Abstract
The Islamic reformism of eighteenth and nineteenth century India deeply affected the
shrine culture of the Punjab. Various movements contested the then prevalent
phenomenon of saint and shrine veneration – a major trait of the Chishtī Sufism – thus
engendering, locally as at a larger scale, fierce religious contestations in and around
Sufism. Furthermore, the reformist propensity caused a subtle variation within the
Chishtiyya itself, particularly in generating debates around the shrine rituals between
the two branches of the order: the Chishtiyya Ṣābriyya and the Chishtiyya Niẕāmiyya.
The Chishtiyya Ṣābriyya, on the one hand, went under heavy influence from the
reformist Sufi discourse of the Naqshbandiyya, which had played a decisive role in the
birth and development of Dār al-ʿUlūm at Deoband. The Chishtiyya Niẕāmiyya, on the
other hand, whose Sufi shrines are mainly located in western Punjab, responded to the
challenge through an internal revivalism, staying away from the reformist trend and
defending its old practice of saint/shrine veneration. In consequence, the Chishtī shrine
following of western Punjab was seriously affected by the ideological schism between
the two branches of the order. The paper will analyze how, why and by whom in the
19th century Punjab the Chishtiyya legacy was contested, and how different Chishtī
shrines of the Punjab, reifying their positive stance on shrine veneration, went against
the reformist current.
