar actions are present in hadra as discussed next. To support this idea, this chapter draws from case studies conducted in somatic and religious ritual practices (Reeve 2010), Aikido martial arts, and the concept of hara as a method of breathing and inner focus for dancers (Roubicek 2009) as an example. It also includes scholarly discussions about somatic practice and embodied selfhood as ways to experience self-knowing and self-healing. I chose to include a singular case study on Authentic Movement and somatic practice (Bacon 2010), which I see to a certain extent similar to hadra praxis.

“In and out” concept of experience hadra: a guideline of analysis This chapter describes women’s embodied experience of hadra in stages, beginning, with a middle and end/climax stage, which is going to be linked throughout the chapter to the idea that women often used to describe feelings and sensations related to hadra and body as ‘in and out’. This idea is constantly referred to the body and the body movement sensation in relation to the stages of hadra. With this I mean, for example, Sufi women’s expressions as (1) the ‘inner and outer’ focus they maintain to have while practising, (2) ‘in and out’ of body movement control throughout the stages, and (3) ‘in and out’ idea of body and mind experience during the climax stage. I call them ‘in and out’ ideas, which are conceptualised by women in relation to their embodied experience. They will be continuously referred to in different sections of this chapter. Based on my observations, participation, and, consequently hearing women’s dialogues, I argue that hadra offers a somatic mechanism that follows codes and rules which allow women to make choices and are clearly visible through body movement. Rather than a so-called ‘in and out’ concept of experience hadra, I interpret this dynamic between women and the ritual as an embodied cycle of call and response, or as active and passive. To simplify my idea, the scheme below helps the reader as a guide

116  ‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice to the way I analysed the ‘in and out’ concept, following observations I made: How the individual is influenced by others and other features to originate body movement; the consequences of the body movement in relation to others around her; how that, consequently, influences the dynamic of the group; the quality of movement that I observed, and how this is felt and described by the Sufi woman; the result of this embodied ‘in and out’ as an experience exchange between the individual and the external environment; and the narrative women used to describe the bodily-felt experience in comparison to these observations and in relation to my own practice of hadra. In addition, I created a table (see below) that breaks down the stages in hadra and helps the reader to understand its three phases, namely, the beginning stage, the middle stage, and the climax stage. The table was drawn from my observation notes and women’s descriptions. In the first and second stages of the ritual, women describe the action and that which supports this action, as well as the bodily sensations they feel. The third stage forms part of my conclusions, which draw from observation, participation, and from a somatic perspective. I chose to call it ‘states of body/mind’ so to separate women’s ideas and mine. Two additional columns are used to quote direct examples of women’s dialogue and to describe the physical movement observed (Tables 7.1–7.3). As described in the scheme above, Sufi women define the ritual experience in relation to the physical space, the objects, and the conscious hearing of text and sound. The reactions to these sensations, as Reeve suggests, ‘creates new events or habits in the world’ (Reeve 2012). When applied to hadra I note that the external factors discussed by women, such as images, sounds, and texts, are conceptualised not only in terms of Sufi thought and its symbolic meaning but also with regard to a body and mind relationship. As women transform their body movement during the practice, this also transforms and shapes them as the movers, or, ‘the movement itself is the mover’ (Reeve 2012: 193). However, it is useful to remember that for the Sufi woman, embodied ritual practice is mainly a means to spiritual completion, and Chapter 3 explained that Sufism teaches the complex role of ‘distancing oneself from the self’ (fan’a) to get closer to God during practice. It was mentioned before that the ultimate state of hadra is to reach the so-called fan’a, or annihilation through God (Schimmel 1975). According to Chittiwick (2000), the state of fan’a is the process of annihilating the ego. He suggests that the entrance to ‘non-existence’ is a return to the original human situation when we dwelt at peace with God before creation. This is the state that is sometimes called ‘annihilation’ of the ego’s limitations and the ‘substance’ of the true self …. One must throw oneself into annihilation, which in fact is the fullness of the Being (Chittiwick 2000: 109). My data also reveals that some Sufi women in Cape Town claim to achieve this fan’a moment, and this is why they refer to the embodied experience

‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice  117 Table 7.1 Beginning stage of the ritual Action and features

Bodily sensations described by women

States of body/mind relationship (researcher notes)

Quotes

Movement description

Initial inner Breath focus by control concentrating on breathing and closing eyes

Sufi women in It’s like The body control of the breathing in stands still body and its and out … in the circle, movement so everyone eyes closed through is doing breathing and the same inner focus breathing in and out of the movement (Nadia 2013) Beginning to Sensing Body moves in Close your eyes, Breath begins focus on the passage predisposition visualise that to change by first lines from for the next your heart increasing of the text stillness stage of the is engrave the inner (dhikr) and to body ritual Allah’s name focus on initial sounds movement in your heart inhalation initiation (Riana 2013) and exhalation Conscious Body Full body Initially all it is Gentle rocking awareness of movement movement the physical up and surrounding with awareness movement. down of the space and conscious Move up and body other people control down, use your arms up and down, and basically try to copy other people, and try to be with the group, with the rhythm (Bianca 2013)

ultimately as an ‘out of the body’ action. Yet, I continue to argue that hadra ritual practice is a continuous process of somatic bodily-related experience. Thus, hadra is the place where symbolism is embodied and the platform where somatic methods of embodied religious experience can also take place. I argue that these mechanisms can better enable Sufi women to work with their ‘selves’ rather than merely their physical bodies. Sufi women’s ability to retain and makes of their body and body movement sensations is

Quotes

Movement description

It is a combination, Movement initiates from the yes, it is a bottom part of the body, combination, knees slightly bend, and because if you extend in response to the listen to the Qasida flexing of the hips, which and you do your brings the upper part of the movement, you will body forward. see that everybody Gestural movements with goes the same way, arms and hands that follow maybe once or twice the release and recovery you beat of the motion of the trunk target (Bianca 2013) Some women seem to follow each other’s while others remain in their own body rhythmical pace Awareness of a transformation of these Body movement Being consciously It’s a kind of energy Movement continues along the gestures into a different flowing of in between an aware of the that you need to same pattern, with slight movement, for example, a faster experience of developing process control, you can’t variations in dynamic and pace of the body being in control through the body/ go wild and mad rhythm Conscious of body parts like hands, and not being mind and lose control Head and neck start to move arms, legs, hips, and feet and in control Body movement of yourself, but from side to side or up and their dynamic, for example, hands This wasn’t becomes a source you can lose some down following the rhythm moving faster than the rest of the discussed by of information and control of yourself, of the music and recital of body, or legs standing still in the women disconnects from enough to be in the text same place the initial inner the presence, in Allowing for the body movement control a respectful way to flow, and the mind to let go of (Yolanda 2013) control movement

Acknowledging bodily felt sensations and allowing for nonrational thinking

Bodily sensations States of body/mind described relationship (researcher notes)

Body movement engages and reacts to Body in tension the words recited, the rhythm of the between music, and people around a bodily awareness of internal and external felt sensations and letting go of this awareness

Action and features

Table 7.2 Middle stage of the ritual

118  ‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice

Allowing for spontaneous movement to take place Accessing and internalising body sensations Body movement that assists in the process of selftransformation, selfhealing, inner experience

Body movement Release, relief performing Self-satisfaction the state of Unconscious body fan’a movement Body movement not in control Progression from a so-called unconscious to a conscious state Accomplishment

States of body/mind relationship (researcher notes) Body movement not consciously reflected

Bodily sensations described

Body/mind in Blackness space readiness to Light-filled space/ achieve the illumination euphoria, state of fan’a happiness, joy

Action and features

Table 7.3 End stage of the ritual Movement description

It is an energy where it is beyond Facial expressions our control, it is beyond the start to change, body, it just becomes black, joy, sadness, you become black, it is like concentration, you reach and you reach, and tension, and tears are when Allah is giving you that examples … (pause) … you are reaching that moment, movement, it’s … (pause) …. It’s too big for you to handle it (Riana 2013) When I am doing the hadra I feel Pace of body movement like I am somewhere else, I accelerates don’t feel that I am here, in this Neck and head move physical house (Wanda 2013) gradually curving and straightening curves of the spine

Quotes

‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice  119

120  ‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice inevitably linked to the practice and the bodily-felt experience, but also to giving ‘the body acknowledgment’ (Reed 1998: 508). Based upon this idea, I argue that this kind of ritual action offers a base for somatic movement practice and experience to take place. This way of thinking is also present in Sufi women’s notions of the body and the body in relation to the soul or spirit. This chapter extends the discussion of Chapter 3 and analyses the dialogues women maintain about the fan’a and the ‘distancing process’, and how they describe this idea in relation to an embodied experience. Thus, I question how it is possible for the Sufi woman to separate the physical body experience from the emotional body or body sensations. What kind of ideas and ways are women using to express the ‘ineffable’ in order to make sense of their bodily experiences? Are they aware of their ritual practice as a source of the somatic way of moving, and if not, how do they articulate body knowledge without attributing knowledge to the body itself? To answer these complex questions, the following section starts to analyse the actions, features, and sensations described by women in relation to their hadra embodied experience.

The initial stage: breathing techniques and ‘inner and outer’ awareness Sufi women in Cape Town speak of the beginning stage of the ritual as a body/mind preparation, activated through an initial inner focus, and helped by particular breathing methods. They also explained that during the initial stages of the ritual they experience an inner and outer awareness of themselves in relation to the space and to other people. Women explain that they learn how to use their breath as an inner focus, and in unison with the group dynamic. In an interview, Filipa describes how Green Sheikh1 instructs the group about breathing during the ritual and explains that it is his duty to maintain the group dynamic through the control of their breathing. In her words, ‘when he performs hadra helping and instructing people how to breathe in unison, Green Sheikh insists that everyone has one voice in the hadra’ (Filipa 2013). Another woman, Nadia, understands this ‘one voice’, as the rhythmical pace of the breathing that assists with her body movement. She explains, ‘it’s like breathing in and out … so everyone is doing the same breathing in and out of the movement’ (Nadia 2013). In conversations some women demonstrated how they use their breathing during the ritual. Chapter 5 described how, during interviews, some women stand up and physically demonstrate their breathing method in combination with physical gestures. In a standing position, women are instructed to inhale through the nose while lifting the arms and hands towards the chest. As they exhale through the mouth, the upper body bends down from the hips and arms and unfold into a natural up-lift position.

‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice  121 Sufi women in Cape Town are taught breathing techniques either by the ritual leader or the Naqshbandi meditation technique guide, written by Naqshbandi Sheikh Hisham Kabanni. I was given an electronic copy of this guide in which Sheikh Kabanni (2005) teaches the correct manner of breathing for this practice. The following text is quoted directly from his guide.

Conscious breathing • •

Inhale through your nose the Dhikr = “Hu Allah”; imagine a white light entering through the stomach area. Exhale through Nose-Mantra/Dhikr = “Hu”; imagine blackness/carbon monoxide as all your bad actions being purged from you Kabanni (2005).

The technique consists of a focus on the inhalation and exhalation, while reciting the sacred words Hu Allah Hu (God, just He), which is repeated three times, followed by the word Haqq (truth), with the accent on the word Hu (He). The objective of this breathing technique is to help the faithful remove the so-called ‘bad actions’ or the ‘blackness’ from the Sufi’s thought. Kabanni explains, Through their breathing, the sound of the letter "Ha" of the Divine Name Allah is made with every exhalation and inhalation and it is a sign of the Unseen Essence serving to emphasize the Uniqueness of God. Therefore, it is necessary to be present with that breathing, in order to realize the Essence of the Creator. (Kabanni 2005: 8) I note that breathing methods as such the ones taught in Sufism can be seen as a somatic tool that facilitates the quality or movement dynamic in the body, and assists women with their concentration on mind and body throughout the practice. When I learned this breathing technique I too noticed the effect of this inner focus on my body movement and how this helped me to feel more relaxed and ready for the following stages. Breathing techniques are often regarded as channels of energy between the mind and the body, in relation to body movement awareness, and this is part of a somatic process. For example, dance studies scholar Sasha Roubicek (2009) shares a similar idea when speaking about the Aikido breathing technique in relation to dance practice. Roubicek, who is both a dancer and an Aikido instructor, claims that the benefits of the Aikido breathing technique, called ‘hara’, can affirm and validate a sense of self when applied to dance professionals and dance students in their practice. She explains that one of Aikido’s fundamental aspects of breathing is to facilitate ‘the creation of the correct state of mind and body’ (Roubicek 2009: 255). The method

122  ‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice of hara breathing, which consists of an awareness of the lower abdominal area of the body, helps dancers to generate an embodied sense of power in their bodies. Roubicek maintains that ‘through practice, awareness is brought to respiration and its role in facilitating relaxation of mind and body’ (Roubicek 2009: 256). Similar experiences are taking place in Sufi practice in Cape Town. For example, Salome also explains how she keeps an inner awareness and, at the same time, an outer awareness of people around her during the practice, When I am doing the movement and you connect yourself and you want to keep your mind you know ... connected …. But I found myself [thinking] “I am making a movement” and there are other people also. (Salome 2013) Salome is consciously aware of her body movement through breathing, at the same time is aware of people around her. Here, Salome’s idea suggests an awareness of consciously being aware of body movement and inner sensations, and other people, while keeping a relationship of body and mind state. Similar to Roubicek’s idea, I also note that Sufi women in Cape Town use breathing and inner awareness as the preparation for the ensuing states of the ritual. These methods help them develop a calming state of mind and body relationship, which facilitates their embodied experience not only in the beginning stages but also throughout the whole practice. When I observed women during their practice, I noticed for instance how they close their eyes and begin to ‘retreat’ to the inner self, waiting for another moment to come. Similar bodily predispositions and ways of sensing inner and outer elements are as well present in other ritual practices. For example, in dance and somatic studies, shares a similar idea when discussing the correlation between body movement and outer awareness in terms of the practice of Joged Amerta. This practice is a conceptualised performance art ritual developed by Javanese artist Suprapto Surodarmo. It uses landscape as an environment for somatic movement, which can be performed individually or in a group. Reeve suggests that Joged Amerta practice helps the mover to connect the inner self and the outward realm. She maintains that ‘by being aware of both our inner landscape and our external environments, we can awake to our particular hooks, the sensations that we find compulsive and give particular value to’ (Reeve 2010: 194). Similarly to Joged Amerta ritual, hadra is also the place where inner and outer awareness of the mover and the mover’s body takes action. I note that through a self-reflexive approach Sufi women develop skills on how to sense their body in movement and its relation to others, opening a body and mind relationship to take place.

‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice  123 Anita also explains, I close my eyes, because still the nice thing to me is I focus on different things as I go …[pause] … sometimes I focus on the way I am moving as one with the people, the ladies, and how it just feels. (Anita 2013) Hadra practice encourages this attentive relationship between Anita’s inner sensations and, what she calls, ‘different things’ that she might imagine, and at the same time being aware of the presence of other women. This awareness of other bodies moving and the use of imagination aids Anita to experience her self-moving, as well as the other. During my observations, I noticed these verbalised descriptions of Sufi women, how they start off in a still moment with eyes closed, and this develops into a focus on the breath and an awareness of the surroundings. In some cases, the woman waits for an outer impulse to aid her inner one as an invitation similar to what dance scholar Jane Bacon describes as a ‘bodily felt’ sensation (Bacon 2010:64). However, just as bodily contact and awareness of other bodies can aid or enhance an individual’s body action, it can also be restrictive. Chapter 4 explained that hadra practice in Cape Town follows two types of group interaction: in some cases people hold hands, and in other cases they move freely without touching other people, but in the same circle formation. Filipa, who attends hadra at Maika’s house, explains that women used to hold hands, but not any longer, Initially, when we were holding hands I felt restricted, that I wouldn’t fly out of my body, because people were holding my hands. (Filipa 2013) She mentions that the group agreed that the individuals could release their hands if they felt a need to move freely. In her words, I stop holding hands, because I couldn’t connect, allow my spirit to be free, so, I felt because …[pause]… because everybody else is going according to their own rhythm, and I was connecting with this person’s rhythm. I struggle to find my own, because they take you on theirs. They take you where they want to go, you know?[Laughs]And I am like … [pause] … and I am like … in the middle [laughs]. (Filipa 2013) In Filipa’s case, contact and awareness of herself and other people seem to restrict the connection she wants to maintain with her body movement and body rhythm. Thus, the inner awareness and focus on other people suggest that to follow other’s body movement does not allow the ‘spirit to be free’

124  ‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice (Filipa 2013). This idea of spirit release happens in a later stage of the ritual, where Sufis learn that the spirit should be free from the body to encounter God, which will be addressed later. Here, I notice that Filipa’s argument calls for a self-reflexive moment when she knows what can and cannot assist her to move freely. Wanda, who attends hadra at Mahid’s house, explains that holding hands is mostly performed throughout the entire ritual, and contrary to Filipa, she enjoys holding hands with other people. Wanda admits that she decides with whom she will perform next before starting. Wanda’s conscious choice to perform next to a person with whom she feels comfortable affects the way she embodies the experience. In Wanda’s words, We chose our people [laughs] we chose our people! We just hold hands … the ones who go fast … we call them the jammers! [Laughs]. The young ones, we just like to go fast … and the slow ones nobody wants to go next to them [laughs] they just stand there … and [laughs] really, is that really only what you are going to do? [Laughs], no expression, nothing!!! (Wanda 2013) Wanda shows the importance that other people have for her, and how her body movement and inner connection relates to and is affected by this relationship. By ‘choosing our people’, Wanda creates a safe environment for her own practice, and this is reflected in the way she speaks about the experience, as a result of conscious action and a response to inner awareness and of others. Focusing on her surroundings, Wanda is able to physically recognise who she considers to be the fastest and slowest performers in the group. During the interview, Wanda comically attributes names to those who perform faster as ‘the jammers’, and those who move slower as ‘the boring ones’ (Wanda 2013). She clearly understands that to move faster means more body expression than moving slower. With this, I translate her idea as a joyful and lively expression compared to a more contained body movement. Wanda’s explanation demonstrates the result of an inner conscious body movement awareness and self-reflection in comparison to others. I see it as a continuous bodily awareness process that facilitates the embodied ritual experience. This perception and relationship between the inner and the outer focus is the result of attending to a bodily process that might not be fully rationalised. Just as Reeve suggests, in order for bodily processes to happen, We need to begin to move with a sense of diffuse awareness – awareness of different sounds, tastes, sights and sensations. (Reeve 2010: 200)

‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice  125 The following section continues with the middle stages of hadra, and shifts attention to other questions that continue to arise: what makes Sufi women believe they are going through a ‘out of the body’ experience in determinate stages of the practice? How do they relate these moments to an experience that pertains to the body, the mind, and the spirit? These and other questions are going to be addressed.

