Inter-religious Practices and Saint Veneration in the Muslim World : Khidr/Khizr From the Middle East to South Asia

Inter-religious Practices and Saint Veneration in the Muslim World studies the immortal saint Khidr/Khizr, a mysterious prophet and popular multi-religious figure and Sufi master venerated across the Muslim world. Focusing on the religious figure of Khidr/Khizr and the practice of religion from Middle East to South Asia, the chapters offer a multi-disciplinary analysis. The book addresses the plurality in the interpretation of Khizr and underlines the unique character of the figure, whose main characteristics are kept by Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Sikhs. Chapters examine vernacular Islamic piety and intercommunal religious practices and highlight the multiples ways through which Khidr/Khizr allows a conversation between different religious cultures. Furthermore, Khidr/Khizr is a most significant case study for deciphering the complex dialectic between the universal and the local. The contributors also argue that Khidr/Khizr played a leading role in the process of translating a religious tradition into the other, in incorporating him through an association with other sacred characters. Bringing together the different worship practices in countries with a very different cultural and religious background, the study includes research from the Balkans to the Punjabs in Pakistan and in India. It will be of interest to researchers in History, Anthropology, Sociology, Comparative Religious Studies, History of Religion, Islamic Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, South Asian Studies and Southeast European Studies. Inter-religious Practices and Saint Veneration in the Muslim World studies the immortal saint Khidr/Khizr, a mysterious prophet and popular multi-religious figure and Sufi master venerated across the Muslim world. Focusing on the religious figure of Khidr/Khizr and the practice of religion from Middle East to South Asia, the chapters offer a multi-disciplinary analysis. The book addresses the plurality in the interpretation of Khizr and underlines the unique character of the figure, whose main characteristics are kept by Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Sikhs. Chapters examine vernacular Islamic piety and intercommunal religious practices and highlight the multiples ways through which Khidr/Khizr allows a conversation between different religious cultures. Furthermore, Khidr/Khizr is a most significant case study for deciphering the complex dialectic between the universal and the local. The contributors also argue that Khidr/Khizr played a leading role in the process of translating a religious tradition to the other, in incorporating him through an association with other sacred characters. Bringing together the different worship practices in countries with a very different cultural and religious background, the study includes research from the Balkans to the Punjabs in Pakistan and in India. It will be of interest to researchers in History, Anthropology, Sociology, Comparative Religious Studies, History of Religion, Islamic Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, South Asian Studies and Southeast European Studies. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Contents 6 List of illustrations 8 Acknowledgements 10 List of contributors 11 I. Surat 18 – Excerpt on Khidr – Khizr 14 II. Introduction to Khidr-Khizr: A Figure of Shared Legacy in a World of Religious Boundaries 17 III. Mapping Cults of Khidr-Khizr from Middle East to South Asia 31 PART I: Representations in literature and iconography 32 1. The Sage of Inner Knowledge: Al-Khidr in Qur’an, Hadith, and Tafsir 34 2. An Enigmatic Figure in Turkish Literature: Hızır (Khidr) and His Identities 56 3. Mediator of Heaven and Earth: Al-Khidr in the South Asian Environment 81 4. Khwaja Khizr in Iconographic Translation: The Changing Visual Idiom of a Complex Figure from South Asia 97 5. Khwaja Khizr in the Sindhi Devotional Literature: A Preliminary Survey 117 PART II: Places, beliefs, and rituals 134 6. When Research Turns into a Quest: Ethics in the Narratives of Khidr-Seekers in Contemporary Turkey 136 7. Al-Kidhr: A Multifaceted and Ambiguous Figure in the Mediterranean 148 8. Cyclical Time, Nature Spirits, and Translation Activities: The Transreligious Role of the Meeting of Khiḍr and Ilyās in the Balkans 176 9. Sharing St. George Al-Khader: Choreographies and Inter-religious Dialogue in Palestine 205 10. The Al-Khidr Conflict: Shared Holy Sites as Observatories of the Social Fabric during the Mandate Period (Emirate of Transjordan) 222 11. The Prophet Xerzr-Elias in Iranian Popular Belief: With Some Slavic Parallels 242 12. Lord of the River: An Outline of Khwaja Khizr’s Worship in the Indo-Pak Subcontinent with a Focus on Sindh 254 13. Spatialising Khwaja Khizr (Jhule Lal) in Punjab 274 Index 289 saint,veneration;,Muslim;,sufi,saint;,vernacular,Islamic,piety;,Khidr/Khizr saint veneration,Muslim,sufi saint,vernacular Islamic piety,Khidr/Khizr