International Students Workshop

Sufism in South Asia: A view from Delhi

6-8 January 2020

This Workshop has been designed under the auspices of the NAMASTE+ “A New Passage to India – Indo-German HEI Cooperation”, by the Department of History at the Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi, in collaboration of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the Georg–August–Universität in Göttingen. The theme of the three-day Students’ Workshop is Sufism in South Asia: A view from Delhi. 

The Workshop is devoted to introducing an integrated approach to Sufism through close reading of medieval texts and observing significant Sufi spaces in the dargahs (Sufi shrines) located in Delhi. The Workshop will focus on two Sufi traditions extant in Delhi, namely, the Chishtiyya and Naqshbandiyya, that memorialize Muslim sacred spaces in significantly different ways.

The memory of these traditions is recorded, preserved and perpetuated in literary texts, rituals, and architectural spaces dedicated to the great spiritual masters of both orders. The Sufi literature is voluminous and continues to appear in multiple languages of South Asia (present day, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh). In this Workshop, however, we propose to identify the diverse nature of Sufi literature from the medieval times, locate the historical contexts of its production and reflect on the relevance of these in the beliefs, practices and rituals observed at the khanqahs (Sufi hospices) and dargahs until today. 

Please click here for the programme 

Conveners:

• Dr. Meenakshi Khanna, Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi

• Prof. Dr. Eva Orthmann, Georg–August–Universität Göttingen

Report of the Workshop 

Please click on the links below to view photographs:

Pre-Workshop interaction 

Events during the Workshop

Field visit to Dargah of Hazrat Nizamuddin