Full Description
In Sainthood in Fragile States, a wide range of social scientists explore the contested role of sainthood in the contemporary Middle East. By expanding the notion of sainthood to cover both the religious and secular ways of dealing with extraordinary events, people and things, the volume offers new insights into the way sainthood is embedded in various levels of everyday life, as well as national and international politics. The case studies highlight how fragility as a central aspect of sainthood is a productive force that often consolidates tales of the extraordinary, and is also the source of contesting social identities.
Contributors include: Andreas Bandak, Mikkel Bille, Jürgen Frembgen, Sune Haugbolle, Angie Heo, Daniella Kuzmanovic, Edith Szanto, and Pnina Werbner.
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Figures
Introduction: Sainthood in fragile states - Andreas Bandak and Mikkel Bille
Part I - Sustained Sainthood
Contesting Fragile Saintly Traditions: Miraculous healing among Twelver Shi'is in contemporary Syria - Edith Szanto
Saints, Media and Minority Cultures: On Coptic cults of Egyptian revolution from Alexandria to Maspero - Angie Heo
Part II: Contested Representations
Enigmas of a Pakistani Warrior Saint: Interrogating media conspiracies in an Age of Terror - Pnina Werbner
The Samer, the Saint and the Shaman: Ordering Bedouin heritage in Jordan - Mikkel Bille
Part III: Indeterminate Sainthood
Our Lady of Soufanieh: On knowledge, ignorance and indifference among the Christians of Damascus - Andreas Bandak
Ecstatic Sainthood and austere Sunni Islam: A majzūb in northern Pakistan - Juergen Frembgen
Part IV: Secular Sainthood
Imbued with Agency: Contesting notions of the extraordinaryness of Türkan Saylan - Daniella Kuzmanovic
The Secular Saint: Iconography and ideology in the cult of Bashir Jumayil - Sune Haugbolle
