Full Description
The Qadiriyya Sufi Order: Saints, Shrines and Politics in 21st Century Iraq offers the first comprehensive, field-based examination of contemporary Iraqi Sufism through the lens of one of Islam's most influential mystical brotherhoods.
Based on extensive ethnographic research conducted between 2021 and 2023, this groundbreaking study illuminates the resilience and adaptation of Sufi traditions across Iraq's turbulent post-2003 landscape, revealing complex intersections of spirituality, identity, and political power. Through immersive case studies centered on the shrine of Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani and associated Qadiriyya networks, Philippon meticulously documents how Sufi communities reinvent their religious identity through public rituals, pilgrimages, and saint veneration practices. The book explores how sacred spaces function as dynamic sites where personal belief systems encounter broader power relations, examining how religious festivals serve as tools of territorial identity formation and how transnational flows - particularly from South Asia - reshape the meanings and functions of spiritual centers. By analyzing these processes against Iraq's shifting political terrain, the work reveals how Sufi networks and practices remain central to Sunni religious life despite decades of sectarian conflict and social upheaval.
A vital contribution to Islamic studies, religious anthropology, and Middle Eastern politics. By providing unprecedented insights into how religious traditions navigate uncertainty and change, Philippon's work will prove essential reading for scholars of Sufism, sacred space, religious adaptation, and post-conflict spirituality in the modern Middle East.
Contents
Table of contents
Note on Transliteration
Introduction
PART ONE. Sufism and politics in Iraq: A fragmentation of identity?
Chapter 1. The politicization of Sufis, from the founding of the modern Iraqi state to the American invasion
Chapter 2. After 2003, (dis)connections with the institutional political field: Sufism caught between the democratic option and jihadism
Chapter 3. The competition between Sunnis and Shiites after 2003
PART TWO. The saint Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani and his shrine in Baghdad: Symbols of Iraqi Sufism, from the local to the global
Chapter 4. A material and symbolic patrimony under pressure
Chapter 5. The yearly pilgrimage to the shrine of the Sufi saint Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani in Baghdad, between communitas and contestation
Chapter 6. A Sufi scandal in Baghdad: The mobilizations in defense of the saint Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani
PART THREE. The Kasnazaniyya, Iraq's largest Sufi order: Defending and celebrating a pluralist and ecumenical Sufi identity at a time of sectarianism and Jihadi violence
Chapter 7. An emotional community and an ecumenical grouping
Chapter 8. Festivals, identity-building and territorialization: The celebration of Imam Ali and the Prophet's birthday in Sulaymaniyah with Shaykh Nehro
Chapter 9. Miracles: Central to Sufi identity and politics? A study of their uses and controversial interpretations in Iraq
Conclusion
Glossary of Arabic and Urdu Terms
