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Saints of Sind
Saints of Sind is an exploration of the mystical Sufi shrines and hereditary saints of Pakistan’s Indus valley. Half anthropological quest, it is also half the pilgrimage of an Englishman determined to immerse himself in the ways of a dervish seeking the ultimate truth. Peter Mayne has an antennae-like ear for language, catching the hidden nuances of a phrase, and a rumbunctious delight in responding to chance encounters. He treats each human with dignity but always delights in the bizarre and the eccentric, now and then catching hold of moments of sublimity. He is an addictively inventive and brilliant writer – witty, shrewd and wise.
202 pages, Paperback
Published March 26, 2026
About the author
Peter Mayne
19 books8 followersPeter Mayne was born in England in 1908. At the age of twenty he went out to India, where his father was a senior member of the Department of Education. For a while he worked as a mercantile assistant in a firm of merchant-shippers, but he was never a successful businessman. At the time of Partition, the Pakistan Government invited him to serve as Deputy Secretary to the Ministry of Refugees and Rehabilitation. When the tension died down, he resigned from government service and settled in Morocco to write his first book. He died in 1979.
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May 18, 2026
Sufism is the one area I never had a great deal of opportunity to study whilst in university. It's one (of many) areas of religious belief and practice that seems to dwell within the realms of magic and mystery; an element of the unknown always slightly out of reach. I was, therefore, delighted with the opportunity to read and review Saints of Sind by the English travel writer, Peter Mayne, who, in his travels to Pakistan's Indus Valley, grants us all an insight into this practice of discovering the 'ultimate truth'.
What follows is a mixture of encounters from varying degrees in the Muslim and Sufi hierarchy (as Islam does not contain a caste system, per se), where great poverty entwines with great wealth, and each character is somehow even more eccentric than the last. However, where each situation arises, the characters in this dialogue are treated with the same curiosity as the Pir's Mayne is seeking out; in fact, it is the servants who serve these Pir's who seem to be the most spiritual, not seeking any reward, but seemingly existing for the benefit of their fellow man.
Partly anthropological, Saints of Sind sees the author attempt to imbibe the essence of the dervish, albeit with mixed results; sometimes being treated with seeming hostility and indifference, and other times welcomed widely, it shows that even within the same cultures and traditions, there exists a great divide, and with such unexpected results, the author is sometimes left wondering how to understand the situation. However, this is one of the delights of the book, as such unexpected turns are indeed what makes Saints of Sind different from other travelogues on similar subjects.
Overall, I found Saints of Sind a highly enjoyable account of one man trying to immerse himself within a religious culture which is often alien to outsiders. Often humorous and often unexpected, Saints of Sind is a very honest and refreshing account of Sufism and the Dervish way.
What follows is a mixture of encounters from varying degrees in the Muslim and Sufi hierarchy (as Islam does not contain a caste system, per se), where great poverty entwines with great wealth, and each character is somehow even more eccentric than the last. However, where each situation arises, the characters in this dialogue are treated with the same curiosity as the Pir's Mayne is seeking out; in fact, it is the servants who serve these Pir's who seem to be the most spiritual, not seeking any reward, but seemingly existing for the benefit of their fellow man.
Partly anthropological, Saints of Sind sees the author attempt to imbibe the essence of the dervish, albeit with mixed results; sometimes being treated with seeming hostility and indifference, and other times welcomed widely, it shows that even within the same cultures and traditions, there exists a great divide, and with such unexpected results, the author is sometimes left wondering how to understand the situation. However, this is one of the delights of the book, as such unexpected turns are indeed what makes Saints of Sind different from other travelogues on similar subjects.
Overall, I found Saints of Sind a highly enjoyable account of one man trying to immerse himself within a religious culture which is often alien to outsiders. Often humorous and often unexpected, Saints of Sind is a very honest and refreshing account of Sufism and the Dervish way.
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