<Special Feature "Holy Relics and Religious Commodities in

Title Islam">Neo-Traditional Sufism: The Books, the Shrine and the

Relics of Sufi Barkat Ali in Faisalabad, Pakistan

Author(s) PAPAS, Alexandre; SHAMS-UR-REHMAN, Ghulam

イスラーム世界研究 : Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies

Citation (2020), 13: 14-30

Issue Date 2020-03-24

URL https://doi.org/10.14989/250320

©京都大学大学院アジア・アフリカ地域研究研究科附属
Right イスラーム地域研究センター 2020

Type Departmental Bulletin Paper

Textversion publisher

Kyoto University
イスラーム世界研究　第 13 巻（2020
Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies 13年 3 月）14–30
(March 2020) 頁
Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies, 13 (March 2020), pp. 14–30

Neo-Traditional Sufism:
The Books, the Shrine and the Relics of Sufi Barkat Ali in Faisalabad, Pakistan*

Alexandre PAPAS† and Ghulam SHAMS-UR-REHMAN‡

Introduction
Faisalabad, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, is a relatively new city. Originally a settlement
under Jhang district, which emerged as early as the late thirteenth century, the city developed
from the mid-eighteenth century onwards. Because of the lack of historical records for this
period, the early history of the city remains poorly known. Having been integrated into
the British Raj in 1858, it was given the name Lyallpur by colonial authorities in 1904 to
honor the Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, James Broadwood Lyall. Designed on the model
of the Union Jack with eight avenues extending from a clock tower at the center, Lyallpur
experienced industrial growth and market expansion in the 1930s. Its population greatly
increased after the foundation of Pakistan in 1947, when Muslim refugees from Eastern
Punjab and Haryana settled en masse in the city. The industrial revolution in the 1960s equally
contributed to the population growth. Renamed Faisalabad in 1977 to honor the special
relationship between Pakistan and King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Faisalabad is now the third
most populated city of the country.
This brief introduction of the city would seem to suggest that Faisalabad would be a
mere colonial creation that successive civic administrations continued to develop until it
became a modern metropolis. However, besides the British colonial rule and Punjab’s urban
development, Islam in general and Sufism in particular characterize the evolution of the
city in terms of architecture, social life, culture, and religious practices and thought. The
city, so-called “Manchester of Pakistan,” because of its large textile industry, not only hosts
manufactures and various markets but also harbors a rich Sufi patrimony through several
shrines (darbar) and lodges (khanaqah), where Islamic mystical traditions are particularly
well represented.
It is one of these Sufi institutions that will be discussed in the present article, since both
the shrine and the relics of the founding saint, Abu Anis Muhammad Barkat Ali Ludhianwi,
better known as Sufi Barkat Ali (1911–1997), play a key role in the socio-religious life of the
city and beyond. After summarizing the life of the Sufi saint and describing the establishment
he created, we shall review his written works and the community’s publication policy. Finally,
we will analyze the institution as an organic system combining Quran veneration, shrine
* Authors would like to express their gratitude to the Dar-ul-Ehsan community for its help during their
fieldwork in Faisalabad in July 2019. We also thank our student Muhammad Touseef for his assistance.
† CNRS, Paris.
‡ GCU, Faisalabad.

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lifestyle, and reliquary culture. The details of such a system suggest the emergence of a neo-
traditional form of Sufism.

