ABSTRACT
This chapter explains about the two greatest saints of all time in Sri Lankan eyes, popularly referred to in Tamil as Muhaideen Antavar and Nagoor Antavar. It provides a stack of disjointed and fragmentary field notes about Bawas, saintly tombs, and kandoori festivals without hearing very much from anyone about “Sufism”. In addition to the three Sufi orders, there are also modern Sri Lankan Muslims in Colombo and Galle who have been attracted to the Naqsbandi order, a globe-spanning tariqa led for many years by the well-travelled Shaykh Nazim of Cyprus. Sufi Hazrat was one of two shaykhs authorized to spread to Sri Lanka the ideas of his own Sufi master – confusingly named Abdul Qadir Sufi Hyderabadi – a bearded and turbaned shaykh who preached in Tamil Nadu but came from Hyderabad, Telangana, where he is buried.
