Ms Michelle Quay - Sufis and Subalterns: Blacks, Women, and Slaves in Hagiography
Channel: Recovering 'Lost Voices'
Date: 2016-03-01

Ms Michelle Quay - PhD Candidate, Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge.

Sufis and Subalterns: Blacks, Women, and Slaves in Hagiography from al-Sulamī (d. 1091) to Jāmī (d. 1492) 
Abstract: In this paper, I examine attitudes toward and representations of the subaltern in select Persian and Arabic Sufi hagiographies from 1100-1500 CE. I follow the reading strategy of subaltern studies -- “from within, but against the grain,” as Spivak describes it -- but try to complicate this idea of a homogeneous class of ‘subalterns’ by deploying intersectional analysis, a technique current in gender studies. Intersectionality theory considers the effect on power structures generated by the interaction of various subordinated (subaltern) identities in a single subject. These subordinated identities are divided along the fault lines of gender, race, class, nationality, disability, and more. 

The paper investigates the complex relationship between sainthood and subalternity, which often takes paradoxical form in these texts. While Jāmī would have us believe that “Whoever remembers God is separated from his aspect (ṣefat-e vey),” we find that the texts quickly violate this rule. I argue that the hagiographers surveyed here display an awareness of the intersectional nature of identity in their texts. It is true that their tendency is to simply reverse single-axis indications of subalternity (e.g. being black, female, or lower class) by reclaiming them into the unmarked, dominant group. However, figures with intersectional identities are difficult to reclaim, and as such the hagiographers often take a different approach; they compound the subject’s Otherness and transform this alterity into a badge of honour and an indication of spiritual superiority. Subaltern identities are therefore paradoxically portrayed both as inescapable and necessary to escape if one is to rise to the level of a saint. 

Presented at The Subalterns Project, The First Workshop – on the pre-Safavid period, held at the University of Edinburgh, 7-8 November 2015.

For more detailed information about the project & the various workshops, please head to: http://www.shii-news.imes.ed.ac.uk/the-subalterns-project/