I. Sufi Barkat Ali and the Dar-ul-Ehsan

We know about the life of Sufi Barkat Ali from the hagiography written by his adopted
daughter Sahibzadi Anis Akhter. Born in 1911 in Ludhiana district (Indian Punjab) to a pious
Jat family, Barkat Ali learnt the Quran in his village and received his education at Halwara
township. At the age of sixteen, he married a pious woman named Barkat Bibi, who bore him
five daughters and two sons [Akhter n.d.: 3–5]. Barkat Ali joined the British Indian army in
1930 and spent most of his military career in Roorkee Cantonment in present-day Uttarakhand
state in India. While serving as secretary of the Corps Commander, he was said to have led a
spiritual life, praying, fasting, meditating, and reciting the names of Allah 11,000 times and
the names of the Prophet 12,000 times every day; he also used to visit the shrine of Alauddin
Sabir Kalyari, a 13th century Chishti saint, located near Roorkee [Akhter n.d.: 6–7]. It is
there, in 1944, that Barkat Ali was initiated to the Qadiriyya by Hakim Sayyed Amir-ul-Hasan
Saharanpuri (d. 1955), himself a disciple of Qari Shah Abdul Karim, who lived in Nasir Pur
Kalan, Sargodha district in Pakistani Punjab [Akhter n.d.: 8]. This was a turn in the life of
Sufi Barkat Ali.
After a mystical crisis, the devotee eventually left the army in 1945 to become a fakir,
declaring that he was no longer an employee of the British Government but a servant of Allah.
The Sufi then established three goals for himself, i.e., constant dhikr, spreading Islam, and
service to humanity. After the Partition of 1947, he moved to Pakistan and settled in Salar
Wala in the northern part of the district of Faisalabad where he was allotted a piece of land
[Akhter n.d.: 9–11; Ashari 2012: 520–21]. There Barkat Ali founded his community around
a complex called Dar-ul-Ehsan. After nearly forty years, because of collective efforts, the
community had a congregational mosque, a hospital, a library, housing facility, and a special
room for the Quran, on which we will return. Meanwhile, he wrote and compiled books to
guide his disciples. For unknown reasons, in 1984 Barkat Ali had to move to Dalowal, located
in the southern part of the district of Faisalabad, where the community built again a mosque, a
hospital, a library, and the room for Quran in addition to a soup-kitchen (langar) [Akhter n.d.:
12, 14]. This site became what is now known as “Camp Dar-ul-Ehsan,” the epicenter of the
Sufi community, on which this paper focuses.
The relocation of the community was like a new beginning in the sense that the Dar-
ul-Ehsan became fully institutionalized. With branches opened throughout Pakistan and
elsewhere thanks to Punjabi migrants (in UK especially), preaching sessions were set up for
the followers; disciples who were able to do so paid visit to the Camp every month and stayed
there for three days; itinerant preachers were sent to trains, buses, schools, universities, and

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jails; from 1997 onwards, volunteers helped patients with eyes problems at the Dar-ul-Hikmat
during March and October every year (this activity was already undertaken in the previous
complex, but on a smaller scale) [Akhter n.d.: 15, 17, 20]. Treatment was free of charge.
Charity activities of the Dar-ul-Ehsan included the distribution of monthly alms and goods
to the poor, widows and the deprived; care for prisoners and lepers; and arrangements for the
marriage of poor girls [Akhter n.d.: 19].
Sufi Barkat Ali set up the Dar-ul-Ehsan as a well-organized institution. Besides various
rules that he established as chief administrator (muhtamim), he appointed a vice administrator
(na’ib) with staff members and assistants [Akhter n.d.: 36]. In 1994, he also created a
council of five members (Khan Abdul Samad Khan, Mian Faiz Karim, Mian Muhammad
Shafi Gondal, Muhammad Najibullah Walana, and Mian Muhammad Zafarullah) to look
after the affairs of the Camp Dar-ul-Ehsan after his death [Zamir 1997: 217]. He appointed
Muhammad Najibullah as lifetime caretaker of the Dar-ul-Ehsan [Zamir 1997: 226]. The
identity details of all disciples initiated by Sufi Barkat Ali or by his successors are properly
recorded in a register [Zamir 1997: 221]. The organizers divided the disciples into groups
based on their regional location for better networking. These groups have special schedules
to stay and perform rituals at the shrine during the course of the year. Therefore, their sojourn
at the shrine is no longer limited to three days, as is normally the case. Today, in the 600 or
so preaching centers that are active across the world, the regional leader (amir) of each center
organizes gatherings for dhikr. Moreover, these regional groups conduct religious preaching
in their own area once a week [Siddiq Sadiq 2004: 158–59]. In contrast with, for example, the
Tablighi Jamaat, which advises his devotees to conduct preaching travels out of city for three
days, forty days, or six months, the followers of the Dar-ul-Ehsan preach in their own region
and do not unnecessarily stay out of their homes at night.
Apparently, there is no permanent source of income for the shrine since its inception.
The devotees of the shrine donate a considerable amount of money to run the religious and
social welfare projects even though this is not something systematic [Zamir 1997: 216–17;
Siddiq Sadiq 2004: 148–49].

