From Shrine to Text: Translation, Authority, and the Afterlife of Kashf al-Mahjūb in South Asia

Abstract

This article examines the transformation of Sufism in South Asia through the translation and circulation of Kashf al-Mahjūb, the eleventh-century Persian treatise attributed to Ali Hujwiri. Rather than approaching European engagement with Sufism solely through the lens of Orientalist appropriation, the article treats translation as an epistemic intervention—an act that reshapes the meaning, authority, and social function of religious knowledge rather than merely transferring it between languages. Focusing on the modern reception of Kashf al-Mahjūb, it traces how translation contributed to the reconfiguration of Sufi knowledge from shrine-centered devotional practice toward scriptural and intellectual discourse.

Situating this process within Lahore as an epistemic center, the article examines how the intellectualization of Sufism intersected with the emergence of a Muslim Ashraf whose religious authority increasingly rested on textual literacy and Sunni normativity. Through a comparative analysis of Muslim intellectuals such as Wahid Bakhsh Siyal and European seekers including Shahidullah and Faruq Ahmad Faridi, it demonstrates how the same Sufi text generated divergent religious subjectivities. Integrating medieval Sufi memory, Mughal historiography, colonial translation, and postcolonial reinterpretation, the study reframes Sufism not as a tradition in decline, but as one continually re-articulated through text, space, and class.