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Performance, Belonging and Identity:

Ritual Variations in the British
Qadiriyya
Marta Dominguez Diaz
Version of record first published: 22 Sep 2011.

To cite this article: Marta Dominguez Diaz (2011): Performance, Belonging and Identity: Ritual
Variations in the British Qadiriyya, Religion, State and Society, 39:2-3, 229-245

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 Religion, State & Society, Vol. 39, Nos. 2/3, June/September 2011

Performance, Belonging and Identity: Ritual Variations in

the British Qadiriyya

MARTA DOMINGUEZ DIAZ

ABSTRACT
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Scholarship on modern Sufism has centred on the analysis of turuq (sing. tariqa – often translated
as ‘Sufi orders’), by scrutinising the institutional dimension of a group of devotees who gather
around a sheikh, and/or the set of religious practices and doctrines believed to be characteristic
of each tariqa. Even though Sufi orders have expanded internationally, creating new local
communities, the underlying rationale of the shared religious character of each tariqa prevails in
most studies. This paper explores the dynamics of reterritorialisation of a Moroccan Sufi order, the
Qadiriyya, in the United Kingdom by comparing it to other enclaves of the same order in
continental Europe. It suggests that ritual variations are indicative of the religious diversity
existing within each order. In order to do so, the article focuses on the analysis of ritual practices
and it addresses how ritual performance evolves when a Sufi order becomes transnational. More
precisely, it looks at the effects of ritual on the dynamics and unity within the Qadiriyya and the
extent to which the reconfiguration of ritual practice contributes to the expansion of the order
beyond its original enclave. The article scrutinises ritual variances as developed by the British
Qadiriyya and considers the implications that these changes have for the religious identity of local
groups of devotees as well as for its relationship with the rest of the enclaves that conform to the
order.

Introduction
Scholarship dealing with transnational Sufi orders (or turuq, sing. tariqa) tends to
assume a basic underlying unity throughout the enclaves of a tariqa that exist in
different parts of the world. In this view, the dynamics of deterritorialisation and
reterritorialisation1 are generally recognised, yet the enclaves of Sufi orders existing in
‘the West’ are often assumed to be broadly similar. The model used in those studies
is of a ‘centre–periphery’ type.2 It describes a ‘centre’ existing somewhere in the
Muslim World where an ‘authentic’ religious identity is produced and a ‘periphery’
existing in Europe or North America in which three kinds of groups can be found:
(1) ‘transplants’ of the centre’s religiosity (that is, groups that reproduce the
characteristics of their religiosities as they existed in the original enclave – see for
example Ballard, 2006; Werbner, 2005),3 (2) ‘hybrids’, which incorporate some
‘western’ features, with significant proportions of European converts to Islam who

ISSN 0963-7494 print; ISSN 1465-3974 online/11/2-30229-17 Ó 2011 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2011.577200
 230 Marta Dominguez Diaz

have somehow diluted its original character by adopting ‘western values’ (see for
example Hammer, 2004; Webb, 2005), and (3) ‘perennials’,4 western interpretations of
Sufism made by converts only. In this view, aspects seen as indicative of the degree
of westernisation are, for instance, elements that are conceived as products of
‘westernisation’, including the loss of a dress code for females (see for example
Lewisohn, 2006) or the elimination of gender segregation in ritual gatherings (see for
example Genn, 2007).
Following Appadurai’s critique of ‘westernisation’ theories (1990, 1996),5 in
which he contends that cultural exchange always works in both directions, and
applying it to the study of a transnational Sufi order, I argue that the notion of
‘westernisation’ is a construct that is of little help in understanding the dynamics of
religious transformation at a transnational scale. Instead, the study of the
Budshishiyya shows how a transnational tariqa has diversely adapted into different
European contexts, and I shall demonstrate that the processes of religious rerooting
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are diverse and manifold and cannot be reduced to the westernised/unwesternised