The middle stage: awareness of ritual external components Women seem to describe the middle stage of hadra as a focus on other external features that are pertinent to the ritual. In Chapter 4, these features were described as the recital of sacred text, the music, and the voice of the ritual conductor. My data reveals that the women interviewed not only describe these features but also deliberately adjust their body movement patterns according to and in relation to them, as I will explore next. Thus, I see that somatic involvement continues to be assisted by external qualities, this time they are outer structural components, which are embodied as part of the whole experience. Women’s discourse suggests these external features impact upon their physical and emotional engagement with the ritual practice. In an interview, Riana describes the importance of listening to and understanding the recitation that signals the beginning of the middle passage. The text and the music help her to connect and to induce her body movement. In her words, Especially if you understand the Qasidas2, you can just do this … [pause] … like last night, we were reciting Qasida, and the Imam was explaining to us what the Qasida is all about, and because we understand, we can understand what the Qasida says, and it’s all about what words we are using, what words we are saying about the prophet … (pause) … it touches your soul … (long pause) … like you wanted to cry … the drumming (the daf) is also important because it beats like your heart beats, so your hadra needs to become one beat, one movement. (Riana 2013) Riana understands that her body movement connects and is influenced by the meaning of the words that refer to a connection to God and to the Prophet Muhammad, as well as by the rhythm of the instruments like the daf drum. She describes this experience as something that ‘touches your soul’ (Riana 2013), and gives her the sensation of wanting to cry. Riana’s discourse alludes to her capacity to recognise how her body and body movement are transported to a certain emotional state through the meaning of words and music. Riana intertwines the auditory sense with her imagination to conceptualise a symbolic and spiritual reference, and I see this as a corporeal

126  ‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice experience attending to a somatic process. With this I mean that she associates the external rhythm of the ritual’s music to the rhythm of her heart and so her body movement reacts to this as well as to the group dynamic. While the music sets the tempo of the ritual, it also leads Riana’s body movement, while at the same time keeping the group in synch. However, I noticed that Riana describes this state as ‘it touches your soul’, which alludes to a dualistic notion of body and mind separation. I question how it is possible to touch Riana’s soul if not through her body? Riana avoids speaking about this experience as a direct corporeal one, and mainly focuses on the ‘soul’? However, I note, what does she mean with the expression ‘doing your hadra’, if not the actual physical action? Other examples show that there are some women able to speak openly about the impact the ritual features have on the body and body movement. Bianca also mentions the importance of the Qasida during the middle stage of the ritual. She explains that although she does not understand the full meaning of the Arabic words, she is still able to engage with the practice on an emotional and physical level. Bianca explains that by listening to the melody of the music and words recited, she can encourage her body to move. In her words, Because, you know, when they are certain Qasidas, and sometimes I don’t know the meaning of it but you can feel that when certain Qasidas make you feel very good, they are certain tunes that your body is reviving, others you feel tired, it depends also on the one who recites. (Bianca 2013) Bianca understands she engages on both a physical and emotional level with the practice, despite the fact that she cannot understand the full meaning of the words. Nevertheless, the sensorial awareness and focus on the rhythm of words and music is the cue for Bianca’s body to move. Therefore, I query whether Bianca would express this experience differently if, like Riana, she could understand the words? Alternatively, Bianca’s explanation simply shows that she is able to consciously maintain and recognise her body moving into the embodied experience of a certain emotional state. Thus, can these embodied emotional and physical states be recognised as somatic apprehending? Sklar provides an interesting idea, The merging of somatic experience and symbolic association is one of the ways thinking works in the aesthetic mode. Unlike propositional knowledge in which words and other symbols are abstracted from their sensory and feelingly dimensions and worked in logical relation to each other, in the aesthetic mode, images, sounds, sensations, and abstractions inter-penetrate synaesthetically in associative play. (Sklar 1999: 28)

‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice  127 Drawing from Sklar’s idea I propose that sounds and recital texts call up the various relations Sufi women experience throughout a sensorial and somatic procedure. In other words, outward stimuli have a sensorial impact on the meaning of the experience. Here, Sklar’s idea is useful to consider when she suggests that ‘soma and symbol weave together and act as mnemonics for each other in the emergent process of performance’ (Sklar 1999: 18). Bianca further explains that she is able to identify the cause–effect influence on her body while listening to the words. She maintains, When the Qasida goes in climax you can feel there’s also some climax in there, and there’s a climax in your movement as well, you feel the climax, because when the Qasida goes faster you feel your body goes and you do all your movements …. And its gives you a sense of … [pause] … freedom. Your mind, your body and your … [pause]…. You are with yourself. (Bianca 2013) Bianca’s spiritual experience comes from her embodied imagination and her acknowledgement of having a lived body experience. In other words, body intelligence and mental imagination are lived by Bianca, and expressed as “you are with yourself”. When the Qasida reaches a climax stage, Bianca experiences ‘a climax in your movement’. I see that there is no other way of expressing this but through the body. If this is the case, I argue that the Sufi female body is the medium and operator for spiritual progress during hadra, the place of ‘inner and outer’ focus, and, ultimately, as a means of self-expression, the moment to be with, and to experience oneself. Sklar’s opinion is appropriate, ‘all our actions in the world are at the same time interpretations of the world’. During my own practice of hadra, I also experienced what Bianca refers to as a ‘freedom’ sensation through the body movement, an inner and outer awareness, and a mindfulness state. By participating in practice myself, I understand that Sufi practice is a realm of embodied experience, where the body and mind are acting together, and somatically apprehending and expressing a sense of selfhood. Nevertheless, beyond awareness of body movement in relation to the ritual components, Sufi women also claim that the passage from the middle to the climax stage of hadra follows an apparent ‘in and out’ of the body experience, sensed and justified by them as an ‘in and out’ of body movement control. Here I too pause and stop to think carefully about this claim. What do women mean by this, and how can they perceive these occurring changes if not through the body? The next section addresses these complex questions by looking at the final stages of hadra.

128  ‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice

The fan’a and climax moment: ‘let the bird fly’ Chapter 2 mentioned that fan’a in Sufism taught is referred to the embodied annihilation of the Sufi sense of self, referred to by women as their soul. However, I note that women in Cape Town express this state through a bodily-lived experience, described as felt sensations and inner feelings that are pertinent to the body. For example, this is evident when they juxtapose their ideas when speaking of the embodied final stage of the ritual referred to as experienced by a fan’a state or the inability to reach this state. The so-called fan’a state is referred to as an ‘outside of the body’ moment, which is explained as a result of experiencing an ‘out of control’ of the body movement. The other state is regarded as still ‘inside the body’ or as if still ‘in control’ of the body movement. Ultimately, women argue that fan’a can only be achieved if it is felt as an ‘out of the body’ experience. The next examples discuss this. Salome speaks about the climax stage as a process in which she experiences a ‘going out’ of and ‘coming back’ to the body and understands this as being in fan’a state. In her words, ‘I think for me is the gradual taking up to a place, to the fan’a, and the gradual bringing back into the body …’ (Salome 2013). She suggests that she is able to reach a feeling of ‘self-loss through a process that I see lived through her body in movement. The conscious act, or feeling her body moving progressively, builds up to a less conscious bodily action, which Salome describes as an ‘out of the body’ experience. This explains why she feels she comes back to her body when the ritual is over. When I observed Salome during hadra, I noticed she would be one of the last women to stop her body movements and would open her eyes slowly to the space around her. Often, after the ritual, Salome would not speak much and seemed physically tired, while other women would be livelier and more talkative. From an outside perspective, I saw Salome’s body weaving between a focused flow and a mindfulness mode of attention. Here I use the term ‘mindfulness’3 to describe a moment of awareness that is developed by attending to the instant or present moment in a sincere, and not judgmental, way. Thus, I question how Salome is making sense of ‘coming out of the body’ if not through the mental and physicalrelated sensation? Another example is of Anita who although understands that to reach fan’a is to leave the physical body she maintains she does not reach this state. Yet, she is still able to feel certain physical sensations changing when the climax stage is reached. In her words, I mean, you are in the physical and you can feel but I don’t feel I am somewhere else like the others, but I do feel that … [pause] … when you are in you forget about you, you forget about … [pause] … you don’t … [pause] … your body is just moving up and down, and you are in all the rhythm of the hadra, and the praising of it all. So … [pause] … yes,

‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice  129 I am moving and I am controlling my body, but it’s just like a flow that I get into. (Anita 2013) Anita’s self-reflection about the final moments of hadra is recalled through a physical lack of awareness, which enables her to recognise this, as she explains, ‘I am the physical and I can feel’ as a way to describe her conscious sensation of body movement control. However, she juxtaposes this idea when she acknowledges another moment during which she can ‘forget about you’. Regardless of her juxtaposed ideas, I note Anita’s experience as part of a somatic process of attending to her body and mind relationship. Anita’s body movement communicates these moments of inner awareness, and at the same time, unawareness of the space or others around her. Anita’s somatic experience of sensing or being in control of her body movement can be translated into an embodied action, which she can evaluate, judge, and interpret as a ritual religious experience. This is why she is able to argue she does not recognise her state being in fan’a and justifies that she is not ‘somewhere else like the others’. This suggests to me that through self-reflection and attending to her body knowledge, Anita recognises an awareness of others and compares her bodily sensations to what other women might potentially be experiencing. How is Anita making sense of both experiences? Is she able to understand that she is experiencing a conscious awareness of this somatic process? If this is the case, just as Salome, Anita’s process provides an experience that is guided by the movement impulse itself. Examples such as these show that when Sufi women take a moment to self-reflect on the embodied experience or in a particular moment of the ritual, they are able to retain control over their self. If this is the case, Sufi women show the capacity for self-knowledge, and the ability to relate the embodied ritual experience in words even if their argument is apparently based upon a Sufi theological thinking of body and mind dualism. In a similar way, dance therapist Mary Whitehouse reflects on her embodied experience of the practice of Authentic Movement and shares that, ‘the coming together of myself moving and myself being moved offers the perfect instant when the body is being nourished through both avenues’. Drawing from Whitehouse, I also understand that the last stage of hadra and the idea ‘to be or not to be’ in fan’a state is all part of a bodily process. Thus, it is this moving and being moved that is directly related and marked by the ritual embodied experience itself. In another interview, Wanda refers to the idea of fan’a as a ‘out of the body’ experience claiming that she is in a different physical realm and uses imagery to verbalise the experience. She explains,

