ABSTRACT
Pilgrimage and Bhakti in Maharashtra or the emotions of devotion surrounding the regular visiting of temple towns has been typically situated within local notions of Hinduism. This over-determination of pilgrimage as Hindu, however allows little paradigmatic space for Muslim minorities in India and their devotion towards commemorative Sufi shrines or dargāhs. Though Muslim pilgrimage to dargāhs is increasingly condemned as quasi-Hindu by Muslim reformists and as superstitious by rationalists, shared borders between Hindu and Muslim pilgrimage leads to the increasing ‘conversion’ of dargāhs in Maharashtra, as Hindu devotees claim these shrines as originally Hindu. Given this political context of Muslim minoritization in Maharashtra, this article describes how dargāh literature or small booklets available at Sufi shrines in Maharashtra, that recount the saint’s hagiography, miracles and pilgrimage, reconstitutes a didactic and experiential paradigm of Muslim pilgrimage. In this article, I specifically outline the way in which the shrine booklet of the Sufi saint Malik Rehan Mirāsāheb at the dargāh of Viśālgdh in Maharashtra reframes Muslim devotion and pilgrimage by recreating its emotional experience through a reading and writing exercise of shrine texts.
