Publisher's Synopsis
This examines contemporary Islamic debates about the ethics and legality of Sufism (Islamic mysticism) within a globally influential movement based at the Islamic seminary (madrasa) known as Dar al-`Ulum Deoband in northern India. Two overarching, and interrelated,
questions motivate this dissertation. What are the historical origins of Deoband's critique of Sufism? And how is this critique variously appropriated and contested in the contemporary world? To this end, it reconstructs the contours of Deoband's engagement with Sufism in the works of its founders and how this critique traveled through the Deobandi network to South Africa, home to the most prominent Deobandi madrasas outside of South Asia and wide participation in the Sufi devotions that the Deobandis have most vociferously critiqued.
