Secular Sufism and the Politics of Difference

Secular Sufism and the Politics of Difference Caste, Aesthetics, and Political Theology in Sindh, Pakistan

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Secular Sufism and the Politics of Difference

Secular Sufism and the Politics of Difference Caste, Aesthetics, and Political Theology in Sindh, Pakistan

Sale price  $103.50 Regular price $115.00

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Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies in Religion and Theology

Secular Sufism and the Politics of Difference

Caste, Aesthetics, and Political Theology in Sindh, Pakistan

Ghulam Hussain

Religion / Islam / Sufi

Ghulam Hussain offers a radical rethinking of caste, religion, and nationalism in contemporary Pakistan.

Drawing on more than a decade of ethnographic research, archival investigation, literary analysis, and engagement with Dalit and Pasmanda perspectives, Hussain challenges the widespread assumption that Sindh's celebrated traditions of Sufism, pluralism, and coexistence exist outside the logic of caste. This book develops a critique of transreligious politics, demonstrating how caste operates across ostensibly religious and secular domains, including heterodox forms of secular Sufism. Through an examination of secular-Sufi nationalism, literary canon formation, and the symbolic afterlives of figures such as Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai and Raja Dahir, Hussain shows how caste is repeatedly displaced into the languages of humanity, culture, spirituality, and civilizational belonging. Bringing together critical caste studies, political anthropology, historiography, and religious studies, this book reveals how narratives of tolerance and pluralism can simultaneously challenge some forms of domination whilst obscuring others.

Ghulam Hussain is Georg Forster (Alexander von Humboldt) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich and Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Bahria University Islamabad, Pakistan.

Publication Date: 01 April 2027
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN-13: 9798216484714
Format: Hardback
Page Count: 320
Weight (oz): 16.0

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