The Body in Remembrance: Dhikr in Moroccan Sufism (2013)
Undergraduate: Lindsay Rosenfeld
Faculty Advisor: Della Pollock
Department: International & Area Studies
In Islam, dhikr is an Arabic word that has accumulated a plentitude of definitions ¿ recollection, remembrance, commemoration, mentioning, and invocation of God. When considering Sufism specifically, dhikr is both the active process of remembering God, His names and manifestations, and a gathering of devotees who together seek to rise above the world of forgetfulness and embrace God into the innermost intimacy of one¿s heart. Though dhikr takes on many forms and expresses itself through many mediums (the tongue, heart, breath, individually, collectively, etc.), the role of body is both unmistakable and understudied. While the body as a system of communication has gained scholarly attention over the years, these theories have yet to be thoroughly applied to dhikr. Thus I hypothesize that within and through this ritual in Morocco, the body transcends the tongue as articulator and the mind as rememberer, becoming an instrument of performance and thought.