Performance, Belonging and Identity: Ritual Variations in the British Qadiriyya

Abstract

Scholarship on modern Sufism has centred on the analysis of turuq (sing. tariqa – often translated as ‘Sufi orders’), by scrutinising the institutional dimension of a group of devotees who gather around a sheikh, and/or the set of religious practices and doctrines believed to be characteristic ofeach tariqa. Even though Sufi orders have expanded internationally, creating new local communities, the underlying rationale of the shared religious character of each tariqa prevails in most studies. This paper explores the dynamics of reterritorialisation of a Moroccan Sufi order, the Qadiriyya, in the United Kingdom by comparing it to other enclaves of the same order in continental Europe. It suggests that ritual variations are indicative of the religious diversity existing within each order. In order to do so, the article focuses on the analysis of ritual practices and it addresses how ritual performance evolves when a Sufi order becomes transnational. More precisely, it looks at the effects of ritual on the dynamics and unity within the Qadiriyya and the extent to which the reconfiguration of ritual practice contributes to the expansion of the order beyond its original enclave. The article scrutinises ritual variances as developed by the British Qadiriyya and considers the implications that these changes have for the religious identity of local groups of devotees as well as for its relationship with the rest of the enclaves that conform to the order.

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank James Weaver for his feedback on an earlier draft of this article.

Notes

By deterritorialisation I mean the surpassing of national boundaries by religious organisations, a process followed by reterritorialisation, where religious groups (including members migrating from the original land but also newly attained devotees) create new social bounds in the host society. The terminology has been broadly used in studies on transnational religion (for example: Dianteill, 2002; Plüss, 2006) but was originally taken from Deleuze and Guattari (1972) who used these terms to describe the transnational flows of labour generated by capitalism.

The model was first introduced by Hermansen (1996) to describe Sufi orders in the USA, and since then has been widely used.

Geaves has called these groups ‘cultural binary fission’ (2009). The term was coined drawing upon terminology referring to the biological process of cellular division or mitosis in which there is exact duplication of the original material. In the case of Sufism, Geaves argues that traditions are duplicated so effectively in the diaspora situation that they provide a mirror image of ‘original’ religious customs and practices.

This approach owes its formulation to perennialism in general and to Rene Guénon's thought in particular. By ‘perennialism’ I mean the contemporary esoteric philosophy, critical of modernity, which is based on a reinterpretation of the concept of ‘philosophia perennis’. According to this view, the ‘philosophia perennis’ is something that has been apprehended and incorporated into the wisdom of peoples of every region in the world since the origins of humankind. For more information, see Dominguez Diaz, 2010a.

In terms of cultural borrowings Appadurai suggests that globalisation can be defined in terms of ‘the tension between cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization’ (Appadurai, 1990, p. 588). ‘Westernisation theories’ often argue that globalisation is a mere process of westernisation, in which global forces operate to impose western cultural imperialism on the non-western world. Such voices contend that westernisation is destroying cultural diversity (see for example Holton, 1998). By contrast, Appadurai criticises these theories on the grounds that they consider only one facet of cultural globalisation. He instead proposes to understand patterns of cultural influencing in the context of globalisation as multifocal rather than dominated by a single centre. Besides, global culture is to be viewed not merely as ‘westernised’ but also in its heterogenised, decentralised, localised and retribalised components. In his view, we need not only to look at how ‘western’ ideas have colonised the world but also at the increasing relevance that identity markers of local cultures such as ‘ethnicity’, ‘nationalism’ or ‘religion’ have taken in recent times.

The analysis of ‘transplant’ groups in orders like the Budshishiyya should be treated separately, and it falls beyond the scope of the present paper: there are no ‘transplant’ groups among the British enclaves of the Budshishiyya which are the ones that occupy the attention of this article.

For example, some of the Budshishiyya's devotees in Casablanca and Rabat approach religion in an individualistic way and are influenced by ‘New Age’ thought, features often associated with processes of ‘westernisation.’ For further analysis of this aspect, see Haenni and Voix (2007) and Dominguez Diaz (2010b).

Although, technically speaking, wazifa refers only to the part of this ritual dedicated to the invocation of Allah's qualities, most of the members use the term to refer to dhikr sessions performed in a group. In this paper I try to use terminology in the same way as it is used by members of the order; this is in order to provide a more accurate picture of their understanding and to facilitate reference to specific aspects of their religiosities. Therefore, although aware of the inaccuracy involved, I shall, as Budshishi devotees do, use the terms ‘collective dhikr’ and ‘wazifa’ interchangeably.

Although most of the British members are of South Asian origin, there are some small enclaves in which the majority of members are British converts (for example in London). There are some differences in the ways in which these two groups understand and embody Islam; some of them are detailed in this article. For further exploration of these differences, see Dominguez Diaz (2010b).

The first Budshishiyya devotees in Britain had previously been members of other North African orders (mainly the Shadhiliyya and the Murabitun). In order to understand how people of South Asian background joined an order which is heavily Moroccan in language and culture, we should look at why and how the Shadhiliyya and the Murabitun managed to strike roots in contexts where there was little North African presence. For some insights about the implantation of these two orders in Britain, see Geaves (2000) and Köse (1996).

