Salaam, I would like to introduce a little of my ph.d research:
This research project
explores and analyses constructions of selfhood through religious embodiment
amongst the female members of the Sufi Naqshbandi community in Cape Town, South
Africa. It looks into understanding how Sufi
women’s religious experiences are articulated
through body movement in the context of the embodiment of a particular Islamic
Sufi practice named hadra. Hadra or
ritual gathering is an act of worship in Sufi traditional practices
where devotees take part by reciting a particular Sufi type of prayer called dhikr.
This type of prayer is composed of melodic of words that evoke God’s love, the
Prophet Muhammad and his family as well as the quest of the Sufis for God’s
presence.
This
investigation follows some theoretical
frameworks on body and movement studies
(Ness 1998, Sklar 2000 and Novack 2001,) and Islamic feminism (Shaikh 2012)
helping to analyse self-representations amongst Sufi Muslim women and their
bodily experience in hadra and Sufism
as a religious way of life that gives voice to women’s sense of self. Although
some ethnographic work as been conducted on Sufi tradition and embodiment (see
Pinto 2010) this particular project uses Ethnographer Pinto’s notion of
‘mystical body’ experiences to context of hadra,
Sufi women and body movement analysis.
Thus, data from ethnographic fieldwork such as participation and observation
or in-depth individual interviews will
provide material and open to new discussions on issues of body and movement,
Sufism and gender in a South African context amongst Sufi women, analysing if
such bodily experiences are consciously selected and performed by the Naqshbandi women in Cape Town. Some of
the activities will include attendance to Sufi gatherings and to participate
and observe hadra events, as well as
to observe and take part of daily life activities, secular and religious
routines.
