SOUL RIVALS

Sufism has always been a contested space in Pakistan. Successive governments, political parties, and religious organizations have attempted to co-opt it or reject it to suit their own political agendas. Since the turn of the millennium, however, the Pakistani government has made a conscious effort to recast Pakistan as a ‘Sufi country’—a whitewashing endeavor.

In the past few decades, Pakistan’s image has taken a severe beating, ravaged as the country is by the rise of religious extremism. A focus on the syncretic culture of Sufism was seen as a way to reverse this damage without the need to explore more secular narratives and alternatives as almost every attempt at genuine reform has triggered extreme reactions from the politicoreligious segments of the society that were empowered through various controversial constitutional amendments and laws between 1974 and the late 1980s.

Soul Rivals discusses the many strands of Sufism (State, Pop, and Militant) that have emerged in the course of the country’s attempts to reimagine Sufism. In this close look at the religio-political space in Pakistan, Nadeem Farooq Paracha is as insightful as he is entertaining.

Praise for Points of Entry Paracha’s essays are constructed around closely felt personal encounters; and in being so, they nudge the reader (wherever she may be) to look around with keener eye and ear to find the imprints of history and diverse influences in everyday conversations, in the music and food around, in the life stories of stray acquaintances. It is, in sum, a riveting introduction to Pakistan. – Mini Kapoor, The Hindu

Layered and powerful, Paracha’s writing takes you beyond … the usual cliches, to present, a nuanced picture of a complex nation caught…. between the modernist impulse and the theocratic one – Manjula Narayan, Hindustan Times.