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    My favorite artworks from European Museums

    My favorite artworks from European Museums

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    Gandhara Art in Humboldt Forum: Life of Lord Buddha

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    Jewish Heroes Square in Krakow, Poland

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    Block no. 4 in Auschwitz concentration camp

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    Ottoman tent in Princess Czartoryski Museum in Krakow, Poland

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    The Steam Engine Building, Potsdam, Germany

    Assyrian human-headed winged bull from Nimrud; 9th cent. BCE; Pergamon Museum, Berlin

    Assyrian human-headed winged bull from Nimrud; 9th cent. BCE; Pergamon Museum, Berlin

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    Catacombs in St Peter’s Abbey Salzburg, Austria

    St Nicholas Church in #Leipzeg, #Germany

    St Nicholas Church in #Leipzeg, #Germany

    Gloriette, Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna,Austria

    Gloriette, Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna,Austria

    Matthias Church on Buda Castle Hill, Budapest

    Matthias Church on Buda Castle Hill, Budapest

    The Neptune fountain in Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna, Austria

    The Neptune fountain in Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna, Austria

    The Dohany Street synagogue in Budapest

    St Peter’s Abbey Church in Salzburg, Austria

    St Peter’s Abbey Church in Salzburg, Austria

    The Residence Fountain in Salzburg: Oundof Music

    The Residence Fountain in Salzburg: Oundof Music

    Sultana Daku and Raj Bhawan of Nainital

    Sultana Daku and Raj Bhawan of Nainital

    Sultana Daku and Raj Bhawan of Nainital

    Sultana Daku and Raj Bhawan of Nainital

    Jahan koshan cannon, Murshidabad

    Jahan koshan cannon, Murshidabad

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    Takht-e Marar, Golestan Palance, Teheran, Iran

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      My favorite artworks from European Museums

      My favorite artworks from European Museums

      Gandhara Art in Humboldt Forum: Life of Lord Buddha

      Gandhara Art in Humboldt Forum: Life of Lord Buddha

      Jewish Heroes Square in Krakow, Poland

      Jewish Heroes Square in Krakow, Poland

      Block no. 4 in Auschwitz concentration camp

      Block no. 4 in Auschwitz concentration camp

      Ottoman tent in Princess Czartoryski Museum in Krakow, Poland

      Ottoman tent in Princess Czartoryski Museum in Krakow, Poland

      The Steam Engine Building, Potsdam, Germany

      The Steam Engine Building, Potsdam, Germany

      Assyrian human-headed winged bull from Nimrud; 9th cent. BCE; Pergamon Museum, Berlin

      Assyrian human-headed winged bull from Nimrud; 9th cent. BCE; Pergamon Museum, Berlin

      Catacombs in St Peter’s Abbey Salzburg, Austria

      Catacombs in St Peter’s Abbey Salzburg, Austria

      St Nicholas Church in #Leipzeg, #Germany

      St Nicholas Church in #Leipzeg, #Germany

      Gloriette, Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna,Austria

      Gloriette, Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna,Austria

      Matthias Church on Buda Castle Hill, Budapest

      Matthias Church on Buda Castle Hill, Budapest

      The Neptune fountain in Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna, Austria

      The Neptune fountain in Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna, Austria

      The Dohany Street synagogue in Budapest

      St Peter’s Abbey Church in Salzburg, Austria

      St Peter’s Abbey Church in Salzburg, Austria

      The Residence Fountain in Salzburg: Oundof Music

      The Residence Fountain in Salzburg: Oundof Music

      Sultana Daku and Raj Bhawan of Nainital

      Sultana Daku and Raj Bhawan of Nainital

      Sultana Daku and Raj Bhawan of Nainital

      Sultana Daku and Raj Bhawan of Nainital

      Jahan koshan cannon, Murshidabad

      Jahan koshan cannon, Murshidabad

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      Takht-e Marar, Golestan Palance, Teheran, Iran

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      Review: The Dispossessed and the Possessed

      Anand Vivek Taneja’s 'Jinneaology' seamlessly links Delhi’s past to its present, and its spirit-life to its modern disenchantments.

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      I grew up with stories about Jinn Mamu – whom we never addressed without the suffix of ‘uncle’, because they were veryjalali, or easy to anger. But amamuis fond of their nieces and nephews and will try and fulfil their desires, and never harm them. That is the spirit that prevails among the jinn-saints of Firoz Shah Kotla, except here they are father figures.

      In theQuran, the Jinns are mentioned as very akin to humans, except where humans were made of clay, the Jinns had been created out of smokeless fire and can take on any form they wanted, animal or other. Just as there were good and bad human beings, there were good and bad jinns.

      Anand Kumar Taneja <em>Jinneaology: Time, Islam and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi Stanford University Press, 2017

      Anand Vivek Taneja
      Jinneaology: Time, Islam and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi
      Stanford University Press, 2017

      Firoz Shah Kotla, the fifth city of Delhi, has a local claim to fame that is neither past majesty nor its Ashokan pillar. It is the resident spirits who grant wishes to their many devotees in and around Delhi. At any time of day, you will find incense sticks, diyas and candles burning in nooks and corners of the Kotla. On Thursdays, those whose wishes have been fulfilled distribute pots of biryani and sweet rice.

