WAYFARING: A MUSLIM JOURNEY O F BECOMING LEYYA HOOSEN This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/VND96 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/VND96 285 Arts Research Africa Conference 2020 What are different ways of doing knowledge production and practice? This paper presents an approach to research that combines ethnographic analysis and poetic analysis. By using the structure as well as the content of the writing, this research seeks to explore the process of unfolding, during the dhikr, or practices of remembering, which occur for Sufi Muslim students as they seek spiritual knowledge within the conceptual and lived framework of wayfaring. 286 Arts Research Africa Conference 2020 Leyya H o o sen | W ayfarin g : A M u slim Jo u rn ey o f B eco m in g The presentation space is set up in the format of a Sufi dhikr (meditation) space, with prayer mats laid out, rose and sandalwood incense lit (to open the mind and heart to receiving and channelling knowledge), and rose water sprayed around to cleanse the spiritual space. The at- tendees and I sit in a circle on the prayer mats, with our shoes removed, and on the same level. No enhanced audio was used; I chose to project my voice across the circle to allow for a more intimate setting and avoid the feedback that often accompanies microphones. It was impor- tant to have a stilled and peaceful environment, and to focus our attention, wholly, on the space we were creating. I decided to hold the presentation in this manner to challenge what we consider to be a space of learning and pedagogy. Sufis believe that the process of knowl- edge transmission is one that must engage and discipline all the senses to receive knowledge. As- salamu alaykum (peace be upon you), reader. Thank you for entering this space with me. I would like to blur the lines in terms of what we consider to be spaces of knowledge exchange. The focus of my MA degree, based in social and cultural anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand, was on Sufi dhikr (meditation) practices and pedagogy. Specifically, my study explored how spiritual knowledge and the transcendental are not merely embodied processes but ensouled ones. It is in the spirit of ensoulment—rather than only embodiment—that I offer a Sufi inspired presentation of knowledge transmission. Incense is burning, smoke trailing into the air, as we are all seated… The focus of my MA sought to understand the ways in which dhikr (meditation) practic- es and pedagogy in a Sufi community in Johannesburg leads to spiritual development and transformation. Within the Sufi community, the conceptual and lived frame- work of wayfaring is prominent. I engaged this framework through the dhikr (medita- tive) practices of a Sufi youth group based in the Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg (the majority of the academic literature on Islam in Johannesburg has dealt with the migrant experience of Muslims in Fordsburg, and, while this is important, there is a significant gap in the research regarding other forms of Islam and everyday Islamic practices). The activities of the group revolve around dhikr: practices of “remember- ing,” which are acts of past, present, and future- making, involved in spiritual trans- formation. Drawing on experiences from the year I spent (2018) attending the dhikrs, I focused on wayfaring as a constant state of dhikr, and a means through which Sufi Muslims are reshaping and negotiating notions of personhood and belonging. My research is concerned with questions around different ways of doing knowl- edge production and practice. The thesis was written as a combination of ethnograph- ic and poetic analysis, which considered—through structure as well as content—the process of unfolding that occurs for a Sufi student as they seek spiritual knowledge within the conceptual and lived framework of wayfaring. I would like to mirror that amalgamation of the poetic and ethnographic analysis in this written paper, as I did in the presentation format. I invite you to join in a brief guided meditation where I share a few of the poetic sections from my MA thesis regarding the nature and process of awakening to spiritual knowledge. Thereafter, I outline the central theme of my pa- per—that of ensouled knowledge. Sufi poetry is an inherently social practice and is shared between community members as a tool to express and engage the transcendental. By adopting a meshwork methodology of autoethnographic approaches, participant participation,1 and poetic analysis, I found that I was better able to engage the transcendental in a manner that acknowledges