At the Shrine of the Red Sufi: Five Days & Nights on Pilgrimage in Pakistan

by Jürgen Wasim Frembgen, Jane Ripken (Translator)

The annual festival celebrated in honour of Pakistan’s most popular Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar is full of spiritual rapture, ecstasy, trance, magic, and devotion. In this vividly written narrative the renowned anthropologist and Islamologist, Jürgen Wasim Frembgen, takes the reader along with him to experience this unique ritual event and spectacle.
Stefan Weidner, a renowned writer and expert on Islam, has judged this book "German language version" as “one of the most exciting reports we owe to German cultural anthropology in recent decades”.

181 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Dr. Jürgen Wasim Frembgen is chief curator of the Oriental Department at the Museum of Ethnology in Munich as well as lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg where he teaches Anthropology and Islamic Studies. He has also been a visiting lecturer at the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad (National Institute of Pakistan Studies), the National College of Arts in Lahore, as well as Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Since 1981 he has been conducting annual ethnographic field campaigns in Pakistan. His numerous exhibitions include "The Scent of Roses and the Sheen of Sabres. Islamic Art and Culture of the Mughal Period" (1996) and "Food for the Soul -- Worlds of Islam" (2003). He has published over ninety articles and fifteen books and catalogues, many of which deal with material culture, Sufism, the veneration of Muslim saints, and popular culture, particularly in Pakistan.

Reviews

[Fatima Arif · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book counters the perception of Pakistan as a place that lacks diversity. It is representative of the true diversity & complexity that makes up the religious & cultural structure of Pakistan. At the Shrine of the Red Sufi is not only going to amaze foreigners but the natives as well, and will be a trigger enough for them to discover their own country which unfortunately not many people do today. No matter what religious belief one follows & is in agreement with the ideas & ritual presented in the book, it sure is a gripping read.