Shii News – ‘a Persian Ismâ`îlî text in Sindhi’

“Vernacularization of a Persian Ismâ`îlî text in Sindhi: the case of Pandiyât-i Jawânmardî”

Zahir Bhalloo
(CEIAS/EHESS)

This paper examines the Persian text known as Pandiyât-i Jawânmardî attributed to the thirty fourth Nizârî Ismâʻîlî Qâsim Shâhî imâm, Mustanṣir biʼllâh II (d.904/1498). Based on a comparison of the oral tradition and the textual evidence, I argue that Pandiyât-i Jawânmardî, like the text Kalâm-i Pîr among the Ismâʻîlîs of Badakshan was initially a sacred object, and in the Sindhi context, a living pîr, that served as an instrument of conversion and islamization. Only later did it serve to legitimize the relationship between the Ḥasanî sayyid lineage of the pîr-s accepted by the Khojas of South Asia and the Ḥusaynî sayyid lineage of their Ismâʻîlî imâm-s, the âghâ khân-s.

01.06.2016, CEIAS/EHESS, 190 avenue de France 75013 Paris, Room 638-640 (6th floor)

Workshop ‘The Vernacularization of Muslim and Hindu Traditions: The Case of Sindhiyyat’

organized by CEIAS research groups “New Muslim Elite and the Vernacular” and “Gujarati and Sindhi Studies”

Posted in: Academic items, India