not only belief systems, but complex knowledge systems and cosmolo- gies in a deeply embodied, and ensouled, mode of research. Hence, pulling through the 287 Arts Research Africa Conference 2020 Leyya H o o sen | W ayfarin g : A M u slim Jo u rn ey o f B eco m in g artistic impetus from the conception of the research project right through to the final product, produced as a meditation and dialogue between the ethnographic and poetic analysis, allowed a more nuanced understanding of Sufi dhikr practices and pedagogy. With this in mind, I invite you to partake in a guided meditation, as I recount a part of the process that I have undergone in learning how to treat, and be treated by: the spiritual knowledge I learnt attending the dhikrs during my year of fieldwork. Close your eyes… breathe in Al—meaning ‘The’… breathe out Lah—meaning ‘One’… Al… Lah… ‘The’… ‘One’… Dear Earnest Scholar, There are many things that you will not come to know in this life. More so, most things you cannot know in this life. Do you know this? Do you know that, no matter how much you come to know, there is so much more you will not? Do you know that your body, your mind, cannot hold the knowl- edge of most things? Do you know this? … And, knowing this, what does this knowledge mean for you? What does knowing there is knowledge you cannot know—cannot hold—mean for your scholarship? What does learn- ing first what you cannot know, mean to you? Before you learn to know anything, you must learn to un- know; to empty yourself of all you think you know. You must scrape away all the arrogance in your being that makes you think you know anything. Mine yourself for knowledge. Learn where knowledge sits in you. Learn how knowledge moves in you, animates you, emanates within you. Qalb—meaning heart. Your heart is a channel for knowledge, a tightrope between your ma- terial body and your soul… learn to dance along this line. Do not focus on the rope, nor the destination, too much. Rather, focus on refining your movements along this rope, on its tex- tures and length, on other ropes around you with their own dancers. Spin webs from these ropes, immerse yourself in the fibres. Extend. Extend your awareness beyond your own rope, beyond the awareness of other ropes around you, beyond the awareness of others tripping or clinging or hanging about their ropes, frantically reaching for others to help them create a sturdiness that cannot be… Extend… Create not illusory bridges but webs… Extend… find other seekers, know them by their dancing upon their ropes, by their skilled web- spinning… Be gentle with yourself, move lightly through your learning. Knowledge emerges from the alchemy of these webs, it hovers ever- present in the spaces all around; it is your medium and your materiality… it Is. Dear Weary Traveller, You pass so many on this journey… so many versions of yourself. This path is made of mirror. To find it, you must wipe away the dirt and grime. But before you can even start to follow it, you are immediately faced with your own reflection staring back at you. 288 Arts Research Africa Conference 2020 Leyya H o o sen | W ayfarin g : A M u slim Jo u rn ey o f B eco m in g I can see your feet are calloused from treading upon the glass, I can see your eyes are searching for others beyond their own reflections, I can see your body is calling upon all its reserves to push further, I can see you, Weary Traveller, I can see you even if you cannot yet see me. Keep walking. At your pace, in your time. Keep walking. Keep polishing that glass to find the Path. Keep confronting your reflection in its infinite varieties. Keep following the Way. I know that you are wearied, but this is not your home. Resting places lie upon the path, yes, but these are not your Home. Keep taking those steps, Dear One, your Beloved awaits your return at day’s end… Dear Teacher, Learn. Learn to bring bodies and spaces into the music you are dancing to. Weave them to- gether in ways, such that the spinning captures the Light in all and shines forth for all to see. Let your students be your guide—each one contains within them the pattern in which they wish to be spun. Seek the pattern and bring it forth. Continuously read the textures, gestures, vibrations, and movements. Write yourself into the moment so that those around you can learn to be scribes themselves. Above all, dear teacher, be taught. When you are ready, please open your eyes. During my year of fieldwork, the Sufi youth group was in the process of establishing it- self. Since Sufism refrains from becoming institutionalised, it is common to see groups moving through periods of