II. Sufi Barkat Ali’s Writings and Publication Policy

Sufi Barkat Ali was an indefatigable writer who began composing books as soon as he was
initiated to Sufism. Among the hundreds of books or booklets attributed to him, about thirty
titles (some in multiple volumes) are clearly identified. With the assistance of his secretary
(munshi) Mian Muhammad Shafi Gondal, they were all composed in Urdu and Arabic; only
a few of them have been translated into English so far. In this paper, we will briefly highlight
some of his important works.
The figure of the Prophet Muhammad was central in the writings of Barkat Ali, not

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only as the transmitter of Sunna and the ultimate model of sanctity but also as an object
of devotion. For example, the Kitab al-‘amal bi al-sunna (“The Book of the Practice of
Sunna”), which consists of six volumes, was written between 1945 and 1967. According
to its narrative, as reported by Barkat Ali himself in the foreword, Hakim Amir-ul-Hasan
Saharanpuri took Barkat Ali to the shrine of Alauddin Sabir Kalyari and ordered him to
compose the book. Interestingly, later on, Barkat Ali commissioned the English translation
of the biography of Sabir Kalyari written in Urdu by another disciple of Saharanpuri, Haji
Muhammad Bashir Ambalvi [1993]. The Kitab al-‘amal bi al-sunna is a collection of hadiths,
quoted in Arabic and commented in Urdu, to be practiced by disciples according to a time
table (nizam al-awqat). The Arabic scholar Maulvi Abdullah of Moruthipur proof-edited the
volume; his daughter and her husband funded the publication; and the rector of Al-Azhar
himself reportedly recognized the work. Also centered on Muhammad, the Asma al-nabi
al-karim (“The Bounteous Names of the Holy Prophet”) in five volumes lists the 1437 names
of the Prophet with their reference in Quran and hadiths along with Urdu translations.
Additionally, we find other writings devoted to the Prophet, such as the Finality of the
Divine Revelations and Prophethood on Muhammad, a 56-page booklet in English, which
is actually based on the letters written by Barkat Ali in response to questions posed by an
American convert of Islam. Predictably, the sheikh promotes Islam above other monotheisms,
and the Prophetic revelation as opposed to previous prophets, especially Moses and Jesus, but
also Buddha, who is said to have predicted Muhammad’s prophecy. Incidentally, the author
shows his orthodoxy by rejecting three misunderstandings: the spiritual value of music and
dance, theories about the distinction between Islam and Sufism, and the reference to the
Bhakti syncretic movement in India. Also worth mentioning is a brief biography of Uways
Qarani (d. ca. 37/657), the follower of the Prophet who never met him, who is described in his
everyday ascetic and devotional life.
Equally monumental is the set of thirty volumes forming the Makshufat-i-manazil-i-
ehsan (“Manifestations of the Stages of Blessing”), better known as the Maqalat-i-hikmat
(“The Words of Wisdom”). This is both the biography and the sayings of Sufi Barkat Ali,
covering a wide range of events: the family history, the dramatic account of the Partition, the
migration interpreted as an initiatory journey, references to the lives of Sufi saints and great
Muslim figures (such as Muhammad’s companions, martyrs, etc.) in general, narratives of
great battles for Islam, lessons on Sufism and theology, aspects of daily prayers, and so on.
The work is written in relatively simple Urdu, using concise sentences, in order to be widely
accessible. A much shorter book, the Ta‘lim al-din (“Teachings of Religion”), is also didactic
and introduces its readers to Islam according to Sufi views. Here, Barkat Ali stresses the need
for a spiritual master who reforms himself before bestowing advice to others. The abridged
version of the Ta‘lim entitled Talkhis is systematically given to newly initiated disciples.