130  ‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice I feel like I am somewhere else, I don’t feel that I am here, in this physical house, I am with the angels, and in the paradise … it feels nice, and … ja …. Your body is just happening, you are just going … when you are focused, you are visualising, your body is just moving with you. (Wanda 2013) Wanda suggests that to be ‘outside the physical house’ is perhaps a moment of experiencing a lack of awareness of her body movement. She uses her imagination to visualise encounters with angels and paradise to argue her metaphysical experience. This use of imagery was also discussed in Chapter 5 in the context of hadra symbolic embodied meaning, but it is also often used in somatic practice to aid individuals in their movement expression. For example, speaking of somatic and imagery as a means to achieve a spiritual or religious connection, dance scholars Marta Eddy, Amanda Williamson, and Rebecca Werber suggest, ‘the conscious or unconscious choice of one’s imagery can open one to the sacred, something larger than ordinary life, or a connection to universality’ (Eddy, Williamson & Werber 2014: 187). Applied to the context of Sufi practice, I observe that through this visual process, fan’a is embodied as a sphere out of the material world where Wanda feels happy. Wanda’s visions enable her to connect to her body and her body movement, however, in her opinion, the body ‘is just moving with you’. Yet, if taken from a somatic perspective, Wanda’s is kinesthetically sensing the experience, as a ‘type of mind-map (and, therefore, mind-state) that includes the whole body and mind’ (Eddy, Willamson & Werber 2014: 188). She ambiguously explains that her body is ‘just happening’. Puzzled by her answer, I questioned: ‘how is your body serving you in this case?’ to which she answered, You know, it feels like the body …. [pause] You know, it feels like the body is submissive … like I am bowing down, I love that …. I love that movement, because I don’t allow my neck to drop, and I just love to allow that movement, and I just feel very humble when I do that movement. (Wanda 2013) Her answer suggests to me a potentially unconscious connection, or fully conscious awareness of a moment when her body movement quality shifts, and, as she describes it, her body becomes ‘submissive’. I question to what Wanda’s body is being submissive? Is this ‘submissive’ moment, the instant when Wanda allows her body to move without using the mind to fully rationalise it? When Wanda’s body spontaneously follows its movement, this action develops into a bowing act, described by her as a feeling of ‘humbleness’. Wanda implies a notion of the body as a passive subject, and at the same time, while moving the body, she feels a sensation of gentleness in her

‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice  131 body, described by an idea of a modest or ‘humble’ body. Corporeal movements, such as dropping the neck, or bowing down the body are described by Wanda as the kind of physical actions she does not perform in her daily life routine, and, therefore, they seem to be truly treasured during the ritual praxis. My idea of Wanda’s ‘submissive’ body is that the body movement is performed in harmony with a mind state, and in relation to this moment in time. Wanda’s body translates the feelings and emotions that are being carried throughout the climax stage, even if she claims that the body is ‘just moving with you’. Anita and Wanda’s experiences evoke somatic moments of attending to the body knowledge. In other words, regardless of an ‘in and out of the body’ argument, both women experience a moment when the body and mind relationship flourishes into a flow of corporeal sensations, although each woman feels and describes the embodied state through different ideas. While Wanda translates this experience as fan’a, Anita acknowledges a moment when she can ‘forget about you’, despite claiming to be unable to reach fan’a. This also leads me to question how is Anita able to recognise and speak about her embodied experience as this inability to reach fan’a unless she self-reflect and compare with others? Alternatively, does this not show that ritual practice allows for the somatic method of attention to exist and that this assists in attaining spiritual benefits, self-expression, and selfdiscovery, regardless of Sufi thinking? Another woman named Zulaika maintains that at the same time she experiences a feeling of love during the climax stage, there is also a struggle between conscious awareness of her body movement, being in control, and, on the other hand, letting go of this control as in trying to reach fan’a. In her words, Well, I don’t think I have experienced often enough to feel like … [pause] … I don’t think, personally, that I am strong enough to feel it to that extent … I feel that I will be lying to you if I will tell you ‘I don’t have control of my body’, because it is so intense, the love is that strong … [pause] … I don’t think from my side is that strong … [pause] …. I mean … I would love to get there but definitely not there yet. The physical experience is more like … [pause] … I am trying to get there. I spend most of the time concentrating on trying to get into that space. In a space where I think of nothing else, and it’s possible that my soul could be … [pause] … not in control of my body? Zulaika’s discourse follows the Sufi idea of the necessity for body control, while she struggles to keep emotionally engaged with the practice. In contrast to Wanda or Anita, who seem to have set ideas of their level of embodied spiritual experience, Zulaika admits a tension between her physical

132  ‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice sensations and her thinking mind. I further asked her: ‘Do you think your mind is controlling your body, and at the same time trying not to control?’ to which she answered, Yes, I think that is like a fight, but for me I am perfectly fine with that, as long as I am trying. As long as the effort is there, whether my own fight, or the ego fighting or mind fighting … it’s fine, they can have their fights [laughs] for me is as long as there is the effort from my side … ja. Zulaika’s argument seems to follow a way of learning about body and mind relationship according to Sufi thinking, as the separation of mind and body, while trying to fight against the ego’s corporeal wishes. Chapter 2 explained that Sufism teaches that the human body is a vessel that only assumes shape when channelled by spirit from the interior and Zulaika’s argument seems to agree with this idea. Here, it is useful to remember Kugle’s idea that This magisterial image of the material body being enlivened with the breath of spirit that blows into it and through it from beyond is the central paradox of the human body from an Islamic point of view. (Kugle 2007:30) Sufism is grounded in Islamic thinking, which supports the deprivation of the body, while at the same time, alluding to an embodied ‘mystical practice’ whose purpose seems to be to a disembodied state. Perhaps, this is the reason why Zulaika seems to differentiate between a so-called ‘my own fight’ while referring to ‘the ego fighting’. It seems that for Zulaika the mind force should control the body and its impulses, in other words, the mind predominates, rather than working together with her body knowledge. She also maintains that she is not ‘strong enough to feel it to that extent’, meaning to reach a fan’a state. Instead, she believes she has to be in a constant internal struggle between ‘in and out’ of body movement control, or between the rational mind and the corporeal sensations that arise from the body during the climax. Thus, when she reflects on my question, and answers it’s possible that my soul could be … (pause) … not in control of my body? I wonder if Zulaika is able to pass beyond Sufi theological concepts of the ego fighting the body, and to reach a state where she allows her body to move freely without rational thought. If this is not the case, what notions of ego, soul, and body is Zulaika implying here, if not religious ideology? In this context, it is useful to remember the idea of scholar Elizabeth Grosz when speaking of body and mind in the context of religion and gender. She claims that this intrinsic relationship,

‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice  133 Is frequently correlated with the distinctions between reason and passion, sense and sensibility, outside and inside, self and other, reality and appearance. (Grosz 1994:3) These kinds of implications are also being applied in the Sufi world, and I understand that this thinking only helps to perpetuate the traditional devaluing of the body and its knowledge. Following this impression, dance scholar Elizabeth Smears (2009) also affirms that a rational and objective way of thinking has overshadowed the subjective, sensorial, emotional body knowledge. She suggests attending to a somatic mode of attention, which enables individuals to, Give volume to what have hitherto remained as ‘quiet voices’, the voices that rest upon embodied presence as a source of knowing and argue for a subjective interpretation of reality. (Smears 2009:101) With this in mind, I note that Zulaika’s determination to achieve fan’a is perhaps what keeps her continuously ‘trying’ to embody and make sense of this state of the practice. However, when I observed Zulaika performing hadra, I was particularly drawn to her body movement expressions, which I translated as lively, full of joy, and excitement. She would often keep her eyes closed throughout the ritual, her body movement was carried out with dynamism, and sometimes she would be smiling, while at other times tears would roll down her cheeks. When the ritual ended, she often seemed to be happy and talkative, giving the impression of a ‘refreshed’ state. The ‘deep love’ Zulaika mentions is perhaps the moment when she can let go of the mind control and embrace her body movement expression, which arises from the excitement of the climax stage. This moment, which I have witnessed, is what I call the instant when her body and mind seem to work in a close relationship. Zulaika’s body is the place of insight and self-reflection, and, consequently, her embodied way of selfhood expression and religious identity. However, she interprets this experience differently, claiming that she has not yet reached a higher spiritual level within Sufi practice. How is she making sense of this idea if she is not comparing herself to others, as Anita does through selfawareness and remembering her body’s knowledge? Grozs’s suggestion that ‘bodies are not inert; they function interactively and productively’ can well be applied in the last example that shows that on rare occasions, Sufi women also follow this position.

No body no hadra! When Bianca speaks about body sensations during fan’a state, she describes this through senses that are related to the body and the body movement.

134  ‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice She explains, You know, you are experiencing lots of calmness … [pause] although you are moving, lots of calmness in you … because you might be going into the hadra with some big problems, and within that movement you will have completely forgotten about everything, but it is you. You are just in your movement and your hadra. Because your connection makes you forget, you visualise and you keep your movement together. If you go in with your troubles, it means you can’t have much of your movement. (Bianca 2013) Bianca acknowledges feeling a moment of calm and conscious mind and body relationship during the fan’a state; thus, she recognises that her body movement leads the experience. In her opinion, the moment of experiencing selfhood in the ritual praxis occurs when she is able to ‘forget everything’ and allow the body movement to flow with the practice, maintaining ‘it is just you, your movement’ (Bianca 2013). She seems to understand and recognise the need to connect to her body movement to reach a certain spiritual state. Here I question, where would Bianca find the calm if not through the movement that is instigated in and through her body? When I asked Bianca about the importance of the body during the ritual she answered with the quote above, ‘no body no hadra!’ Bianca describes how she makes use of her body movement not only as a means to connect to a divine essence, but to release her daily troubles. In this context, her notion appeals to the somatic idea in which I see the embodied spiritual practice as a way of releasing accumulated tensions through the body and the body movement. Bianca’s discourse suggests that some Sufi women in Cape Town can articulate their embodied experience beyond theological thinking. The centrality of the body and the body movement is acknowledged as an essential source of self-knowledge that feeds women’s ability to perceive. In short, being physical is at the core of Sufi ritual practice and this can also be acknowledged. Bianca’s example leads me to suggest that the more Sufi women could relate to this fundamental notion, the more they could connect with their bodies and mind through a somatic perspective and recognise that hadra embodiment is also ‘the sensation of moving and being moved’. I argue that when women experience religious practice they bring the body–mind into the spiritual world of Sufism. It is precisely because of this idea that I relate hadra practice to a somatic body– mind process and an effective tool for those ‘who are searching for innerdiscovery and self-knowledge’ as well as religious or spiritual connection. Given this situation, this study claims that somatic processes can be applied to Sufi women’s religious context, and it is the body knowledge that brings together what women are doing and what is happening to them. Regardless of the so-called ‘in and out of the body’ or the ‘in and out’ of body movement control, women’s shared experiences reveal that a

‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice  135 somatic process can guide the ritual practice and its embodied experience even though the majority of Sufi women I encountered seem not to consciously reflect on it in this way. Somatically speaking, hadra can be the platform for this sort of action to take place. Whichever spiritual state women chose to speak about, I see them all as somatic and corporeal related. In a similar way, dance scholar Glenna Batson (2014) maintains that to approach body movement through somatic thinking is to create the opportunity to explore and make sense of one’s inner sensations. She is of the opinion that ‘inner-sensations foster “sensory authority”, a baseline for self-guidance and control’ (Batson 2014: 2). My position is a similar one that acknowledges the body and mind relationship, and challenges Sufi women’s notions of an ‘out’ of the body experience. I see that the body and its movement should be taken ‘in’ rather than ‘out’ of attention. Being open to a dialogue of body and mind is a good place to start. For instance, this is evident when Bianca speaks about the benefits of practicing hadra, she explains, Every part of your body I think … that moves and its doing hadra with you, this is how it feels, this is how I feel. Because I had fractured an elbow in September … and, you know, I developed a frozen shoulder, you know, this is why I can’t even tie my bra yet! But the movement at the hadra …. There’s so much improvement! (Bianca 2013) Bianca’s reflection shows her capacity to listen and acknowledge the benefits of hadra through physical and mental actions. However, Bianca’s way of thinking seems unique among the Sufi women I encountered during my fieldwork in Cape Town, because it shows that the body can go beyond its theological context. Yet, Bianca claims for example that by practicing hadra her frozen shoulder improved, and this results in a feeling of self-satisfaction. Here it is useful to consider Eddy’s idea that By being engaged in attentive dialogue with one’s bodily self we, as humans, can learn newly, become pain free, move more easily, do our life work more efficiently, and perform with greater vitality and expressiveness. (Eddy 2009: 6) Bianca may not be aware of what a somatic method is but still she accepts that through ritual practice her body retains knowledge and improves her health condition. It is for this reason that I see that the Sufi body and mind ‘fly together’ as one bird, in a steady relationship, that does not reduce the body to a ‘cage’ but turns it into a powerful recourse of self-knowledge.

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Final remarks This chapter looked at Sufi women verbalised ideas of the embodied practice of hadra and argued that body and mind can somatically co-habit in a relationship. It used notions of somatic with the understanding of soma as ‘any individual embodiment of a process’ (Hanna 1976: 31) and argued that hadra is the platform that enables women to encounter that space and to re-create and make sense of their embodied self. This chapter has questioned how it is possible for Sufi women to make sense of a corporeal experience and describe this as an ‘in or out’ of the body movement or body control? How do they reflect on the experience as such, and can they allow or acknowledged that the body is not separated from the mind? To help with these and other questions throughout my data analysis, I developed a table, which mapped the ritual through an initial, middle, and climax phase. This table described women’s ritual experience in relation to internal and external features and stimuli, and the bodily felt sensation. Sacred text, sounds, music, and other people were referred to as outside elements. Visual images, conscious breathing, inner awareness, and emotional moments were described as an inner impetus. The last stage of the ritual was described by women as a state of physical detachment, or an ‘out of the body’ experience, in Sufi tradition called the fan’a. In the overall sense, my major challenge during this particular data analysis was to explain the polarity in their anecdotes. Based upon Sufi women’s verbalised experiences, I proposed that a somatic attention to the body and mind is at the core of the ritual practice, and I used women’s descriptions and arguments as evidence of this idea. Somatic systems, such as conscious breathing, and awareness of the body in relation to the outer elements are just examples of descriptions told by women which I understand are methods that open opportunities to connect with the ritual and to achieve an inner state of focus and calmness. Therefore, I translate to be ‘in’ the body as an inner focus on both internal and external factors. The embodied experience is greatly affected by the choices women consciously make along the way and the environment they create, and how this assists their practice. When reacting to an internal and external stimulus, women discover and develop a body movement articulation, meaning that they perceive and make sense of their bodies rather than just the ritual. However, Sufi women continuously challenge this way of thinking by avoiding giving voice to the body’s knowledge and justify their embodied experience through Sufi ideological thinking. This was particularly noticeable when speaking about the fan’a state. They argued that to reach fan’a the person must overcome the body so that the soul is released to encounter God. In this way, women assume a position that privileges Sufi assumptions about the body and a dualism in the body–mind relationship.

‘Let the bird fly’ … somatic practice  137 However, they also explain this process through bodily sensations. For example, this is evident when describing the body as ‘moving with you’, or ‘humble’, or the element that needs to be left behind as examples. Other women appealed to be unable to reach fan’a and justified this position by claiming to be in conscious control of their bodies throughout the entire ceremony. Despite women’s justifications, I understand all these embodied experiences to be translated in relation to self-awareness and self-reflection of a somatic method through which the body calls for knowledge recognition. I recall the question of how women can speak about bodily experience if not through self-reflection and comparison in relation to what they feel, and what they see others doing and experiencing? Body movement must occur for this perception to happen. Regardless of their arguments, I see that while practicing hadra the individual is able to let go, be aware, attend, and remember the moment with no judgment, and be open to the natural feeling. It becomes a state of inner calm and inner peace, the moment when women find and connect with their ‘selves’ through their ‘selves’. A somatic approach can be the pathway to understanding the complex notion of the ‘out of the body’ experience, which Sufi women claim they go through while practicing hadra. The movement, which is processed through the body, becomes the channel for interior sensations to be externalised. Thus, each gesture, each word recited, or each time the body moves up and down at the sound of the ritual leader’s voice, all these factors provide the impetus for the next internal sensation to arise. The body proves that the confinement between internal and external is indefinite, and is, therefore, I see it as permeable. I suggest that if Sufi women are to evolve a mode of self-knowing from which they might potentially challenge religious ideas, then the singular nature and incorporation of the female body and its subjectivity would need to be articulated. In this context, the body and mind relationship calls for an alternative dialogue, and here I refer to Grozs’ idea, Only when the relation between mind and body is adequately retheorized can we understand the contributions of the body for the production of knowledge systems, regimes of representation, cultural production, and socioeconomic exchange. (Grozs 1994: 19) Thus, the female body should rise to the irreducibility, which is consistently framed within its gender, and be articulate in regard to the political, social and cultural context, but this is territory for further research and beyond the scope of this study.

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Notes 1 Green Sheikh is a spiritual leader in the Naqshbandi community, and he is based in the UK. The Sheikh often travels overseas to lecture about Sufism and conduct Sufi rituals. Until this date he has traveled to South Africa three times to teach the local community. 2 Some of the Qasida words are translated from Arabic into English in Chapter 4. 3 I am aware of scholarly work that discussed this topic in detail. A few examples to mention are the work of social psychologists Kirk Warren and Ryan Richard (2003) or Zindel V. Segal, J. Mark G. Williams, and John D. Teasdale (2013) who discuss mindfulness as therapy for healing depression. In dance studies, scholar Rosa Pinniger (2012) compares mindfulness and its meditation techniques to Argentinian Tango lessons and the effects that causes in participants engaged in both activities.

8

The salikun1 journey ends

Four elements within your nature is every element, so listen to some sage advice you are demon and wild beast and angel and humanwhatever you cultivate, that you would be. Sufi Master Baba Afdal Kashani d.1214 (quoted from the book The Book of Baba AfdalKashani by Baba Afdal Kashani, Paul Smith, 2012)

Synopsis of the argument I conclude this book firstly with a short review of the arguments and findings of this study. This analysis of hadra amidst the Naqshbandi in Cape Town showed how notions of the body and the body movement, religious symbolism, selfhood expression, and pious identity are being constructed by Sufi women as a result of embodied ritual practice. This study argues that hadra is a platform for cultural forms of expression of Sufi religious values and a space for women to embody and experience selfhood and pious identity, which is visibly expressed through their bodies and body movement during praxis. However, as data has shown, women in Cape Town chose to discuss their embodied experience of hadra as one that integrates Sufi values and

DOI: 10.4324/9780429353574-8

140  The salikun journey ends meaning, varying from identification with the ritual symbolic meaning to deeper notions of the body and soul in ritual practice. Yet, I notice that women’s notions are inextricably linked to the embodiment of a religious and cultural pattern of values, which is noticeable in the way they relate, interpret, and choose to speak about hadra and its practice. I claim that hadra experience is not only related to a cultural form of behaviour but also to a somatic process. Data shows how Sufi women can sense and describe the ritual as a verbalised, embodied practice that integrates a body and mind relationship. Additionally, it draws on a self-reflexive attitude while writing about my embodied experience of hadra. However, Sufi women seem to be unaware of this somatic process challenging my idea by arguing that the final spiritual stage of hadra is a so-called outside-of-thebody experience. I have explored my initial interest as a researcher to understand how hadra helps women to perpetuate religious and cultural values and become a space for selfhood and religious expression. I wanted to know if women could relate to these notions outside of a Sufi theological world and if there was space for somatic thinking about the body and mind relationship to be acknowledged. Thus, I explored how other scholars in the field of anthropology and Sufism have spoken about the importance and meaning of the body in Sufi praxis as embodied pious expression. Yet, an in-depth literature review shows that hadra is often used by scholars to support other debates on Sufism within its cultural, political, social, spiritual, or physiological context (Vicent 2008). By focusing on the study of the Naqshbandi Sufi women’s body movement expression and analysis of their verbalised ideas of this practice, this study contributes to scholarly work in Sufism and Anthropology in a South African context, which to my knowledge has never been done before. This ethnographic study of hadra was developed through methods of data collection and observation and participation in the ritual as well as interviews, notes, voice and music recording, and photo collection. To analyse the body movement in hadra, I developed a self-constructed method of body movement analysis using personal interpretation and other dance background vocabularies like Laban analysis. The more involved I began with fieldwork the more I saw hadra not only as a meaningful religious activity but also where the forms of body movement expression are the sorts of actions that encourage women to connect on a deeper level and gain knowledge of their selves. Hadra became a platform where music, space, rhythm, text, or symbolisms are associations with nonverbal expression, somatic process, embodied religious and symbolic actions, and a cultural way of perpetuating Sufi values. This idea was developed through time, meaning, reading and understanding the nature of Sufism, its praxis, and the symbolic meaning of hadra.