      It was with great pleasure, anticipation and a sense of trepidation that I started reading Anand Vivek Taneja’sJinneology: Time, Islam and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi– the trepidation because academics books can be more than a layperson can digest. I was surprised to find the book weaving a story of Delhi as an ancient landscape bound together by saints and jinns, fairies and normal folks, sacred spaces and devotees, the dispossessed and the possessed, the disenchanted and the dispenser of justice, and above all, nameless people who bond together over unspoken woes.

      Descent into clay

      The opening verse of the book had me hooked:

      Kho’e hue jahan ka chehra pehen ke aun
      Mitti mn teri utrun tab kya pehen ke aun?

      Shall I come wearing the visage of a lost world?
      How shall I dress when descending into your clay?

      ∼ Riyaz Latif

      Taneja traces the history of the jinn-saints and links it to the disenchantments of the post-Nehruvian era and the atrocities of the emergency in 1975-77. Many of the persons who came to pray here were from the areas worst affected by eviction, demolition drives and forced sterilisation campaigns of those years: mainly working class Muslims and Dalits. Through oral histories, Taneja traces back the tradition of petitioning the saints and the fascinating story of Laddu Shah, a black marketer turned healer.

      This seamless linking of the past and present is the beauty ofJinneology.

      On my innumerable visits to the Firoz Shah Kotla, I have seen hundreds of letters written to the jinn saints, but I could never link them to the past. Taneja writes that these petitions in the Tughlaq ruins are reminiscent ofshikwa, a Perso-Islamic legal form of addressing one’s complaints to the sovereign, practiced in the Delhi Sultanate.

      “The letters written to the jinn-saints enact an intimate sovereignty,” writes Taneja, “A paternalistic government whose justice reaches far beyond the categories of the care imposed by the post-colonial state on its subject population.” That is my own experience too. Those who despair of justice in law courts, or don’t have the wherewithal to fight cases, those whose emotional needs are not taken care of, come to the father-figure that the jinn-saint is and present their shikwa.

      Here one needs no money, no caste status or contact in the echelons of the government. The powers that be here treat everyone equally, and they bond in their despair and in their happiness. In a country being threatened by narrow religious and sectarian divides, this free mingling of men and women, Muslims and non-Muslims, sharing of bread together without worrying about each other’s caste or religion, petitioning jinn-saints together, is heartwarming to say the least. Here a Muslim and a Hindu can petition the jinn-saint for a happy outcome to their love without worrying about being accused of ‘lovejihad‘.

      Nameless intimacy

      Women at Firoz Shah Kotla. Credit: Anand Vivek Taneja

      Women at Firoz Shah Kotla. Credit: Anand Vivek Taneja

      Though Islam is seen as deeply patriarchal, Taneja writes that it becomes anti-patriarchal here. The jinn-saints are seen as fathers of daughters – thebabul – and women outnumber men here. He writes, “I believe that Firoz Shah Kotla and other dargahs serve as a substitute for the relinquished natal home. For women who come to the dargah, the baba, serves as the indulgent, affectionate father of a childhood left behind.” Women talk of their love and desires to the jinn-saints or to strangers with whom they are bound by ‘nameless intimacy’; something they could not do in their normal life, to people they knew well, for fear of reprimands, scandals and gossip.

      Taneja records these letters in the book. He later moves from the jinns to cover the other sacred spaces of Delhi, and as a storyteller of Delhi myself what I found fascinating was his connection between sacred water bodies and its connections with people’s lives. The destruction of wells, reservoirs,baolisthat were often in temple ordargahcompounds meant an end of a common bond between people. An unquestioning acceptance of our fellow beings is diminishing. Delhi marches on, but somewhere its inclusiveness is being compromised.

      I felt Taneja’s anger at the neglected documents in state archives, the failure to produce or read them as evidence in cases related towaqfproperties and the general apathy that we have developed towards our built heritage.

      When I return to the Kotla, I know that I will pay new attention to those who come to pray, and no longer just see them as nameless and faceless but as the people Taneja discovers through his fieldwork, the flesh and blood containing hope, despair, tears and anguish, and celebration.

      Published on https://thewire.in/books/anand-vivek-taneja-jinneaology-review

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      Rana Safvi

      Come, explore and fall in love the Beauties of Delhi (Dilli ki Ranaiya’n) and the World with me, Rana Safvi

      I have a masters in medieval history from the prestigious Centre for Advanced Studies, Dept. of History, AMU. A firm believer in our Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb, I am passionate about gaining and sharing knowledge and these days I am doing it via the social media platform.

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      © 2018 Rana Safvi - A blog Exploring Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb of India, website handcrafted by Abu Sufiyan.