expansion and contraction in terms of membership. The format of the group over this time changed to accommodate the students’ progress. Initially, as the students were new to dhikr, the meditations of the group were focused on transcendence meditations: going beyond the body and the material world. The main purpose of these meditations was for students to be initiated into the practices of dhikr, and to learn the differences between their body and their soul (between the experience of ultimate Duality and Unity). The interpretation of texts, during this in- itial phase, was used to frame the experience of the body. As the students became adept at experiencing nuanced dhikr sessions, the medi- tations of the group became more theory- based. These were known as the grounding meditations and were intended for students to become fluent in practices of dhikr and to focus on crafting their bodily presence. During this secondary phase, the experience of the body was used to frame the interpretation of texts. Abd al-Qadir Al- Jīlānī explains that, in Sufism, souls are created from the Divine Light of Allah and have descended from this realm into the material world. He goes further to explain that a “time came when these souls started binding themselves to the flesh and forgot their source.”2 Within this understanding, dhikr is the act of 289 Arts Research Africa Conference 2020 Leyya H o o sen | W ayfarin g : A M u slim Jo u rn ey o f B eco m in g remembering one’s source of creation, and living in this life with the practical under- standing that all of existence comes from the same source. During the dhikrs, by framing the body as a vessel through which the interpre- tation of texts is filtered and as a mechanism of filtering the interpretation of texts, Sufis engage in a process of knowledge production that is more resonant of knowl- edge transmission. By acutely disciplining the body and learning how to filter and make sense of experiences of the body, the body becomes a tool in knowledge transmission to be used at the will of the individual. These movements of interpretation, from being text- based to be more body- based seems to refer to an embodied sense of knowledge. However, considering the expanded sense of the body, and acknowledging rather, the bodily presence, students explore a process of knowledge transmission that is ensouled. Talal Asad describes en- soulment as “the idea that the living human body is an integrated totality having de- velopable capacities for activity and experience unique to it, the capacities for sensing, imagining, and doing that are culturally mediated.”3 Tim Ingold speaks about the body’s capacity to remember when he says that “only the body remembers … The hand can bring itself into use, and in its practised move- ments can tell the story of its own life.”4 Thinking about this through the lens of dhikr, ensoulment is more than just an enactment of remembrance or remembering—it is, as al- Jīlānī outlines, the intimate remembrance of Allah, despite the forgetfulness of the flesh- body. Dhikr is more than embodied learning because knowledge is not pro- duced or consumed by the body. Knowledge is awakened to by the spirit within the for- getfulness of the flesh. By this we can understand that knowledge is not considered as located within the body, but rather within the spirit that is enrobed by the body. Dear Seeker, Reach. Leyya is a PhD Candidate in Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand; Wadsworth African Fellow; Wenner- Gren Foundation; Social Science Research Council (SSRC)Fellow; Mellon Mays Fellow; and Re- Centring AfroAsia Research Fellow; leyya.hoosen@gmail.com mailto:leyya.hoosen%40gmail.com?subject= 290 Arts Research Africa Conference 2020 Leyya H o o sen | W ayfarin g : A M u slim Jo u rn ey o f B eco m in g Notes 1 Kersenboom, ‘The Faculty of the Voice’. 2 al- Jīlānī and Bayrak, The Secret of Secrets. 3 Asad, Formations of the Secular, 89. 4 Ingold, Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description, 57; emphasis in original. 291 Arts Research Africa Conference 2020 Leyya H o o sen | W ayfarin g : A M u slim Jo u rn ey o f B eco m in g References al- Jīlānī, Abd al- Qadir, and Tosun Bayrak. The Secret of Secrets. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1992. Asad, Talal. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003. Ingold, Tim. Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London: Routledge, 2011. Kersenboom, Saskia. ‘The Faculty of the Voice’. In The Power of Performance: Actors, Audiences, and Observers of Cultural Performances in India, edited by Heidrun Brückner, Elisabeth Schömbucher, and Phillip B. Zarrilli, 197–209. New Delhi: Manohar, 2007. Christo Doherty | Introduction Michael Schwab | Opening Address | Dynamics Nhlanhla Mahlangu with Jane Taylor | Opening Performance and Dialogue | Chant Brett Pyper | Artistic Research and African Musical Performance: Listening Beyond Euro-­American Canons Michelle Stewart | Creative Practice and Research: An Artist-­Scholar Perspective Samuel Ravengai | Artistic Research in Africa with Specific Reference to South Africa and Zimbabwe: Formulating the Theory of Afroscenology Sandra Felix | A PhD in Practice-­based Design Research in Architecture at Wits University Moses Nii-­Dortey | Finding The Lost Fishermen: A Study in Recovery and Performance as Preservation Louise Hall | Perspectives on Practice-­led Research in Visual Art at the University of KwaZulu-­Natal Kgomotso Moshugi | Creating New, Previously Unknown Outcomes: Joy By and By Remade Mark Fleishman | Artistic Research and the Institution: A Cautionary Tale Stefan Winter | Exposure to the Unknown: Artistic Research in the European Sphere Kathyayini Dash | Unpacking the Figure of the Artist-­Fieldworker Zanele Siko | Performance-­lecture | African Spiritual Healing in Drama Therapy: An Exploration of Movement and Sound as a means of Facilitating Healing Jason Jacobs | Performance-­lecture | Dream Translation and African Artistic Research Kolodi Senong | Exhibition-­dialogue | Darkness after Light: A Visual Portrait of Lefifi Tladi Dimakatso Motholo | Performance-­lecture | Cultural Kasi’preneur Edda Sickinger | Performance-­lecture | URBAN TOUCH Nicola Genovese | White Italian Masculinity through the Frame of Visual and Performance Art Myer Taub with Manola Gayatri | Performance-­lecture | If I’m Left Alone I Will Die or Will I Find New Roots, Breed, Breathe, Bleed Kristina Johnstone | Workshop | Movement Improvisation and Real-­time Composition as a way to Discover Decolonial Ethical Research Methods Oluwadamilola Apotieri-­Abdulai and Petro Janse van Vuuren | Workshop | Applied Improvisation in Africa: Facilitating Embodiment Work in Online Rooms Sharlene Khan and Fouad Asfour | Workshop | Decolonial AestheSis Parcours Jessica Foli | Inganekwane, Folktale, Anansi Story: Recognising Indigenous Knowledge in the Performing Arts Balindile ka Ngcobo | Performance-­lecture | KhuLuLeKa, or The Monomyth of NoBaNtu and the Ppl Gerrit Olivier | Thinking about Research and Creative Endeavour Sela Kodjo Adjei | The Philosophy of Art in Ewe Vodu Religion Geir Strøm | The Norwegian Artistic Research School: Structure and Content Panel Discussion | in collaboration with MADEYOULOOK Rebekka Sandmeier | Artistic Research in Music as Doctoral Study: Challenges and Opportunities for Universities in South Africa Visser Liebenberg | Engaging with Sound Writing Mareli Stolp | Artistic Research as African Epistemology Hans Ramduth | Addressing Artistic Research at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute in Mauritius: Challenges for a Small Island Developing State in Africa Joani Groenewald and Ernst van der Wal | The Translated Landscape: Interpreting South Africa through Jewellery Praxis Joseph Toltz | The Value of Australian Artistic Research: How Works are Assessed, the Place of Peer Evaluation, and the Anxiety of Future Metric Measurement Leyya Hoosen | Wayfaring: A Muslim Journey of Becoming Phumelele Mzimela | Revisiting Dorothy Masuka’s Hamba Nontsokolo: Tales of Women, Migrancy, and Jazz in the 1950s Marc Duby and Paul Cooper | Performance-lecture on the topic of interdisciplinary collaboration between art and music Katleho Kano Shoro | Performance-­lecture | Unintended Artistic Research on Memory, Masculinity, and African Beauty: The Case of Serurubele Tshego Khutsoane, Les Nkosi, and Petro Janse van Vuuren | Performance-­lecture | Trash, Boer, and Brat—A Redemptive Theatre Performance Nico Athene | Performance-­lecture | Dear Irreducibility … Approximating Uncertainty as a Queer Ethics of Relations David Andrew with Hedwig Barry | Performance-­dialogue | Practices, Pedagogies, and Desires: Untethering Research Nduka Mntambo | Installation-­lecture | Itinerant/Iterative Cartographies: Explorations in Cinematic Practices Crystal Endsley and Anthony Keith | Performance-­lecture | Educational Emcees in the Academy: Spoken Word Poetry as Scholarly Praxis Yonela Mnana | Performance-­lecture | Matshikiza’s King Kong Re-­heard: A Pianistic Inquiry Bongile Lecogo-­Zulu and Calvin Ratladi | Performance-­lecture | Godot-­Logue in Gauteng: Performance Practice as a (Re)presentation of Artistic Research Berhanu Ashagrie Deribew | Closing Address