Abstract
The study of religion and emotion has opened new opportunities to analyse ideas about devotional practices and gestures. This approach tries to disclose religious emotions and explore various linkages between devotional rituals and religious institutions. By avoiding the doctrinal disputes, doctrinaire taxonomies, and sectarian exclusion that sometimes characterize the study of South Asian Islam, this research paper proposes that mystical performance like sama (lit. ‘hearing’, or ‘Sufi music’) invoked happiness, ecstatic union between human lover and Divine beloved and constructed Muslim identity through Chishti Sufi’s shrines (which are treated as the places of happiness) such as Taunsa Sharif, Sial Sharif and Golra Sharif.
Keyword(s)
emotions, Happiness, Ecstasy, Chishti Sufis, Mystical Practices, Sama, identity, Colonial Punjab