Witness to marvels : Sufism and literary imagination / Tony K. Stewart.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stewart, Tony K., 1954-2024, author.

Series:

Islamic Humanities

Islamic humanities

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bengali literature--Social aspects--India--Bengal.

Bengali literature.

Romance fiction, Bengali.

Islam and literature--India--Bengal.

Islam and literature.

Sufism--India--Bengal.

Sufism.

Hinduism--India--Bengal.

Hinduism.

Bengali literature--Social aspects.

India--Bengal.

Physical Description:

xxxi, 300 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2019]

Summary:

"Witness to Marvels traces the development of a unique genre of Sufi-inspired Bengali romances called pir kathas, whose protagonists and plots are wholly fictive. For five centuries these fabulations have parodied indigenous and Hindu textual traditions. Both mimicking and mocking, these parodies adopted a subjunctive tone, exploring a magical world of 'what-if'. They created an Islam-inflected space within a traditional Bengali cultural environment without trying to legislate what ideally 'should be' according to tropes common to Islamic history, theology, and law. The tales' discursive arena, the imaginaire, delineated the realm of possibility for how these tales might exercise the imagination to integrate Hindu and Islamic cosmologies. Tales insinuated themselves into locally relevant discourses through elaborate intertextual connections, subtly shifting presuppositions about the way the world works and what counts as religious authority. As Allah looked on from heaven, the tales routinely assigned Sufi saints, both pirs and bibis, to the pivotal role of avatar, the periodic descent of divinity, equating them to the Hindu god Narayan. Adopting a semiotic strategy to interpret these tales yields a bold new perspective on the subtle ways Islam assumed its distinctive form in Bengal and suggests how we need to reimagine conversion in this region"--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Heavenly orchestrations : the world of the legendary pirs of Bengal

The enchanting lives of the pirs : structures of narrative romance

Subjunctive explorations : the parodic work of pir kath?

Mapping the imaginaire : the conditions of possibility

Manipulating the cosmic hierarchy : a practical act of conceptual blending

Pragmatics of pir lath? : emplotment and extra-discursive effects

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND license. To view a copy of the license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses.

Other Format:

Online version: Stewart, Tony K., 1954- Witness to marvels.

ISBN:

9780520306332

0520306333

OCLC:

1086495903