{"id":28219,"date":"2023-09-29T13:37:46","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T10:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kerimvakfi.org\/vakfin-calismasi\/the-extraordinary-enchanted-journey-of-a-female-scholar-saint-in-the-afghan-empire-dr-waleed-ziad\/"},"modified":"2023-09-29T13:37:46","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T10:37:46","slug":"the-extraordinary-enchanted-journey-of-a-female-scholar-saint-in-the-afghan-empire-dr-waleed-ziad","status":"publish","type":"avada_portfolio","link":"https:\/\/kerimvakfi.org\/en\/vakfin-calismasi\/the-extraordinary-enchanted-journey-of-a-female-scholar-saint-in-the-afghan-empire-dr-waleed-ziad\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Extraordinary, Enchanted Journey of a Female Scholar Saint in the Afghan Empire\u201d Dr. Waleed Ziad"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Institute for Sufi Studies,\u00a0Humanity, Sufi Thought and Healing Lecture Series<\/em><\/p>\n

Dr. Waleed Ziad<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Extraordinary, Enchanted Journey of a Female Scholar Saint in the Afghan Empire<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

September 29, Friday 2023, at 15.00-16.00<\/p>\n

Room B-1- 13 A Building of South Campus of \u00dcsk\u00fcdar University<\/p>\n

Abstract<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Extraordinary, Enchanted Journey of a Female Scholar Saint in the Afghan Empire\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the turn of the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0century, Bibi Sahiba Kalan (1752-1803), Kabul\u2019s great female Sufi master and scholar, was recognized as the \u201cmost exalted saint\u201d of the age. Her network of thousands of disciples spanned the Arabian Sea to Central Asia. She was the spiritual guide of scholars, poets, and nobles, invited to Bukhara by the khan himself. She led a caravan to Mecca, and built and managed colleges and shrines at Kandahar, Yemen, and Sindh. Bibi Sahiba\u2019s sons and grandchildren \u2013 Sufi masters in their own right \u2013 defended Afghanistan in the Anglo-Afghan Wars. They expanded Bibi Sahiba\u2019s spiritual network all the way to the Thar desert and Rajasthan, where at least fifteen great female saints were appointed as their successors – each with Muslim and Hindu disciples in the thousands.<\/p>\n

These female saints are the subject of Prof. Waleed Ziad\u2019s forthcoming book Sufi Masters of the Afghan Empire: Bibi Sahiba and her Sacred networks (Harvard 2024), based on fieldwork in five languages in several dozen towns and villages from the Thar desert to the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands to Central Asia. Dr Ziad\u2019s research overturns our assumptions on Muslim women\u2019s empowerment before colonialism; His research indicates that Bibi Sahiba was one of many female religious leaders in what is today Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan from the 18th<\/sup>\u00a0to 20th<\/sup>\u00a0centuries.<\/p>\n

Who is Waleed Ziad?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Waleed Ziad is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to this, he was the Islamic Law and Civilization Research Fellow at Yale Law School. He completed his PhD in the Department of History at Yale University, where he won the university-wide Field Prize, the highest Yale doctoral dissertation award across all disciplines. He also received his MA\/MPhil and BA from Yale. For over a decade, Dr. Ziad has conducted fieldwork on historical and contemporary religious revivalism and Sufism in over 140 towns across Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan. Dr. Ziad has studied Persian, Urdu, Arabic, French, Sindhi, Uzbek \/ Chaghatai and Romanian.<\/p>\n

His book\u00a0Hidden Caliphate: Sufi Saints beyond the Oxus and Indus\u00a0<\/em>(Harvard, 2021) was awarded the Albert Hourani award, the most prestigious book prize in Middle East and Islamic Studies of the year.\u00a0<\/em>He also recently published\u00a0In the Treasure Room of the Sakra King: Votive Coinage from Gandharan Shrines\u00a0<\/em>(ANS, 2022). His forthcoming books include\u00a0Sufi Masters of the Afghan Empire: Bibi Sahiba and Her Spiritual Network\u00a0<\/em>(Harvard, exp. 2024), and\u00a0Beyond the Khutba and Sikka: Sovereignty and Coinage in Sindh<\/em>\u00a0(in progress). His articles on historical and ideological trends in the Muslim world have appeared in the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>,\u00a0International Herald Tribune<\/em>, the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>,\u00a0Foreign Policy<\/em>,\u00a0Christian Science Monitor<\/em>, and\u00a0The Hill<\/em>, among others.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>