Yoga and the “Pure Muhammadi Path” of Muhammad Nasir ‘Andalib

Abstract

This article addresses the question of how early modern Sufis dealt with yoga. Some scholars have argued that a movement of Sufi reform occurred in South Asia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, representing a shift towards legal Islam, which would call for the rejection of non-Islamic practices. This explanation overlooks the rhetorical construction of Sufi claims of spiritual status and shariʿa legitimacy, and it fails to distinguish eighteenth-century examples from the very different reform movements created in the nineteenth century in response to European colonialism. This article considers as a case study Nala-yi ʿAndalib (“The Nightingale’s Lament”), the central text produced by the pre-colonial founder of the “pure Muhammadi path,” Muhammad Nasir ʿAndalib (d. 1758), with the help of intertextual references to the masterpiece of his son, Khwaja Mir Dard (d. 1785), ʿIlm al-kitab (“Knowledge of the Book”). The consequence of their evaluation of yoga was not the systematic rejection of non-Islamic practices, but a guarded acknowledgement of their efficacy within a framework that used Indic references as a straw man for intra-Islamic debates.

Preface to the Special Issue “Sufism in the Modern World”

“…The first case study of the Special Issue copes with the reception and appropriation of yogic practices in Sufism in early modern South Asia. The late Soraya Khodamoradi and Carl Ernst (2024) examine the voluminous Persian Sufi romance Nala-yi 'Andalib ("The Nightingale's Lament"), the masterpiece of the Indian Sufi Muhammad Nasir 'Andalib (d. 1758), who used to elaborate his teachings in the form of stories and parables. 'Andalib was a disciple of the Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi shaykh Muhammad Zubair (d. 1774) yet founded a new system called the "pure Muhammadi path" (tariqa Muhammadiyya khalisa), which ultimately dropped its identification with the Mujaddidiyya and claimed to be the most authentic transmission of the Prophet's message.…”

“…Each artist presents a different type of aesthetic form of lived Sufi experience, or "the skin of religion" (Plate 2012), selected by the artist to produce meaning. The seven case studies are: (1) the calligraphy of the German Naqshbandi Sufi Ahmed Peter Kreusch, which incorporates spiritual practice, corpothetics (Pinney 2004), and creative imagination; (2) the allegorical works of the Iraqi-Swedish artist Amar Dawod inspired by treatise Kitab al-Tawasin, which include symbolic meanings and ideas evoked by sensory experiences; (3) the artwork of the Italian multidisciplinary artist and member of the Senegalese Muride Baye Fall Sufi movement, Maïmouna (Patrizia) Guerresi, who employs various creative media ranging from photography to sculpture, video, and installation; (4) the soundscapes of the French Sufi rapper Abd Al Malik, which besides raising emotions, modes of banlieue expression, and aesthetic tastes highlights his fight against racism and neo-colonialism; (5) the work of Hanaa Malallah, an Iraqi-British mixed-media artist, whose works are mostly inspired by 'Attar's (d. 1221) The Conference of the Birds (Mantiq al-Tayr) and uses the "ruins technique", which evokes both aesthetic and "visceral" reactions in the viewer; (6) a performative, sensorial, and aesthetic digital opera by the Greek director, visual artist, and Inayati Sufi, Elli Papakonstantinou, based on a play written by Inayat Khan's daughter Noor-un-Nisa; and (7) a multi-faith memorial cemetery in southern Tunisia created by the Paris-based Algerian artist and Tijani Sufi Rachid Koraïchi, which activates a string of feeling, aroma, sight, sound, and taste. These cases display not only the transformative effect of Sufi aesthetics to produce an intersensory, "synesthetic" perspective but also the contemporary vitality of Sufi-inspired art in transcultural settings.…”