The salikun journey ends  141

Main findings One of the most significant findings of this study shows that Sufi women in Cape Town understand and regard the body and soul as different identities. For example, although women acknowledge the presence of the body in ritual praxis, they still regard the body as of secondary value to the soul, which they describe as the true self. Sufism teaches of the body as ‘un-active’ in essence if there is no spirit inside. Kuggle’s idea that in Islam there are two ways of understanding knowledge, being ‘knowledge is two – knowledge of the body, and knowledge of the religion’ (2007: 30) was used as a reference to explain this concept. Similar expressions were used by Sufi women in Cape Town about the body and the soul revealing that women do not disregard the body in their practice but explain through Sufi teaching that the body works for the release of the soul. This study shows that attending to a theological notion, women’s concepts of body and soul are clearly subjected to and moulded into learned Sufi thinking. Sufi women in Cape Town agree that spiritual exercises are performed to enable soul release, considered the real self. When Nadia speaks of her spiritual practice in relation to the body, she explains, ‘in that sense hadra helps, it is not the physical body that helps’ (Nadia 2013). Kuggle’s suggestion that for the Sufi, ‘the person is not a person’s identity, and yet the body is not so easily left behind’ (Kuggle 2007: 3) was applied in this example, which suggests that soul aspects of the human being are the most important for selfhood expression. Rituals like hadra are acknowledging a place for the body to act, but for Sufi women the body remains the container that releases the true self, the soul element of the human being. Sufism and its practice as a way of living explain why women in Cape Town speak about their bodies as a ‘natural’ kind of knowledge, which is gained through the praxis. Hadra leads women to achieve closeness to God, and this action provides them with meaningful insight into their place in the world. Ultimately, I continued to argue that hadra practice is cultural knowledge, which is visibly demonstrated through the female body movement. I presented hadra’s theological background, drawing from Islamic studies (Chittick 2000; Michon 2007) and anthropological discourse that discusses this practice as a religious cultural form of behaviour (Hoffman 2005, Pinto 2007). While some Sufi masters such as Al-Ghazzali, Abu Hamid (d.1058–1111) favoured dance or body movement in hadra, others like Ibn al-Jawzi (d.597/1200) strongly criticised it. Although the term involves divergence amongst Sufi masters and schools of thought, this study agrees with current scholarship that discusses hadra and other Sufi praxis beyond a theological background (Hoffman 2005, Pinto 2007, Vicente 2007) that holds cultural values, which are learned and shared by communities. I maintain that these are the sorts of cultural and

142  The salikun journey ends religious actions that are also present in the Naqshbandi communities in Cape Town; thus, it was important to look deeply into how hadra is practiced and learned in this community. I also defined the settings that constitute hadra amidst the Naqshbandi in Cape Town and describe the events at both houses of Sufi members where the praxis took place during fieldwork from March to May 2013. The ritual was broken into three stages that were taught to me by the members as a beginning, middle, and end. Drawing from a self-constructed method of movement analysis and a Laban written analysis, I described in writing the physical element of hadra. This analysis included watching online videos, interview notes, voice and music recording, and personal observational notes. Linking my observational notes to the external components of hadra, I suggested that body movement is the midpoint of this Sufi-embodied practice. My data analysis reveals that the combination between physical action, sound, and oral recitation creates a platform for Sufi women’s embodied experience and these are sensorial experiences as much as embodied cultural forms of behaviour. Thus, to embody the symbolism hadra entails is what grants Sufi women in Cape Town a sense of religious identity and the means for women to talk about the body as a mark of their pious life identity. Furthermore, women also speak of hadra as the place for soul cleansing and communal religious meeting. Some women describe hadra as ‘circles of remembrance’ (Nadia 2013), or, ‘it’s Allah remembering us’ to explain what they mean about the ritual. They say that ‘the Prophet enters the hadra, so, for me it’s a way of showing your love’ (Riana 2013). I note that some women’s ideas are predisposed to theological concepts as taught in Sufism, like Silvers explained, Sufi women, ‘imagined their souls as faithful lovers who enjoyed regular or invent constant states of intimacy with God’ (Silvers 2010: 38). Other Sufi women allude to physical expressions such as ‘maybe this is the physical means of us getting closer to Allah’, suggesting that they know how to express hadra as physical action even if that action means a symbolic expression of love towards God. This study shows that symbolic representations such as the ones explained by women in Cape Town are ways of celebrating hadra, which are embodied and essential to a Sufi woman’s body, body movement, and embodied piety constructions. Sufi women’s subjectivity is also relevant to appreciate hadra beyond a theological concept. Salome mentioned that ‘hadra is cleansing. I think that is what hadra means to me. I need to be cleansed, so it means to me my path to Allah’ (Salome 2013). Another woman Nadia speaks of hadra as a place of gathering a social interaction, ‘it is nice to see the same faces every Monday night and say “hey salaam”, and “how are you?” and off you go’ (Nadia 2013). When women take time to reflect on hadra beyond Sufism teaching, they can bond the religious experience to personal attributes. I claim that Sufi women in Cape Town attach personal views and needs to what they learn about hadra and in relation to what they gain with the experience. Hadra is not only religiously lived but is the place to release

The salikun journey ends  143 emotional and physical tensions, supporting Sufi women’s unique emotional and spiritual needs. Findings also suggest that women maintain ideas about the body in Sufi praxis as a sign of religious commitment to Sufism. Caridad’s example, while she explains the car accident has changed her body, also claims that Sufism has changed her life, so, it is like … a life-changing episode, right? But we are here, right? Because I made ‘fine’, but my bones didn’t make it that fine … but a lot of things happened, and a good thing that happened was that I became closer to God, and became more aware of … how I need to live my life and to … connect, you know? (Caridad 2013) This example evidenced that for some Sufi women to embody Sufism and its praxis results as part of a self-inner renewal process showing how they are able to re-construct selfhood ideas by accepting a lifestyle according to Sufi values as a form of pious identity. Yet, I note that women’s ideas continued to express a tension between body and mind relationship, questioning that if the Sufi body is regarded as an instrument for practice and a sign of pious identity, could it be possible that hadra is a space for somatic body and mind relationship to take place? Could women experience a somatic experience during the practice, and if so, were they aware or could they possibly agree with this idea? While on the one hand, they maintain that the ultimate goal or stage of hadra should be experienced as a so-called outside-of-the-body experience, on the other hand, they address the embodied experience throughout a discourse that is in perspective a somatic process of body and mind relation. Within this complex discourse, I argue that hadra is indeed a platform for somatic process, the combination of a felt sense of the external and internal features of the ritual is recognised and verbalised by Sufi women although they are unfamiliar with the concept. To arrive at this conclusion, I discussed the stages of hadra as a beginning, middle stage, and climax stage, drawing from observation notes and women’s anecdotes. I use women’s descriptions of the ritual action, what supports this action, and women’s descriptions of their bodily sensations. Based on data analysis, the third stage forms part of my observation, participation, and somatic perspective. I explain external features like text, sounds, music, and people as factors discussed by women in relation to inner features like breathing, inner awareness, or imagery construction. Women consider external and internal factors in terms of body movement and bodily felt sensations. For example, some women used imaging construction, ‘visualise that your heart is engrave Allah’s name in your heart’ (Riana 2013) and others were able to recognise bodily felt sensations in relation to non-rational thinking, as Bianca said, ‘it is a combination, yes, it is a combination, because if you listen to the Qasida

144  The salikun journey ends and you do your movement, you will see that everybody goes the same way, maybe once or twice you beat on the target’ (Bianca 2013). Part of their discourse proves that women can indeed describe bodily sensations throughout the stages but also maintain that the goal of hadra needs to be accomplished as an outside-of-the-body experience. The fan’a process, which is the last stage of hadra, is explained as the process of annihilation of the self in order to reach intimacy with God (Kuggle 2007). Thus, it is based on this theological concept that Sufi women in Cape Town claim that fan’a is the moment of being outside of the body to encounter God. Yet, how were they capable of verbalising an outside-of-the-body idea? For example, some women speak of fan’a stage as ‘it is an energy where it is beyond our control, it is beyond the body, it just becomes black, you become black’ (Riana 2013), while others maintain ‘you are reaching that moment, movement, it’s … (pause) it’s too big for you to handle it’ (Yolanda 2013). When women take time to self-reflect on the embodied ritual experience, they can in fact recall the experience through physical and mental awareness regardless of the ritual stages. This proves that women are indeed giving attention to the body and the body movement as the vehicle of knowledge, and so this experience of hadra can be seen as a somatic process of body and mind integration. When the body moves, Sufi women process a direct embodied experience, keeping it based on their physicality as they attempt to make sense of the body movement action throughout hadra stages connecting internal and external features. Hadra experience can be a process of self-knowing, self-exploring, and self-expression. As a religious practice, I claim that it is a space for somatic process to happen, although women in Cape Town seem not to verbalise or understand it this way. This argument also draws from my own understanding and practice of hadra and how this experience helps me to better appreciate the cultural, religious, and somatic process it entails. Paying attention to embodied process, I was able to articulate and make sense of the embodied experience which I see to a certain extent similar kinds of experiences that are happening amongst Sufi women in Cape Town. I offered an auto-ethnographic narrative that exposes my embodied experience of hadra in Cape Town, which is based upon my dance, anthropology, and somatic viewpoints, offering an innovative perspective to the analysis of the context of this Sufi ritual practice. I began to consider writing about my own experience after Riana’s expression when I insisted on questioning her about her bodily sensations during hadra, ‘you won’t get an answer unless experience yourself’ (Riana 2013). I felt motivated to answer for myself the questions I once had for the women in Cape Town. I realised that hadra meant to me not only a spiritual connection of experiencing an intimate moment with God but also the place where I could go to notice my body and mind relationship and the embodied moment of this action, or as Sklar describes, ‘it is an ultimate intimacy, a doing while being with oneself’. The moment of inner realisation, selfhood expression, can be started at any

The salikun journey ends  145 moment in time. I see that body and mind relationship can be lived and catalysed throughout the whole performance.

