Loving the Master? The debate on appropriate emotions in North India ca. 1750 to 1830
The projects explores the emotions underlying the love relationship between the Sufi master and his disciples – an important aspect of Islamic mysticism – in the late 18th - early 19th century India. This is the time when the reformist scholars and the Sufis debated the nature of both, this relationship and other emotions and customary Sufi practices, which were performed at the Sufi hospices or shrines in the name of expressing devotion, respect and love to the masters. The project refigures the debate in the socio-political perspective of North India. It also traces the possible link between this debate and the strategic goals of the reformist scholars and the Sufis, with a focus on the reformist movement headed by Saiyid Ahmad of Rai Bareilly and Shah Ismail of Delhi.
The study assumes that there were groups or institutions that professed different emotional standards and styles of expression for the followers. By examining the Sufi advice manuals, biographies of Sufi saints, letters written by the masters or their disciples and the collections of their conversations, the study explores the following problems:
What were the bases for the reformists to decide whether certain emotions were appropriate or inappropriate?
Did the socio-cultural conditions of the country shape the scholars’ and Sufis’ views regarding those emotions?
Was there an interdependent relationship between the scholars on the one hand and institutional settings (schools and hospices) and practices on the other in shaping those emotional standards?
How did they conform to, or resist the different standards by negotiating between practice and precept?
