ABSTRACT

This article examines the affective enactment of the Sufi emotional concept of the pain of separation by Muslim singers in Kachchh, Gujarat, a border region in western India adjacent to Sindh, Pakistan. In a discussion of two musical genres that feature the Sufi poetry of Shāh ‘Abdul Lat̤īf Bhiṭā’ī (1689–1752 CE) – kāfī and shāh jo rāg̈ – I argue that the musical performance of pain is ethically efficacious as well as politically salient. Drawing on eighteen months of fieldwork in Kachchh in 2014–2018, the article traces the ways in which poetry performers and enthusiasts conceive of musico-poetic pain as a form of Islamic worship that has ethical benefits for performers and listeners, such as tranquility and the purification of one’s heart. It thus demonstrates how Sindhi Sufi music functions as an affective, embodied, gendered and vernacular means of engagement with the Islamic discursive tradition. The latter portion of the article widens the focus, taking the pain of separation as a lens through which to examine Hindu-Muslim relations in Kachchh, where Hindu nationalism and Islamic reform have contributed to socio-religious polarisation since the 1980s. Drawing on examples from local musical history, I explore the political salience of the pain of separation by showing how the musical performance of Shāh Bhiṭā’ī’s female-voice poetry historically facilitated interreligious forms of male sociality in Kachchh.

摘要

本文考察了印度西部边境与巴基斯坦信德省相邻的古吉拉特邦卡奇（Kachchh）穆斯林歌手分离情感之痛的苏菲情感概念的情感体现。在对两种音乐流派的讨论中，这些音乐流派表现出沙阿·阿卜杜勒·拉提夫·比哈伊（1689–1752 CE）的苏菲派诗歌–卡菲和沙阿·乔·拉格（shāhjorāg̈）–我认为痛苦的音乐表现在伦理上和政治上都是有效的。该文章借鉴2014-2018年在卡奇（Kachchh）进行的18个月的实地考察，追溯了诗歌表演者和发烧友将音乐诗般的痛苦视为一种伊斯兰敬拜的方式，这种方式对表演者和听众具有道德上的好处，例如安宁和乐于助人。净化人心。因此，它展示了信德·苏菲音乐如何作为一种与伊斯兰话语传统互动的情感，体现，性别化和本土化的手段。文章的后半部分扩大了关注的范围，以分离的痛苦为视角，考察了卡奇（Kachchh）的印度教与穆斯林的关系，自1980年代以来，印度教的民族主义和伊斯兰改革在社会宗教两极分化中做出了贡献。