Implications of this study One of the implications of this study is that this research further studies in Sufism and Anthropology. I argued that hadra is a platform where embodied selfhood expression ideas are lived by the Naqshbandi women in Cape Town, while members teach and share with one another Sufi religious values, they also establish relationships within the community reinforcing their beliefs. This anthropological idea of embodied culture has been explored and contextualised in Sufism and Sufi practice around the world. For example, work discussed the situation of Sufi women within Egyptian religious life, claiming that Sufi praxis acts as ‘alternative’ sphere where religious devotion is performed outside the regular domestic environment that Muslim women are accustomed to. Pinto’s work (2010) reveals that Sufism plays an important role in shaping contemporary Syrian Muslim religiosity. He analyses Sufism as a religious framework for social and cultural actions in Syria, suggesting that Sufi identities are shaped throughout the embodiment of its values as expressions of religious identity. Saniotis’ (2012) fieldwork in Sufi communities in India also illustrates how devotees claim a sense of religious piety through embodying and carrying out Sufi practice, maintaining that through practice devotees can ‘enter into different ‘domains of experience’ and this experience allows the Sufi to develop a personalised repertoire for understanding his practices, experiences and the sensations invoked by them’ (Saniotis 2012:74). While using Sufism Anthropology as an investigative device, this book also shows how embodied hadra practice can assist Sufi Muslim women in Cape Town to carry out their religious values and verbalised notions of the body, pious identity, and selfhood expression for example. This study responds to the particular case of Sufi Muslim women in the Naqshbandi community in Cape Town, South Africa, that to my knowledge has never been done before. Another important implication of this book research relates to discussions in symbolic anthropology and religious ritual practice. In anthropology, symbols present in religious practice are considered as learned and shared mechanisms of cultural knowledge amongst communities and interpretations of how ‘local people think and act’ (Kottak 2006). Csordas’ work amidst a community group of Catholic Charismatic Renewal in North America addresses notions of intimacy with God through the visualisation of images that are used by members in prayer as a form of engaging with God, Jesus and Mary. Csordas maintains that this experience is a genuine intimacy with a primordial aspect of the self that is the existential ground for both its fundamental indeterminacy

146  The salikun journey ends and the possibility of an intersubjective relationship – its own inherent otherness. In other words, the imaginal Jesus is the alterity of the self. (Csordas 2004:171) In dance and anthropology, Grau’s study amidst the Tiwi group in Australia suggests that the symbolism attached to their ritual practices gives people a sense of group participation and cultural identification, sustaining that this framework helps the individual to make sense of ‘what is to be. In a similar way, this book argues that when Sufi women in Cape Town chose Sufism as their religious involvement, they acknowledge and learn about its symbolism, which is embodied throughout the praxis. This symbolic embodiment produces a sense of individual intimacy with God and a feeling of religious communal belonging. To embody hadra is to negotiate individual and collective identity and this negotiation is represented through the body movement, which processes these ‘states of being’ and acting Sufi symbolism. Ritual practice frames women’s interpretations and beliefs and increases the opportunity of becoming imaginatively, sensually, and somatically involved in the ritual process. To study the embodied symbolic meaning of hadra is to study the people, or the bodies that create the actual movement and the meaning they give to it. Yet, it is important to remember that individual embodied constructions are as important as those that are theologically learned. They make part of a complex and ongoing process, never static, thus, subjected to the ways and contexts in which Sufi women in Cape Town decided to apply them. This study is a unique contribution to symbolic anthropology studies and shows how Sufi women in Cape Town relate to hadra as a symbolic embodiment of subjective and group religious identity. Another significant contribution of this study is the somatic trajectory and its relevance in the field of somatic studies (Eddy 2009; Bacon 2010; Batson 2014). I argue that hadra is a platform where a body and mind relationship takes place. In this case, I use Eddy’s idea of somatics as a process that ‘helps a person discover the natural movement or flow of life activity within the body’ (Eddy 2009: 7) in the context of hadra and its practice. The research demonstrates that by attending to a somatic (soma) response, with this I mean a sense of wholeness, Sufi women began another path for hadra experience to take place, one that is self-reflexive and attends to self-knowledge. Hadra is not only the platform for embodying religious symbolic values but also the scaffold that aids the Sufi woman in attending to her bodily sensations. In this way, this study contributes to discussions about the body and mind relationship on a somatic level and how hadra practice can visibly induce body movement to happen. Somatically speaking, hadra entails somatic elements such as touch, verbal exchange, and imagery, sound, or individual or group movement (Eddy 2009; Bacon 2010), which are all part of these ritual features. My case study demonstrates how soma and ritual praxis can be simultaneously lived and conceptualised by Sufi women in Cape Town, although

The salikun journey ends  147 they might not share the same idea or be aware of this perspective. Although I am aware of other scholars who also discussed spirituality, or used religious rituals as somatic explorations (Strozzi 2008, Williamson 20014), my idea of hadra as somatic process has never been explored before in the context of Sufism in Cape Town, South Africa. I claim that the many factors that combine women’s patterns of human value, Sufi symbolism, religious identity, body and soul meanings, or body movement felt experience, to mention only a few, can weave together. This suggests that the hadra embodiment shapes the systems of cultural and religious beliefs, but can also raise questions, such as to what degree people have control over their bodies. While I was conducting fieldwork, I further questioned what sort of controlling mechanisms and relationships that occur amongst Sufi masters and Sufi disciples during praxis? What relationship do Sufi women have with their male spiritual leader, and how do they choose to speak about it? This book is by no means complete but somewhat, as only a beginning, and there were limitations as I will discuss next.

Limitations During my fieldwork in Lefke and Cape Town, I was intrigued by topics related to Sufi spiritual authority and religious leadership. During interviews, Sufi women often talked about the importance of the spiritual male leader Naqshbandi Sheikh Moulana had in their lives and in their practice. I wanted to investigate and observe the sort of relationships Sufi women maintain with a male spiritual leader and why and how this could potentially help women gaining a sense of religious agency. Mostly because embodied religious agency and spiritual authority in Sufism are issues widely debated within various strands of Islamic studies, very few concentrate on Islamic feminism in South Africa more specifically (Shaikh 2010, 2012). However, during fieldwork, the spiritual leader Sheikh Moulana Nazim passed away, and the worldwide community, including the Cape Town members, mourned his loss deeply. Although the women agreed to interviews on other topics, they refrained from discussing their relationship with the master since it was a recent and painful event for them. It is also limited by the issues of gender segregation and the cultural outlook of a young female researcher in this field. The position I held (as discussed in Chapter 2) made it difficult to interview men and study the movement patterns of Sufi males during rituals.

Final remarks I understand and have experienced Sufism and its practice as a whole system of human development, an environment to find and relate to spiritual experience, an encounter between inner and outer experiential connections, and, mostly, to feel and recognise Sufism as Sufis describe it – love.

148  The salikun journey ends The Sufi not only relies on Islamic thinking but also on their individual conception and experience of the world. For this to happen, Sufism needs to be lived not only through its ideology but also through the body and mind relationship. The body induces and conveys the movement, while experiencing the sensation and the felt feeling, and the mind helps promote this experiential and existential way of learning about God, and ultimately to gain knowledge of oneself. If Sufi women are to reach moments of selfhood embodiment, this can be developed through honesty, dedication, motivation, and intention and surrendering. To yield something that is apparently untouchable cannot be fully translated into words. Thus, one must feel it and acknowledge it through the body and mind processes. The experience and benefits of hadra promote a sense that in Sufism there is a support system for women to be a better being, while finding that same being. Still, I am mindful that ideas and conceptualisations of Sufi-embodied practice are subjective, with this I mean, influenced by my experiential embodied self, which I choose to live and learn about through Sufism. Therefore, the potential of Sufism as concrete or set journey and concept cannot be fully grasped. This is the mystical magic point, where you see yourself taking the journey, curious about what is hidden under that surface. To a certain extent, I can also consider myself a Sufi by heart. With this I mean, I chose to follow a process in which I learn that Sufism holds the space for self-transformation at the same time is one of co-creation. To reach and to feel its effect applies not only to an individual intention but to the whole experience: the space, the time, the rhythm, the music, the texts, the people, the smell of the sweet rice, the warm hug and kiss after each practice, the laughs and cries, and the journey back home. All of this I see and lived as hadra and part of being a Sufi. Yet it depends on those who make it, who perform it, who believe it, who trust that in releasing the self they can get closer to Allah. This experience tells us something about the human being, the communal belief, and the healing properties that ritualistic movement has for people. This is an exchange between the self and the outward elements, and, ultimately, it is a pathway to experience God. I complete this writing with a teaching from the book The Alchemy of Happiness by a Sufi Master named Al-Ghazzali, who described the meaning and importance of searching for self-understanding or self-realisation. In his words: In a word, there is nothing closer to you than you. If you do not know yourself, how can you know anything else? … Therefore you must seek out the truth about yourself: What sort of thing are you? Where did you come from? Where are you going? Why have you come to this stopping place? For what purpose were you created? (Al-Ghazzali ca. 1058–1111)

Note 1 Salikun means traveller and is used in Sufism to describe the traveller into the pathway to God.