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We have seen that health problems, especially those related to the eyes, were a main
concern of Barkat Ali. In line with this concern and himself being a practitioner of Prophetic
healing collecting herbs, minerals, and oils, he composed the Kitab al-tibb (“The Book
of Healing”) which contains 267 prescriptions for various diseases. It is important to note
that, according to the author, cures are efficient only when they are accompanied by a
spiritual reform of oneself and the practice of devotions and rituals. The fact is that, as we
will see in the next section, remembrance (dhikr) is still a vital practice at the shrine of
Barkat Ali who heavily stressed on the virtues of dhikr. It is then hardly surprising that he
composed the Dhikr-i-ilahi in which we find argument on the necessity of remembrance as a
purification method. Rather than a listing of ritual formulas (they are given in a booklet titled
Adhkar-i-jamil), the Dhikr-i-ilahi presents three parts, which seek to provide dhikr with
scriptural basis, namely the Quran, hadith, and quotations from the famous Egyptian scholar
al-Suyuti (d. 911/1505).
Before evoking the shrine and its specifics, such as the dhikr session but also the cult of
Quran and the relics of the founding saint, we would like to point out that Sufi Barkat Ali’s
written material, about whom we have only a limited account, benefited (and still benefits
today) from an extremely active publishing policy, showing that the Dar-ul-Ehsan was and
remains an institution typical of its time, that is, highly aware of the need to communicate, to
spread its message, and to use technology to that end. In addition to the occasional books and
booklets, Barkat Ali created the Dar-ul-Ehsan Monthly, a magazine with Urdu translations
of the Arabic commentary (tafsir) of the Quran, the 10-volume Ruh al-bayan by the Turkish
Cevelti sheikh İsmâil Haqqı Bursevî (d. 1137/1725), along with hadiths, epistles, biographies,
events of the history of Islam, notes on rituals and Sufi institutions, reports on healing
techniques, etc. After the death of Barkat Ali, it has been replaced by the Anwar al-Barkat,
a monthly magazine serializing his writings. Last but not the least, thanks to a charity trust
named Al-Barkat House established in 1984 in Huddersfield, UK, all of these publications
are bound and printed in Lahore — a major place for publication in Pakistan — and were
distributed free of charge, nowadays with versions in CD, DVD, and PDF files (downloadable
online) included.

III. The Quran, the Shrine, and the Relics

Besides Barkat Ali’s own emphasis on intellectual matters and spreading his message, it is
clear that books per se represent an exceptional value in the eyes of his followers. The most
revered book, that is, the holy Quran, plays a very specific role in both the organization and
the ritual life of the Dar-ul-Ehsan complex. Of course, the veneration of Quran is widespread
in the Muslim world and takes many different forms such as putting the book upon tombs or
filling a bag with Qurans and hanging it at the wall of a shrine, and even performing dhikr

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while kissing and holding the Quran at arm’s length, as we have personally seen in Eastern
Turkestan for the former and in Algeria for the latter. Yet, as far as we know, it is only at the
Dar-ul-Ehsan that one finds a special, capacious room for the veneration of the holy book
named Quran Mahal (Quran Palace) [photo 1 and 2]. We present the most important of the
three Quran Mahals established by Sufi Barkat Ali; two are located in Faisalabad and one in
Sheikhpura. More than 300,000 handwritten and published copies are said to be preserved in
these Mahals; the most ancient copy is supposedly one thousand years old; these copies are
of various sizes and weights, ranging from ten grams to three metric tons [Siddiq Sadiq 2004:
187].
This unique place established by Barkat Ali in 1984 and still developed by his successors
today displays a collection of several thousand copies of the Quran in manuscript and print
forms, standing on shelves in three walls covered by a black curtain resembling the kiswa
upon the Kaaba. These copies were collected from various regions gradually. In the middle
of the Quran Mahal stand four recent monumental manuscripts of the Quran entirely written
in calligraphy by an anonymous disciple, with colorful illuminations and metallic or golden
adornments [photo 3, 4, and 5]. Both the making of the giant Qurans, the collecting of copies,
the preservation of books, and the pious visits (barefoot) to Quran Mahal are considered
devotional acts in addition to the practices of reading and meditating on texts.
Quran Mahal is located in the northern part of the Camp next to an open-air ground
that is currently used as a prayer area, where the original site of praying and meditation of
Barkat Ali (now protected under a roof) is also located [photo 6 and 7]. On the southern side
of the main path, which separates the two main parts of the Camp, in front of Quran Mahal,
we have the Dar-ul-Hikmat (also called Dar-ul-Shifa) and the hostel facility for patients. The
shrine of Barkat Ali is situated at the entrance of the Camp, behind a monumental minaret.
Interestingly, the grave has no cupola but rests on a marble pedestal and is entirely surrounded
by a vaulted wooden screen. Pious visitors continuously arrive at the shrine, often in male
delegations (sometimes very large groups including children) entering one by one. In addition
to the usual invocations (du‘a), devotees take turns to perform loud dhikr constantly in front
of the grave. This uninterrupted dhikr is, to our knowledge, a unique devotional technique,
making a particular Sufi soundscape [on this notion, see Papas 2014]. As a sign of belonging
but also a symbol of the grave, followers of the Dar-ul-Ehsan wear a small ochre-colored hat
[photo 8, 9, and 10]. Many of them are Punjabis although some of them arrive from other
parts of Pakistan.
Let us return to the Quran Mahal. Right next to it, on passing through a narrow door
covered by a black curtain, one discovers the hall of relics (tabarrukat). In this fascinating
room, descendants of Sufi Barkat Ali have collected the personal belongings of the holy
man and set up a permanent exhibition of them. As is always the case in Sunni Islam, with

