Sufiland - Everyday life with the living dead in Upper Egypt

Sammanfattning: This paper describes how everyday muslims with no formal (or weak) affiliation to sufi brotherhoods in Upper Egypt practice and relate to sufism as a grand scheme or larger islamic tradition. The thesis highlights the importance of islamic sainthood in everyday religion, whereby the saintly dead are regarded as acting intermediaries between the divine and the worldly realms. Saints, holy people and blessed places are given agency through divine blessings, thus allowing villagers to partake in a larger islamic tradition through the mediation of– or cult connected to saints. This paper intends to demonstrate that an islamic concept of sanctity in muslim environments does not only exist historically, but is central to the contemporary religious landscape of Upper Egypt.