Aqeeda, Adab and Aitraaz : Modalities of ‘being’ Barelwi

Abstract

Through an exploration of the concepts that inform one’s conduct in everyday life, this article seeks to make manifest the performative code that lies at the heart of Barelwiyat. To ‘be’ a Barelwi, it is necessary to owe allegiance to a particular worldview in a way that one’s faith is inscribed onto one’s self, both within and without. An ineluctable relationship is thus forged between ‘doing’ and ‘being’, wherein both affirmation and denunciation become incumbent upon those who claim to be Barelwi. These practices, considered essential and public in nature, enable and necessitate the existence of a shared idiom, facilitating the decryption of bodily enactments and kinesthetics, and allowing them to be judged by the moral community at large. I draw upon my own experience of growing up in an avowedly Barelwi household, as well as ethnographic research carried out in Bareilly to bring forth this dimension of faith.

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