Paper Short Abstract:

This paper will present an ethnographic excavation of experience in the Sufi ritual zikr. Such narratives show that the self is subjected to a process of ritual undoing, whereby difficult emotions and fear can be reconfigured through the cultivation of Divine love.

Paper Abstract:

This paper is based on my fieldwork with a group of Naqshbandi Muslims in Sarajevo and it presents an experiential narrative of ritual practice. Ethnographic excavation of experience in zikr (remembrance of Allah) shows that central to ritual efficacy is the way ritual can become a medium to help reconfigure a new sense of self through an emotional identification of the mystic pain or dert (pain felt as a separation from God) with a Divine invitation in the healing of the self. This paper considers what this healing means. The dert/pain can be an assemblage of various processes of suffering pivoting around different life situations. Thus, the analytical focus points to the way by which suffering is undone, and converted into an understanding of Divine presence. The paper approaches zikr as a method of “surrendering to the states of the heart” and it shows how "surrender", offers itself up to the reconfiguration of the interiority, through relinquishing control, and learning how to relate to a precarious and often polarised everyday through cultivating and embodying Divine love.