Most of what has been written is authored by Moroccan scholars and members of the order. These works contain valuable data, but lack critical insight and scholarly consistency (see for example: Barahab, 2004; Ben Driss, 2002; Ben Rochd, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004; Qustas, 2007). Aside from that, there are an unpublished PhD thesis that compares British convert members of the Budshishiyya and the Naqshbandiyya (Draper, 2002) and the articles of Sedgwick (2004), who introduces the order, and Haenni and Voix (2007), that deals with the New Age trends that exist among some of the Moroccan urban followers.

Mawlid is the celebration that commemorates the birthday of the prophet Muhammad. It is also known as mawlid an-nabi and it occurs during the third month of the Islamic calendar (rabi al-awwal). In the Budshishiyya, Mawlid is considered a major festival, consisting of anentire week of celebrations. Followers from all over the world go to Madagh to visit Sidi Hamza, the leader of the order. The event is broadcast by Moroccan television and by some local channels in southern Spain.

A similar transformation in the sheikh's role is not uncommon among other Moroccan orders, but has been better documented in South Asian Sufism (see for example, Buehler, 1998; Rozehnal, 2007).

I do not mean that this is an eminently modern phenomenon; but is difficult to assert whether the ‘experiential insight’ that appears in medieval Sufi sources is in any way comparable to our modern understanding of religious experience. However, Ghazali's notion of dhawq (literally ‘tasting’) implies that the core of mysticism cannot be apprehended by study but only by ‘experience’ (that is, ecstasy), and to that extent it seems to resemble Budshishiyya's idea of ‘experience’. For further information on Ghazali's approach to dhawq, see al-Ghazali (1953).

The more individualistic approach to Islam that characterises the Budshishiyya's urban groups seems to be rather common in urban areas of the Muslim world. For example, Mahmood (2005) in her study of female piety in Cairo contends that ritual is central in ‘self-shaping’ religious identities and in sealing the person's commitment to the religious community.

The rate of female illiteracy in the countryside remains at 87 per cent (UNICEF, 2004).

Personal communication with Jamila; names are pseudonyms in order to protect the anonymity of all my interlocutors.

One of the main roles of the muqaddima is to successfully accommodate the tensions between the global and the local. She has to ensure that the Moroccan character is kept and that no deviations occur. For further exploration on the ways in which religious authority is organised in the order and how secondary authorities are selected, see Dominguez Diaz (2010b).

Hal; pl. ahwal: generally translated as ‘condition’ or ‘state’. In medieval Sufism it meant the state of realisation of an encounter with the Divine, a moment described as acquisition of perfect balance of the soul as a result of the acceptance of this encounter. Today the term is used to refer to states of ecstasy attained during ritual sessions.

Lilat: literally meaning ‘night’, it is a term used in North African Sufism to refer to a particular ritual ceremony performed at night. It involves reciting Quranic verses in remembrance of God (dhikr), singing Sufi music (sama) and an eventual attainment of ecstatic states by some of the participants.

Another factor that one might assume might hold some relevance is the fact that most Pakistani Muslims belong to the Hanafi legal school, not to the Maliki school to which the Budshishiyya belongs. However, it is difficult to assess whether this constitutes a real reason in explaining the reluctance of British devotes to mix with the rest of members in Europe: first, because this reason has never been mentioned by any member of the order; and second, because as Sidi Hamza's devotees, British devotees also recognise the authority ofthe Maliki school. Nonetheless, it is unclear to me whether this loyalty occurs only at asuperficial level. A study of the extent to which there is an eclectic approach to religious law would deserve further consideration.

Personal communication with Tasnim.

The lingua franca of the order in Europe is French, although local enclaves do operate in local languages: for example in the enclaves of Barcelona and Girona, Catalan and Spanish are the languages used, whereas in Birmingham and London gatherings are conducted in English.

Faqir/a; pl. fuqara/faqirat: in Arabic it means ‘poor’, and in popular parlance it is used for a homeless person, a pauper or a beggar. Among North African Sufis the term is used as a synonym for devotee. The traditional connotations of the term describe someone who entirely accepts the will of God and has no private property, considered to be indispensable attributes of the faqir. Today reformed Sufi orders such as the Budshishiyya use the term simply to refer to a member of the order, irrespective of his/her economic status and degree of spiritual commitment.

Paris and Birmingham are the only locations outside Morocco that have a lodge, which facilitates having larger gatherings. The availability of a physical space seems to be closely connected to the size of the enclave, Paris and Birmingham being the two largest groups of devotees in Western Europe. It would be difficult to give an accurate estimate of the number of people who attend each session because attendance is quite intermittent and the size of groups constantly changes. However, whereas smaller enclaves may congregate a maximum of ten devotees weekly, no fewer than twenty people easily gather at Birmingham and Paris every week.

This is a topic that has received little scholarly attention. The only comprehensive work done on the failure of rituals so far has been published in a volume edited by Hüsken (2007).

Within the wide spectrum of Sufi orders, the poles of sober versus exalted are only a simplification that we use for convenience. Although turuq are identifiable for being more markedly sober or exalted, these are not mutually exclusive categories and it is not uncommon to see them intertwined. For example, and despite the fame of sobriety usually associated with the Budshishiyya, in some of the major events even members of the religious leadership will reach states of hal.

The quote used to be available at one of the British websites, www.sufievents.co.uk (last accessed 23 April 2010), but it has recently been removed.