Shamanism and Islam: Sufism, Healing Rituals and Spirits in the Muslim World
Ed. Thierry Zarcone and Angela Hobart
I. B. Tauris [hardback], 2012
PRs 3,870
The figure of the shaman has always been a prominent motif within the Islamic world, particularly in relation to the mystical domain of Sufism. Here, Thierry Zarcone and Angela Hobart bring together a vigorous and authoritative exploration of the link between Islam and shamanism in contemporary Muslim culture, examining how the old practice of shamanism was combined with elements of Sufism in order to adapt to wider Islamic society. Shamanism and Islam thus surveys shamanic practices in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans, to show how the Muslim shaman, like his Siberian counterpart, cultivates personal relations with spirits to help individuals through healing and divination.
Here, two different kinds of healers are examined: first, the shaman healers of Central Asia, which belong to several different traditions, and yet all have the common thread of mixing Islam – especially Sufism – with old religious practices. This ‘Islamized shamanism’, covering the geographic areas of modern-day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kirghizstan, northern Afghanistan, the Turkoman province of Iran and the Uygur district of Xinjian in China, is analysed through its rituals, representations and modern manifestations.
Second, the book explores the examples of healers from different parts of the Islamic world outside central Asia, from Iran to Turkey, and from Algeria to the suburbs of Paris. Using healing rituals that are extremely similar to those performed in Central Asian ‘Islamised shamanism’, Shamanism and Islam draws out the parallels that exist throughout the Islamic World, and the close relations between shamanism and Muslim mysticism.
Exploring the complexities and variety of rituals, involving music, dance and, in some regions, epic and bardic poetry, demonstrating the close links between shamanism and the various arts of the Islamic world, this is the first in-depth exploration of ‘Islamized shamanism’. It is thus a valuable contribution to the field of Islamic studies, religion, anthropology and a wider understanding of the Middle East.
EDITOR’S PICK!
Sherpas: The Himalayan Legends
M. S. Kohli
UBS Publishers’ Distributors [hardback], 2003
PRs 790
This book is a compelling narrative of the hardy Sherpas who inhabit the Solu Khumbu district of Nepal and the city of Darjeeling in India. It is based not only on meticulous research, but also on intimate personal experience of climbing and of human relations.The author, Captain Kohli, has climbed with most legendary Sherpas on his 15 major expeditions. He recalls their spectacular role in taming the pinnacle of this blue planet. The book chronicles the journey of Sherpas from porters to trusted companions, their unique support role and the sacrifices they have commonly made in saving the lives of their teammates or friends.
Trained by the legendary Sherpa Tenzing himself, Kohli is as prolific with pen as he is a virtuoso with the ice axe. He led the first successful Indian Everest expedition in 1965, 12 years after his guru and Edmund Hillary made history. When several friends suggested he write a book on Phu Dorjee, the first Nepalese to climb Everest as part of the 1965 expedition, he decided to expand the canvas to include the Sherpas’ contribution to moulding the history of Himalayan climbs, with a separate chapter on Dorjee, whom he calls the “Anthony Quinn” of Nepal.
EDITOR’S PICK!
Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy
Sarah Bradford
Viking [hardback], 2004
PRs 870
Sarah Bradford’s Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy is the first biography of one of the most famous members of the Borgia family in over sixty years. Lucrezia Borgia – infamous murderess or simply the victim of bad press? Her name has echoed through history as a byword for evil – a poisoner who committed incest with her natural father, Pope Alexander VI, and with her brother, Cesare Borgia.
Long considered the most ruthless of Italian Renaissance noblewomen, her tarnished reputation has prevailed long since her own lifetime. In this definitive biography, a work of huge scholarship and erudition, Bradford gives a fascinating account of Lucrezia’s life in all its colourful controversy. Daughter, sister, wife and mother, Lucrezia Borgia was surrounded by wealth, privilege and intrigue. But what was the truth behind her extraordinary existence – was she a monster of cruelty and deceit or simply the pawn of her power-hungry father and brother?
What people are saying: “Bradford’s forte, ever since she was a history-mad girl, is thinking herself into other lives” (Daily Telegraph).
Karachi Raj
Anis Shivani
Fourth Estate [hardback], 2015
PRs 1,395
And how is one to extract Karachi from oneself? The city gathers wanderers and dreamers into its bosom, contradictory, impenetrable, endlessly jostling its subjects to make room for new ones. And in this city of subterranean terrors and surprising bouts of goodness, a brother and a sister grow into their own.
Seema and Hafiz, born into a basti, long to make something of themselves. But when Seema wins a scholarship to attend university, she finds that social barriers are not easily defied, and when Hafiz finds himself smitten by a co-worker’s wife, he learns of the mutability of love and friendship. Meanwhile, Claire, an American anthropologist, discovers that, while her professional training will only take her so far in her quest to unravel Karachi, living in the basti is an education in itself. Anis Shivani’s debut novel is an ambitious work that aches with intimacy even as it encompasses an entire generation into its bold, panoramic vision. Karachi Raj is the sort of book that will shape one’s understanding of urban Pakistan for years to come.
What people are saying: “Karachi Raj is that rare thing: a rollicking read and a great insight into a much reported but little understood place” (Mohammed Hanif).
Confronting the Bomb: Pakistani and Indian Scientists Speak Out
Ed. Pervez Hoodbhoy
Oxford University Press [hardback], 2015
PRs 1,395
Authored by scientists from both sides of the Pakistan–India divide, Confronting the Bomb fearlessly explores tabooed, but urgent, nuclear issues. Concerned citizens, policymakers and nuclear experts are presented with a rich range of complexities: political and semi-technical. Beginning with the coming of the atomic age to India and later to Pakistan, the book looks at the furious nuclear race after the 1998 nuclear tests. What are the principal drivers and where lies the future?
It goes on to examine Pakistan’s changing strategic nuclear objectives, the Kargil conflict and the fact that ownership of the bomb is now claimed by Islamic political parties. The worrying issue of the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is considered in the background of an ideological divide within the military. The more technical articles deal with early-warning issues, the battlefield use of nuclear weapons, problems related to the fissile materials treaty and the likely effects of a limited nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India. Two essays deal with nuclear electricity generation, making the point that this may not be the promised panacea for the Subcontinent’s energy problem.
Rejecting nuclear nationalism, this is a unique work by Pakistanis and Indians working together to warn of nuclear dangers.