Metamorphosis, Mediation, Mannat
Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture January 8, 2024 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1558/jsrnc.23391 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
In Sufi communities of Bangladesh and Pakistan, a relational ontology blurs boundaries between human, animal, and spirit, allowing bodily metamorphosis across species. This worldview, passed down through generations, enables the protection of sacred animals at shrines, creating vital refuges for wildlife. Rituals and devotional practices, such as taking vows, involve non-human agents in cycles of exchange with the divine, endowing animals with spiritual agency and contributing to conservation efforts.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Sufi spirituality in Bangladesh and Pakistan, through its relational ontology and belief in permeable bodily boundaries, allows animals to be spiritual agents and supports the conservation of sacred wildlife at shrines. |
Abstract
In the South Asian discourse of Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, ‘natural’ functions can be transcended and bodily boundaries are permeable. Defying species boundaries, this relational ontology entails a belief in the capacity for bodily transformation, or metamorphosis, from one category of being to another (as from human to nonhuman animal). In turn, both human and animal actors enter into conversation with mediating ‘spirits’. To this day, these religious entanglements, passed down through generations, allow Sufi communities in Bangladesh and Pakistan to protect ‘sacred’ animals at shrines as vital refuges for wildlife species and to make an important contribution to their conservation. The relational dynamics allow for the cultural division between human and non-human life forms (plants, animals, and spirits) to be problematized, and permeable boundaries to be dissolved into liminal and dynamic zones of interaction. Deeply entangled, agents both human and non-human actively participate in shared ritual configurations that take place within and are nourished by a locally embedded Sufi spirituality. Ritual and devotional practices revolve around their intercessory mediation (shafa'at) with the divine, which endows them with spiritual agency, as they engage in cycles of exchange, such as the practice of taking vows (mannat). Within the framework of this Sufi-inspired, locally embedded spirituality, it is possible for animals to be genuine agents, to have spiritual ‘agency’ and to be involved in cycles of exchange.