Seeking Well-Being by Being-With: Care, Sociality, and Divine Closeness among Sufis in the Serbian Sandžak

by Pol Llopart i Olivella 

This paper investigates how Sufi disciples, particularly in the Serbian Sandžak, cultivate social relationships to mediate their proximity with God, and in doing so pursue spiritual and physical healing. Recent studies on the revival of contemporary Sufism in the post-Yugoslav space (Henig 2014) and Albania (Bria 2018) have focused on the disciplinary and spiritual companionship between masters (šejhovi) and disciples (derviši) as ways of “shaping” lives (Aždajić 2020) and “caring for the self” (Kostadinova 2018). While much attention has been devoted to relationships of discipleship as forms to treat the self afflicted by the separation of humans and God. Here, I propose to transcend the sociality of Sufi lodges (tekija), and in turn, look into forms of caring and “ethics of being- with” (Al-Mohammad 2011). In particular, I suggest looking at how Sufi disciples establish and maintain relationships with dead, ill, and poor people to mediate their closeness to God. These relationships entail visiting and supplicating at the graves of “good” dead individuals, an exchange of supplications with ill people, and serving and giving alms to the poor. Practices considered “good” and “doing good” if performed with a sensitive attitude and normative Islamic orientation. These practices and complex relations speak to repairing and harmonizing relationships between the self and others, motivated by and invariably entrenched with divine economies of blessing and care.
The presentation aims to critically engage with conceptualizations of care and well-being intertwined with emergent forms of religious sociality by looking within and beyond its circles. Exploring the synergies and tensions that arise from such understandings and practices with wider societies which Sufi disciples inhabit.