Islam is often described as abstract, ascetic, and uniquely
disengaged from the human body. Scott Kugle refutes this assertion
in the first full study of Islamic mysticism as it relates to the
human body. Examining Sufi conceptions of the body in religious
writings from the late fifteenth through the nineteenth century,
Kugle demonstrates that literature from this era often treated
saints' physical bodies as sites of sacred power.
Sufis and Saints' Bodies focuses on six important saints
from Sufi communities in North Africa and South Asia. Kugle singles
out a specific part of the body to which each saint is frequently
associated in religious literature. The saints' bodies, Kugle
argues, are treated as symbolic resources for generating religious
meaning, communal solidarity, and the experience of sacred power.
In each chapter, Kugle also features a particular theoretical
problem, drawing methodologically from religious studies,
anthropology, studies of gender and sexuality, theology, feminism,
and philosophy. Bringing a new perspective to Islamic studies,
Kugle shows how an important Islamic tradition integrated myriad
understandings of the body in its nurturing role in the material,
social, and spiritual realms.