Overview
- Provides the first performance ethnography of Malay martial arts
- Offers the first ethnographic account of the Naqshbandi-Haqqani Sufi Order
- Facilitates a new undestanding of how magic, religion and sorcery are embodied in the performance and practice of Malay martial arts
- Demonstrates a deep and wide knowledge of Malay culture and society (including its arcane and secret domains) and an expert practitioner’s knowledge not simply of Malay silat but of Asian martial arts generally
- Is a major contribution to the study of Malay culture, to the comparative study of martial arts, and to the anthropology of dance, magic and ritual based upon ten years fieldwork in Southeast Asia
Part of the book series: Muslims in Global Societies Series (MGSS, volume 2)
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Reflections
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Front Matter
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Echoes
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Front Matter
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Doubles
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Front Matter
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Shadows
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This is the first in-depth study of the Malay martial art, silat, and the first ethnographic account of the Haqqani Islamic Sufi Order. Drawing on 12 years of research and practice in Malaysia, Singapore, and England, social anthropologist and martial arts expert D.S. Farrer considers Malay silat through the transnational Sufi silat group called Seni Silat Haqq, an off-shoot of the Haqqani-Naqshbandi Sufi Order.
This account combines theories from the anthropology of art, embodiment, enchantment, and performance to show how war magic and warrior religion amalgamate in traditional Malay martial arts, where practitioners distance themselves from “becoming animal” or going into trance, preferring a practice of spontaneous bodily movement by summoning the power of Allah. Silat and Sufism are revealed through the social dramas of 40-day boot-camps where Malay and European practitioners endeavor to become shadows of the Prophet, only to have their faith tested through a ritual ordeal of boiling oil. The unseen realm and magical embodiment is further approached through an account of Malay deathscapes where moving through the patterns of silat summons the spirits of ancestral heroes.
Those interested in Malaysia, Sufism, transnational Islam, and the study of religion, conversion, magic, sorcery, theatre and martial arts will find this book indispensable.
"the eagerly awaited monograph on the practice of silat" Joel S. Kahn
"No other work on silat has achieved this level of inside understanding" Roxana Waterson
Reviews
"Shadows of the Prophet is the eagerly awaited monograph on the practice of silat - the Malay art of self defence - based on extended ethnographic research by anthropologist, and silat adept, Douglas Farrer. This is a genuinely pathbreaking work which returns the ethnography of the Malay World to some of its traditional concerns, at the same time revealing the formative influence of so-called 'mystical' Sufi traditions on the religious life of modern Malays. A must read for anyone with an interest in modern forms of religious mysticism, 'traditional' martial arts in the contemporary world and the Sufi undercurrents in Southeast Asian Islam at the turn of the 21st century".
Joel S. Kahn, La Trobe University, Australia
"This book exemplifies the potentials of performance ethnography. Being himself a dedicated practitioner of martial arts there is no doubt that Farrer has achieved insights into his subject that have not been available to other researchers. No other work on silat has achieved this level of inside understanding of the phenomenon or of its remarkably transnationalised context today, nor has there been one that at the same time has so much new to say about Islam, art, embodiment and performance."
Roxana Waterson, National University of Singapore
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Shadows of the Prophet
Book Subtitle: Martial Arts and Sufi Mysticism
Authors: D. S. Farrer
Series Title: Muslims in Global Societies Series
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9356-2
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2009
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4020-9355-5Published: 05 August 2009
Softcover ISBN: 978-94-007-3688-7Published: 14 March 2012
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4020-9356-2Published: 05 June 2009
Series ISSN: 2452-1361
Series E-ISSN: 2543-053X
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XX, 311
Topics: Anthropology, Sociology, general, Regional and Cultural Studies, Performing Arts, Religious Studies, general, Phenomenology