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the exception of the hairs, nail parings, and teeth of the Prophet, there are no body parts.
Preserved in glazed displays, various objects are present: the clothes (tunics, hats, and
shawls), the wheelchair, the material for writing, the red sacred sheet (chadar) that covered
the shrine of Amir-ul-Hasan Saharanpuri, and, lastly, a begging bowl (kasa-i-mubarak or
kashkul), which is a symbol of poverty [photo 11, 12, and 13]. Visiting the hall of relics is
also considered a pious act. The ambivalence of the reliquary culture developed by the Dar-
ul-Ehsan is striking: if solemnity and even sacredness do surround the paraphernalia of Sufi
Barkat Ali, and all these objects as they are displayed purposely reminds the sainthood of their
owner, no cult is organized around the relics. There is nothing comparable to the worshipping
of relics that we find elsewhere in Pakistan, especially in Sindh (for example, at the shrine of
La‘l Shahbaz Qalandar) [Boivin 2011], which consists of taking out the relics, showing them
in a procession, and inviting devotees to touch them in order to get the saint’s Baraka.
Barkat Ali’s tabarrukat are traditional relics, that is, similar to the many others existing
throughout the Muslim world following more or less the example of the Prophet’s relics, but
at the same time they undergo a process of “museumization” (in brief: exhibited but forbidden
to touch), which is typical of what Sufis authorities encourage as modern expressions of
devotion. In other words, Barkat Ali’s relics stand between two worlds or two historical
trends. More precisely, the reliquary culture of the Dar-ul-Ehsan suggests the emergence of a
neo-traditional form of Sufism. This notion has been already mentioned about Sufism in Iran
under the Islamic regime [van den Bos 2007] but needs, we think, further conceptualization.
Let us sketch a basic typology in the context of contemporary Pakistan, although it may be
applied to other countries. As opposed to traditional Islamic mysticism rooted in the past
through chains of transmission (silsila and/or shajara) and conservative initiatory practices
(probation period, initiation ritual, and secret teaching) — such as in the suborders of the
Qadiriyya and the Chishtiyya in Multan [Shafique & Shams-ur-Rehman 2017; Papas &
Touseef 2018] — neo-traditional Sufism does not necessarily exclude but either avoids or
disregards both aspects. On the other hand, unlike neo-Sufism or rather New Age Sufism,
which breaks with tradition in order to offer an access to mysticism without the weight of
doctrinal frameworks and long practical processes — such as in the qawwali or devotional
music sessions reinvented (some would say “damaged”) by the Faisalabad born singer Nusrat
Fateh Ali Khan (d. 1997), and perpetuated today by various Sufi Chishti singers [Baud 1996]
— neo-traditional Sufism maintains a strong commitment to Islamic prescriptions as well
as Sufi doctrine and practice. In the case of the Dar-ul-Ehsan, relics clearly illustrate this
neo-traditionalism, and the same can be said about the books and the shrine: both the written
materials and the veneration of Quran are certainly traditional activities of Sufis but the
publication policy and the Quran Mahal are new adaptations of these activities; the shrine
complex is of course in line with the institutional history of Sufism but peculiarities such as

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the constant dhikr and the signs of belonging are new forms of Sufi communal organization.

