Saints, Shrines and Politics in 21st Century Iraq and Beyond
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The Qadiriyya Sufi Order: Saints, Shrines and Politics in 21st Century Iraq offers the first comprehensive, field-based examination of contemporary Iraqi Sufism through the lens of one of Islam's most influential mystical brotherhoods. Based on extensive ethnographic research conducted between 2021 and 2023, this groundbreaking study illuminates the resilience and adaptation of Sufi traditions across Iraq's turbulent post-2003 landscape, revealing complex intersections of religion, identity, and political power. Through immersive case studies centered on the shrine of Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani and associated Qadiriyya networks, Philippon meticulously documents how Sufi communities reinvent their religious identity through public rituals, pilgrimages, and saint veneration practices. The book explores how sacred spaces function as dynamic sites where personal belief systems encounter broader power relations, examining how religious festivals serve as tools of territorial identity formation and how transnational flows - particularly from South Asia - reshape the meanings and functions of spiritual centers. By analyzing these processes against Iraq's shifting political terrain, the work reveals how Sufi networks and practices remain central to Sunni religious life despite decades of sectarian conflict and social upheaval. A vital contribution to Islamic studies, religious anthropology, and Middle Eastern politics. By providing unprecedented insights into how religious traditions navigate uncertainty and change, Philippon's work will prove essential reading for scholars of Sufism, sacred space, religious adaptation, and post-conflict spirituality in the modern Middle East.