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Glossary of terms

The definitions used in this book reproduce specific usages relevant to the Sufi context. Term spelling is based on the usual spelling system of the Arabic language. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Addab: rules or etiquette; a greeting; good manners. In its oldest sense, it may be regarded as a synonym of sunna, with the sense of habit, the hereditary norm of conduct Bismillah-hir-rahman-nir-rahim: in the name of Allah Dargah: ‘place of a door’, usually ‘royal court, place’ in Persia, but in India with the additional specialized sense ‘tomb or shrine of a pir’ Dhirk: also spelled Zikr (Arabic: ‘reminding oneself’, or ‘mention’), ritual prayer practised by Muslim mystics (Ṣūfīs) for the purpose of glorifying God and achieving spiritual perfection Hadit: narrative (talk) with the defined article (al-hadith) is used for tradition, being an account of what the Prophet said or did Hadra: religious gathering or circle of remembrance. It is also known as ‘presence’ and is used broadly by Sufis as a synonym of hudur, ‘being in the presence of Allah’ Imams: Muslim spiritual leaders La illah illa-allah: Arabic meaning ‘there is no God but God’ Murid: the disciple of a Sufi shaikh or pir murshidpir, spiritual guide Nafs: soul. In early Arabic, poetry meant the self or person Ratiep: in South Africa, this is a Sufi practice where the faithful penetrate body parts with swords, metal skewers, and other metals as an expression of faith and the existence of God Ribat: in Sufism, the ribat is a place where the ascetic withdraws to engage in internal spiritual jihad (struggle) Ruh: in early Arabic poetry meant breath and wind Salat: ritual prayer. The principal payer of Islam, forms of the ‘ibadat’ or cultic obligations Salikun: in Sufism, this term refers to the ‘travellers’ on the pathway to God

168  Glossary of terms • • • • • • • •

Sema or Sama: verbal noun from the root s-m- (like sam’ and sim), meaning hearing; by extension, it also denotes that which is heard, such as music for example Shaikh: an old man, or etymologically means ‘someone whose age appears advanced and whose hair has gone white’. It is also a term of respect given to men of distinction Sharafat: respectability Silsilah: ‘chain’, It denotes a continuous chain of spiritual descent through it, the faithful connected with the order’s founder and back through Hazrat Ali and the Prophet Muhammad Surah: chapters of the Qur'an Tariqah: path or way. Sufi order or spiritual regimen of a specific teacher or master, including devotional practices, recitations, and literature of piety Tawbah: turning to God or penance/repentance. The word tawbah (repentance), from the root t-w-b, occurs frequently in the Medinan passages of the Qur'an Tasawwuf: connected to Sufism. The phenomenon of mysticism within Islam

Index

agency 8, 15, 18, 39, 148 Allah 1, 33, 43, 44, 52–55, 61–64, 67, 81, 84, 88–90, 95–96, 101 awareness 4–5, 11, 20, 41–43, 108, 116–126, 130, 134–137, 144–145 Bashir, S. 22, 52, 60–64, 95, 111 batin 47, 60–61, 95 body 13–23, 36–40, 42–46, 56–66, 71, 78–79, 87–93, 95–101, 106–113, 115–137, 142–146 body knowledge 13, 43, 46, 121, 130, 132, 134–135 body movement 2, 11, 13, 18–23, 34–39, 42–43, 46, 56–57, 60, 65–71, 73, 75–77, 79–80, 87, 91–93, 95, 97, 99, 102, 104–105, 107, 109, 113, 115–138, 140–145, 148 body movement analysis 22, 36, 68, 77–78, 80, 93, 141 breathing 5, 20, 57, 69, 116, 118–123, 137, 144 Cape Malay 69 Cape Town 1–14, 21–25 Chittick, William 20, 22, 46, 50–53, 57, 68, 70–73, 76, 142 cleanse 99, 143 corporeal 17–18, 36, 60–62, 64, 68, 108, 127, 131–133, 137 corporeality 16–17, 57 Csordas, Thomas 1–2, 23, 95, 100– 102, 112, 147 culture viii, 11–14, 18, 21, 26–28, 37–38, 59, 76, 82, 94, 105, 146 dance viii, 4, 14, 18–24, 34–43, 67– 76, 80, 91, 94, 101–106, 122–124, 130, 141

dervishes 58, 71–73, 103 dhikr 1–6, 9–11, 15, 23, 30, 45–46, 52–56, 67–70, 83, 85, 96, 98, 118, 122 embodied practice 14, 19, 22–23, 26, 36, 38, 40, 43–44, 68, 73, 94–114, 136, 141, 143 embodied selfhood 2–3, 21, 23, 42, 65, 94, 116, 146 embodiment xiii, 3–6, 10–11, 17–24, 26, 35, 40, 46, 50, 57, 64, 68, 74–78, 94, 100–103, 106–107, 112, 135–136, 141, 146–148 ethnography 27, 34–39, 106 fan’a 117–121, 129–134, 137, 145 fieldwork 1, 4–10, 16, 18, 21, 27–31, 33–39, 45, 51, 55, 58, 61, 64, 70, 75, 80, 102, 108–111, 136, 143, 148 Geertz, C. 12, 21, 96–97 gender x–xiii, 2, 14–15, 27, 31, 44, 74, 103, 133, 148 gesture 7, 20, 37, 85, 89, 91–93, 120–122, 138 Al-Ghazzali 66, 68, 71–72, 76, 142, 148 heart 7, 50, 54–55, 63–64, 67, 69–70, 73, 88, 90, 108–111, 118, 126–127, 144–145 Hoffman, V.J. 14, 22, 46, 52–54, 65, 68, 74–75, 98, 142 Islam 3–6, 9, 14–18, 20, 32, 43, 45–66, 71, 74 Islam in South Africa 6

170 Index Kabanni, H.M. 7, 9, 33, 53–55, 83, 90, 122 Kaeppler, A.L. 18–19, 36, 38–40, 77, 95 Karamustafa, A.T. 21, 45–49, 65–66 Kugle, S. 17–18, 47–50, 57–60, 65–66, 106–107, 133 love 6, 8, 44, 47, 50, 72, 95–99, 104, 112, 131–132, 134, 148 Mahmood, Saba 15 Michon, J.L. 18, 22, 58, 66, 69–77, 142 Moulana 7–9, 81, 85, 90, 148 murid 55 Muslims 5, 10, 20, 25, 48–49, 54, 107–108 mystical body 22–23, 75, 94–95, 106–110, 113 mystical practices 18, 51, 75, 107–112 mysticism 17, 21, 25, 45, 49–52, 113 naf 16, 52–53, 108 Naqshbandi 1–15, 19, 22–24, 33–34, 40, 53–56, 60, 66, 68–71, 74–78, 82–83, 85, 92, 109, 122, 140–143, 146, 148 Pinto, P. 1, 16, 20, 22, 45, 50, 52, 57, 68, 75, 106, 142 Pious 2, 15–17, 48, 59, 106–107, 109–111, 140–145 Prophet Muhammad 6, 66, 69, 71–72, 90, 95, 99, 101, 112–113, 126 Qasida 83, 89, 92, 119, 126–127, 139, 145 Qu’ran, Koran 83 Ratiep 5, 25 reflexive 24, 27, 34–35, 41, 123, 141, 147 reflexivity 35, 60, 111 remember God 54, 63, 95 rhythm 1–2, 11, 20, 22, 36, 69, 75, 87, 103, 118–120, 124, 127, 141 ritual 1, 4, 10, 16, 18, 20, 22–25, 27–36, 38, 40, 43, 46, 50–54, 57–58, 60, 64–65, 67–86, 91–93, 95–99, 102, 104–108, 112–116, 122–138, 141–146 ritual, embodied xii–xiii, 5, 11, 19–20, 40, 94 ruh 57, 111 Saint 17, 58, 77, 107 Saniotis, Arthur 16, 22–23, 45, 68, 75, 107–111, 146

self viii–xii, 1, 4, 16, 18–19, 24, 32–35, 39, 45, 50, 52, 55, 58, 63, 72, 75, 79, 95, 99, 101, 106–108, 111, 113, 115–117, 122–123, 129, 133, 142, 145–147 selfhood vii–x, 1–4, 11, 14, 18, 20–24, 32, 39, 42–44, 46, 54, 56, 65, 73, 94, 100, 111–113, 115, 128, 134–135, 140, 142, 144, 146–148 sema 58, 67–68, 75 Sheikh x, 6–11, 14, 17, 25, 31, 33, 49, 53–55, 69, 74, 80–87, 90, 92, 104, 121, 139, 148 Sklar, Deidre 31, 35–36, 39–40, 102, 106, 113 somatic, somatic process xi, 2, 11, 14, 18, 20, 23, 27, 34–44, 55, 59, 65, 79, 95, 109, 111, 113, 115–139, 141, 144–145, 147–148 somatic practice 16, 23, 40, 42–43, 109, 115–139 soma xii, 3, 24, 40–41, 116, 128, 136, 147 South Africa vii, xi, 1–5, 82, 93, 139, 146, 148 spirit 1, 13, 42, 55, 57, 61–65, 72–73, 79, 88, 95, 100, 106–107, 111, 113, 121, 124–126, 133, 142 spiritual viii–xii, 2–7, 9, 14, 17, 20, 24–25, 33–36, 39, 43–56, 58–66, 68, 73–74, 80, 83, 90–93, 95, 99, 101–106, 110–113, 117–122, 126, 128, 131–135, 139, 141–145, 148 Stjernholm, S. 9–11, 48–49, 56 Sufi 1–25, 27–39, 42–65, 67–77, 79, 81, 83–88, 91–99, 102–113, 115, 121–138, 141–148 Sufi music 15, 65, 67–68 Sufi women 2–3, 8–15, 17, 19–25, 33–37, 39–40, 42–45, 55–62, 74–75, 78–79, 81, 85, 88, 93–95, 97–98, 100–103, 106, 111–113, 115–118, 121–126, 128, 130, 134–138, 140–148 Sufism 1–7, 9–11, 14, 17–25, 27, 32– 33, 40, 43, 45–53, 55–67, 71–76, 79, 95–99, 101, 105–110, 117, 122, 129, 133, 135, 139, 141–144, 146–148 symbolic anthropology 1, 13, 21, 40, 146 symbolism 2, 5, 13, 17, 19–23, 39, 57, 59, 79, 83, 94–95, 101, 106, 113, 118, 140, 143, 147–148 Tariqa 5, 7, 9, 14, 16, 54–55, 68, 74 zahir 60–61, 95