Conclusion
Interestingly, the anthropologist Katherine Ewing visited the Dar-ul-Ehsan in 1977 at the early
phase of its development, and noted that Barkat Ali was “a living representative of a Sufi saint
tradition, yet he is totally independent of the sajjada-nishin [i.e., the hereditary leadership]
pattern” [Ewing 1983: 265–66]. She attributed the emergence of a saintly figure like Barkat
Ali to his conversion activities and to the facilities for social welfare offered by his shrine,
insofar as Pakistan’s government promoted both conversion and social welfare through Sufi
shrines. It is true that the community counted (and still counts) among its members high
officials, and in 2013, the Pakistan Post Office Department issued a stamp honoring the saint
as one of the “men of letters” of the nation. However, the expansion of the Sufi community
both during and after Barkat Ali’s life shows that this success is only partly due to the
governmental promotion since 1959 of non-hereditary, in other words non-traditional, saints
in Pakistan.
As we have seen, the religious identity of Barkat Ali’s group is more complex than it
seemed in the 1970s. Rather than being non-traditional, this is a neo-traditional community as
we try to demonstrate, in which, ironically, hereditary succession has been applied recently.
Right after the founding saint passed away in 1997, his disciples Mian Muhammad Shafi
and Muhammad Najibullah (the husband of Barkat Ali’s daughter Sahibzadi Anis Akhter)
succeeded the master but it is Barkat Ali’s grandson (Mian Muhammad Maqsud Ahmad)
who is now in charge of a second Dar-ul-Ehsan institution in Faisalabad. More broadly, our
hypothesis is that the neo-traditional Sufism embodied by the Dar-ul-Ehsan emerged because
of the socio-religious history of Lyallpur/Faisalabad. In this respect, without going into
the details, we may at least refer to two turning points. The first occurred in 1947 after the
Partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. Like other cities of Western Punjab, Faisalabad
received a mass of Muslim migrants from Eastern Punjab but, unlike Lahore or Multan,
Faisalabad had no Sufi tradition rooted in the past, if we leave aside the isolated case of Baba
Nur Shah Wali (dates unknown, perhaps medieval) now buried in Railway Colony. The few
Sufis from the region, such as Baba Lasuri Shah (d. 1932) and Baba Qaim Sain (d. 1986),
were all recent. After Partition, Faisalabad offered opportunities on the spiritual market for
those who had to reconstruct their life and to struggle for social and religious recognition.
Sufi Barkat Ali was one of them. The second turn took place in the 1960s with the growth in

  It might be of interest to compare this neo-traditional use of signs of belonging with other cases, such
as the Qadiriyye Rumiyye in Tophane in Istanbul. In this Sufi group founded by İsmâil Rûmî (d. 1041/1631)
that we visited in October 2019, members now wear an ochre-colored vest; this is not an entirely new practice
since the vest was used in the past but not as a rule at it seems nowadays. Many thanks to Thierry Zarcone for
the details about this group.

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the economy thanks to the development of the textile industry, which made Faisalabad both
a place of massive labor migration and a modern metropolis with its cohort of entrepreneurs,
administrative staff, college and university elite, and so on. For instance, the arrival of
workers from across Punjab on the one hand and, on the other, the rise of a new educated class
(physicians and scholars, mainly) swelled the ranks of a Sufi community such as the Dar-ul-
Ehsan, which offered charity as well as education, piety as well as intellectual production.
To sum up, Sufi Barkat Ali’s books, shrine, and relics are the visible signs of a
neo-traditional Sufism, which has resulted from the specific history of an urban setting. The
new phase of development of the Dar-ul-Ehsan towards globalization is likewise due to the
worldwide migration of Punjabis. This is an on-going evolution, which would be interesting
to follow in the subsequent decades.

