Showing posts with label healers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healers. Show all posts
Rasanayagam, Johan. 2006. "Healing with Spirits and the Formation of Muslim Selfhood in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan" The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 12, no. 2 (2006): 377-393.

Rasanayagam states: "In this article I will examine how people explore what it means to be a Muslim through ... healing with the aid of spirits."  He explores how healers have responded to increasing post-Soviet "scripturalist" interpretations of Islam. He argues that healers, "construct themselves as 'proper' Muslims according to the orthodoxies authorized by official imams while maintaining their own, often highly individual, interpretations and practices." 

Sections: A Particular Mode of Access to Divine Power and Knowledge; Healing Cosmologies; Orthodoxy in the Making; Authorizing Processes; Notes.  Descriptors: 2000s, anthropology, diversity, ethnography, healers, journal, otins, post-Soviet, R, rituals, spirits, Uzbekistan; pluralism-textual/popular, Hanafi, syncretism, tabibs, oqsoqols, otins, perikhon, saints, bakshis, mavlud, hatma Qur'an, bibi seshanba, mushkul kushod, jinn, qori, avlio, alcohol
Privratsky, Bruce G. Muslim Turkistan: Kazak Religion and Collective Memory. Richmond UK: Curzon, 2001.

Privratsky's book is a good ethnographic survey of contemporary Islamic practice among Kazakhs in Turkistan, Kazakhstan. It discusses, among other things, Sufism, lines of ancestry traced to the first century of Islam, observance (or non-observance) of the five pillars of Islam, shrine visitations like that of the Yasawi Mausoleum, veneration of ancestors, and healing arts. There are interesting discussions about pre-Islamic influences of contemporary religious practices and what are true Islamic practices. 

Contents: Maps and Illustrations; Preface; Abbreviations; Transliteration; The Problem of Kazak Religion; Kiyeli Jer: Muslim Landscapes and Kazak Ethnicity; Taza Jol: The Pure Way of Islam Among the Kazaks; Aruaq: Remembering the Ancestors; Auliye: Remembering the Saints; Emshi: The Kazak Healer; Kazak Religion and Collective Memory; Religion as Culture and Spirit; Appendix: Principal Informants; References Cited; Glossary; Index