100 Book Reviews

Jürgen Wasim Frembgen At the Shrine of the Red Sufi: Five Days and Nights on Pilgrimage in Pakistan. Translated from the German by Jane Ripken. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2011. 181 pages, glossary, general index. Cloth. isbn: 9780199063079. £13.99 / US $22.00. And Nocturnal Music in the Land of the Sufis: Unheard Pakistan. Translated from German by Jane Ripken. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2012. 160 pages, listening recommendations, glossary, general index. Cloth. ISBN: 9780199065066. €11.99 / US $22.95.

Beyond the media obsession with rising fundamentalism and sectarianism violence, religious life in Pakistan remains dazzlingly complex, dynamic and diverse. Few scholars have done as much to document Pakistan’s rich cultural matrix than Jürgen Wasim Frembgen. An ethnographer, polymath and Muslim convert, Frembgen is Chief Curator of the Oriental Department at the Museum of Ethnology in Munich and Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Munich. These books are part of a series of monographs published by Oxford University Press that explore everyday life and local Islam “on the ground” in Pakistan—and in particular the cultural, artistic and aesthetic expressions of popular Sufism. Written in German, both books were translated into English by Jane Ripken. At the Shrine of the Red Sufi: Five Days and Nights on Pilgrimage in Pakistan spotlights the annual pilgrimage to the tomb shrine of Pakistan’s most popular Sufi saint, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar (1178–1274), in the town of Sehwan Sharif in southern Sindh province. More pilgrim’s diary than scholarly monograph, the book’s nine chapters document Frembgen’s journey from Lahore to Sehwan and back in mid-October, 2002. Joining hundreds of thousands of pilgrims for the saint’s ‘urs (death anniversary), Frembgen brings to life the vibrant, sensual experience of daily life with evocative descriptions of city streets, beggars, ped- dlers and performers, butcher shops, train stations, tea houses, toilets, not to mention the particular charms (and challenges) of the local cuisine and travel by train, taxi, bus and motor rickshaw. Summarizing his fieldwork methods, Frembren writes: “For hours, I sit watching the goings-on, drinking tea, smok- ing, and chatting” (69). Story-telling is central to Frembgen’s work. He has a vast network of local Pakistani friends who provide access to a diverse community of Sufi teachers, musicians, dancers and pilgrims throughout his travels. Immersing himself into the chaos and cacophony of the pilgrimage to Sehwan, Frembgen docu- ments everything he sees and hears—and it is these personal anecdotes that bring Sufi piety, practices, miracle stories and popular legends to vivid, three- dimensional life. He recounts the excitement and camaraderie among pious pilgrims on the train en route to the shrine, an atmosphere “positively boiling

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi 10.1163/22105956-12341265 Book Reviews 101 over with the buzz of voices, people signing, the beat of drums, qawwali music coming from cassette recorders, mixed with the bleating of sheep and goats” (23). He examines the communal living arrangements, altruism, harmony and communal spirit of the pilgrimage, marveling at the absence of sectarian ten- sions and social divisions. Frembgen is especially drawn to the Qalandars, groups of itinerant, antinomian Sufis “who live freely, not bound by religious laws and their creed is conspicuous for rejecting the establishment in their society” (1). Pilgrims drawn to Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s shrine experience and express their reverence for the saint most poignantly through dhammal—the devo- tional “trance dance.” Frembgen describes the bending of normative social and gender boundaries during these frenetic expressions of spiritual intoxication and ecstasy. In a deeply conservative society, women who dance in public at the shrine are often viewed as dishonorable, immodest and immoral. Yet when Frembgen questions an exhausted female dancer about her participation in the ritual she describes her dance as “an offering to the Qalandar” (59). Shifting from ethnographic “thick description” to sociological analysis, Frembgen char- acterizes dhammal as an “outlet for pain and suffering; a healthy release for the rejection, tension, and pressure experienced in everyday life . . . Where else in this society do women have the opportunity to find expression for the vitality of their bodies, if not here in this parallel world of the Qalandar shrine?” (122). Throughout the book, Frembgen highlights the growing rifts between Pakistan’s Islamist and Sufi communities. An animated discussion between a local Muslim preacher and several Sufi pilgrims on the bus ride back to Lahore illuminates the broad spectrum of opinion about Islamic authority and authenticity. Responding to the mullah, an angry young man exclaims, “The mosque is no longer the house of God. There people are separated into Wahhabis, Ahl-e Hadith, Ahl-e Qur’an, Deobandis, Barelwis, Sunnis, Shias. Every group thinks only it is in possession of the truth! But at the shrines of our Sufi saints, we have nothing to do with castes and sects” (151). By the end of this detailed account of cultural and spiritual immersion, it is clear that Frembgen feels much the same way. Drawing on decades of extensive travel and fieldwork, Nocturnal Music in the Land of the Sufis: Unheard Pakistan is a multi-layered expose of Sufi musi- cal traditions. Like the wandering Sufis he so admires, Frembgen travels far and wide across Pakistan in search of ecstatic poetry and music. “Taking my background to date in blues, rock, jazz and what is known as Indo-jazz,” he writes, “I now discovered paths to another, extremely versatile musical cul- ture in which the music is absorbed not only by the ears but at live concerts by the eyes as well” (35). The book’s five chapters document the author’s experi- ences at distinct sites, mostly at Sufi shrines. Sixteen pages of color photographs, journal of Sufi studies 3 (2014) 93–103