Cited Works
Akhter, Sahibzadi Anis. n.d. Biography Shaykh-ul-Aalam Hazrat Abu Anees Muhammad
Barkat Ali Quddis-a-Sirruh-ul-Aziz. Faisalabad: Dar-ul-Ehsan.
Ambalvi, Haji Muhammad Bashir. 1993. Tadhkira anwar-i-Sabiri: An account of
Sabir’s enlightenment. Foreword by Abu Anis Muhammad Barkat Ali. Translated by
Muhammad Iqbal and Samina Iqbal. Faisalabad: Dar-ul-Ehsan.
Ashari, Ashraf. 2012. Faisalabad, Lyallpur: tarikh ke a’ine men. Faisalabad: Mazhar
Publications.
Barkat Ali, Abu Anis Muhammad. 1972. Kitab al-‘amal bi al-sunna, al-ma‘ruf Tartib sharif.
6 vols. Faisalabad: Dar-ul-Ehsan.
———. 1974–95. Maqalat-i-hikmat. 30 vols. Faisalabad: Dar-ul-Ehsan.
———. 1977–79. Asma al-nabi al-karim. 5 vols. Faisalabad: Dar-ul-Ehsan.
———. 1979. Finality of the Divine Revelations and Prophethood on Muhammad.
Faisalabad: Dar-ul-Ehsan.
———. 1983. Dhikr-i-ilahi. Faisalabad: Dar-ul-Ehsan.
———. 1992. Ta‘lim al-din. Faisalabad: Dar-ul-Ehsan.
Baud, Pierre-Alain. 1996. “Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Le qawwali au risque de la modernité,”
Cahiers d’ethnomusicologie 9, pp. 1–15.
Boivin, Michel. 2011. Artefacts of Devotion: a Sufi Repertoire of the Qalandariyya in
Sehwan Sharif, Sindh, Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
van den Bos, Matthijs. 2007. “Elements of Neo-traditional Sufism in Iran,” in Martin van
Bruinessen & Julia Day Howell (eds.), Sufism and the ‘Modern’ in Islam, London: I.B.
Tauris, pp. 61–75.

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Ewing, Katherine. 1983. “The Politics of Sufism: Redefining the Saints of Pakistan,” The
Journal of Asian Studies 42/2, pp. 251–68.
Papas, Alexandre. 2014. “Creating a Sufi Soundscape: Recitation (dhikr) and Audition (samā‘)
according to Ahmad Kāsānī Dahbīdī (d. 1542),” Performing Islam 3/1-2, pp. 25–43.
Papas, Alexandre and Muhammad Touseef. 2018. “L’histoire du soufisme à Multan (Pakistan):
nouvelles données,” Journal of the History of Sufism 7, pp. 199–228.
Siddiq Sadiq. 2004. Kamalat-e-Barkat. Faisalabad: Dar-ul-Ehsan (?).
Shafique, Muhammad and Ghulam Shams-ur-Rehman. 2017. “Descendant Sufism:
Dynamics of Gilani’s Role in Multan (1849–2013),” Al-Ehsan 7, pp. 3–28.
Zamir, Din Muhammad. 1997. Tajdar Dar-ul-Ehsan. Lahore: Ahmad Publishers.

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Photos
* All photographs come from © Archives Alexandre Papas, Ghulam Shams-ur-Rehman, and
Muhammad Touseef

Photo 1: Quran Palace with walls covered by a black curtain

Photo 2: Four monumental manuscripts of the Quran

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 Neo-Traditional Sufism

Photo 3: Front page of a monumental Quran

Photo 4: One page of a monumental Quran

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Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies 13 (March 2020)

Photo 5: Cover of a monumental Quran

Photo 6: Original site of praying of Sufi Barkat Ali

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 Neo-Traditional Sufism

Photo 7: Prayer area of the Dar-ul-Ehsan

Photo 8: Entrance of the Dar-ul-Hikmat

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Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies 13 (March 2020)

Photo 9: Shrine of Sufi Barkat Ali

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 Neo-Traditional Sufism

Photo 10: Ritual of constant dhikr in small groups

Photo 11: Begging bowl and books of Sufi Barkat Ali

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Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies 13 (March 2020)

Photo 12: Red sacred sheet from Saharanpuri’s grave

Photo 13: Clothes of Sufi Barkat Ali

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