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Sufism is known as the mystical dimension of Islam. Breathing Hearts explores this definition to find out what it means to �breathe well� along the Sufi path in the context of anti-Muslim racism. It is the first book-length ethnographic account of Sufi practices and politics in Berlin and describes how Sufi practices are mobilized in healing secular and religious suffering. It tracks the Desire Lines of multi-ethnic immigrants of color, and white German interlocutors to show how Sufi practices complicate the post secular imagination of healing in Germany.
�It is a significant contribution to the field of Sufi studies as it documents some movements, such as the T�mata-Berlin, that are largely unknown to academic audiences � one of its most remarkable aspects is that it provides an interesting evaluation of Murshida�s work in Western Europe today, an interesting and largely understudied area within Sufi studies.� � Marta Dom�nguez D�az, University of St. Gallen
�Breathing Hearts is a "thoroughly researched ethnography in which the author practices what she calls a �double apprenticeship� in which she has acquired an impressive array of skills and knowledge in both anthropology and the practices of Sufism... Selim has produced a work that felicitiously embraces socio-cultural complexity, a task that meets the challenges of social description in turbulent times. Her text, which is derived from the aforementioned dual apprenticeship and features a skillfully produced mix of narrative and analysis, introduces some important concepts... �affective pedagogy, conditions of possibility, structural limitations, embodied religious practices, learning how to learn, and living social life otherwise... I also found the embodied emphasis on �breathing� to be particularly noteworthy�something that takes the reader beyond this �ism� or that �ism� in the latest analytical toolkit.� � Paul Stoller, West Chester University
Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Note on Transliteration and Translation
Abbreviations
Introduction: �A Sufi is Someone Who Breathes Well� The Ways of the Breathing Hearts
Chapter 1. The Unseen Neighbors and a Dual Apprentice: Silsila, or Drawing the Lines of Transmitting Breath
Chapter 2. �Why Do I Suffer and What Should I Do?� The Desire Lines of Sufi Breathing-Becoming
Chapter 3. Techniques of Transformation: Subtle-Material Bodies in Dhikr and other (Breathing) Practices
Chapter 4. �There Must be Something Else� The In-between World of Healing Secular and Religious Suffering
Chapter 5. Participation in the Real: The Healing Power of Breath, Words, and Things
Chapter 6.� �The Right-Wing Attacks Our Mosques and Our Muslim Brothers Do Not Consider Us to Be Real Muslims!� the (Anti-)Politics of Breathing Hearts
Conclusion: Lessons from the Breathing Wayfaring Hearts
Epilogue: Sufi Breathing in the Pandemic Ruins of (Anti-Muslim) Racism
Glossary
Bibliography
Index