Secular Sufism and the Politics of Difference

Ghulam Hussain offers a radical rethinking of caste, religion, and nationalism in contemporary Pakistan. Drawing on more than a decade of ethnographic research, archival investigation, literary analysis, and engagement with Dalit and Pasmanda perspectives, Hussain challenges the widespread assumption that Sindh’s celebrated traditions of Sufism, pluralism, and coexistence exist outside the logic of caste. This book develops a critique of transreligious politics, demonstrating how caste operates across ostensibly religious and secular domains, including heterodox forms of secular Sufism. Through an examination of secular-Sufi nationalism, literary canon formation, and the symbolic afterlives of figures such as Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai and Raja Dahir, Hussain shows how caste is repeatedly displaced into the languages of humanity, culture, spirituality, and civilizational belonging. Bringing together critical caste studies, political anthropology, historiography, and religious studies, this book reveals how narratives of tolerance and pluralism can simultaneously challenge some forms of domination whilst obscuring others.