Extremist of Love

This thesis concerns the multiple political forms of Sufi Islam in Pakistan. Although scholars and locals have often associated Sufism with spiritual and folkloristic – and hence overtly apolitical – performances in and around shrines, the thesis explores how Sufi cosmological concepts and practices also amount to more or less explicit forms of political activities and visions. In this sense, Extremists of Love is not only a study of how Sufism is interwoven with the formal politics of state, political parties, and official governance. It is also – and primarily – a study of Sufism’s inherent political potential, of Sufi politics in less visible yet notable and multifarious instantiations within as well as beyond the Pakistani state. I hence argue that the signature of Sufis is evident throughout Pakistani society and politics to an extensive degree.

The assessment committee wrote:

The committee is unanimous in its praise for this well-researched, engagingly written, boldly pitched, and eminently thought-provoking study. Ethnographic exploration, analysis, and theo­retical elaboration are in a constant dialogue throughout the thesis and the development of the anthropological argument is underscored by that of the ethnographic narrative. Moreover, the author’s presence in the ethnography provides a well-considered reflexive element to the study, which ensures that the bolder claims of the thesis are embedded in a dis-cursive structure that opens her material in a particularly productive and dialogical way.