dyad. In this article I suggest that this depiction of religious reterritorialisation
among Sufi orders in Western Europe fails to understand the dynamics of
transnational religion. By focusing on analysing a ‘hybrid’ group which is part of a
transnational Moroccan tariqa,6 I suggest that ‘westernisation’ theories fail to
provide a nuanced insight into the complexities involved in identity formation when
religions reterritorialise.
‘Westernisation’ may have a wide variety of meanings: when it comes to the study of
Islam in Europe, ‘westernisation’ is used to indicate features as diverse as the adoption
of a less modest dress style to the defence of ideologies in support of personal liberty
or human rights, aspects that may also appear among Sufi groups in the Muslim
World.7 Additionally, this overgeneralisation often takes for granted a core of cultural
values shared between people from various ‘western’ cultures, discerning neither, for
example, between diverse European identities, nor between various ideologies. A
second concern with the thesis of ‘westernisation’ is that cultural influences never
imprint upon a tabula rasa, in which the person’s background is wholly abandoned to
adopt the new ‘westernised’ identity. Cultural influences do not operate in one
direction only but occur at a dialectic level; thus elements are not adopted without
being reappropriated, contested and/or transformed. Finally, a third objection is that
to be ‘westernised’ one does not need to be a westerner, and in many cases the term is
applied to Muslims born and raised in Western Europe or North America. Instead of
recurring to theories of ‘westernisation’ in order to analyse a Moroccan tariqa in
Europe I assert that the paths followed by transnational religions when they
reterritorialise are of a complex and intricate nature.
In this paper I aim to explore the dynamics of reterritorialisation of a Moroccan
Sufi order in the United Kingdom by comparing it to other enclaves of the same order
in continental Europe. I will focus on the analysis of ritual practices, for ritual is
illustrative of the identity of religious groups: rituals mirror religious identity and the
dynamics of religious transformation are physically expressed by collective ritual
practices. Consequently, they can be elucidated by looking at the ways in which the
collective body of disciples ‘manifests’ in ritual performance. The fact that Sufism is a
highly performative type of religiosity adds interest to the study of ritual as religious
identity. I shall suggest that rituals tell us about the identity of a religious group, its
degree of cohesiveness and institutionalisation. The ethnographic data from which
this conclusion is drawn were gathered in Morocco and Western Europe, from among
the female devotees of the tariqa Qadiriyya Budshishiyya.
 Performance, Belonging and Identity 231

In the Budshishiyya, religious experience is thought to be obtained by religious

praxis, with its fourfold components: (1) salat: the five daily prayers common to all
Muslims; but more relevantly, (2) wazifa: the weekly collective sessions of Allah’s
remembrance or dhikr sessions (some devotees also call this hadra); (3) lila:
international sessions that occur once or twice a year; and (4) ziyara: pilgrimage to
a holy place, generally a Sufi lodge, tomb or shrine. This article deals with the most
relevant among the Budshishiyya’s rituals, the collective weekly dhikr performance
known as wazifa.8 The duration of the wazifa varies from group to group, as does the
volume level of the chanting during the ceremony. In general terms, these sessions last
between two and five hours, with some groups being fairly quiet, while others are
more expressive. The entire session consists of the recitation of litanies, mainly
Quranic passages, with devotees sitting cross-legged in a circle on the floor, with their
backs straight and their eyes, for the most part, closed. Women dress modestly; most
of them wear Moroccan dress ( jilaba) and all are veiled for the occasion.
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In contrast with Staal’s (1979) understanding of rituals as meaningless action,

I conceive the Budshishiyya’s wazifa as acts of communication that hold specific
meanings and pursue determined purposes. To demonstrate this, in this article I shall
first introduce the growing relevance of ritual in the Budshishiyya and discuss how
this phenomenon is intimately related to the geographical expansion of the order
internationally; second, I shall argue that rituals in the Budshishiyya are effective
means for legitimising religious authority; and, third, I shall discuss how ritual
performance in the Birmingham group differs from that followed by other European
groups, as well as the reasons for introducing changes and the implications thereof
for the cohesion of the order at a transnational scale. Overall, I shall seek in this
article to address how ritual performance evolves when a Sufi order becomes
transnational and the effects of ritual on the dynamics and unity of a religious
organisation. In doing so, I shall illustrate that ‘westernisation’ theories applied to
the study of transnational Sufism fail to understand the nuanced nature of religious
rerooting.

Researching the Qadiriyya Budshishiyya

The Budshishiyya provides a fascinating case study for our understanding of the
dynamics of transnational religious groups. This Moroccan order has developed a
geography of varied groups that extends across the globe, from the Berber-dominated
Moroccan wilaya of Oujda, a region that still contains the majority of its devotees, to
West Africa, Western Europe and North and South America. A series of doctrinal
changes undertaken during the 1970s has enabled the order to surpass its traditional
ethnic boundaries, and to attract members from a variety of backgrounds. Today,
in addition to the Berber peasantry, the Budshishiyya is popular among certain
middle-class Arab populations of the Moroccan metropolises, while it has reached
Europe though migratory channels; at present there are various groups composed
of Moroccan labour migrants who settled in France, Belgium and Spain. The
membership of the order in Europe evidences the type of cultural me´lange
characteristic of many turuq today and in the last two decades groups of non-
Moroccan followers (Muslims and converts alike) have emerged, creating new types of
‘hybrid’ enclaves. These new groups tend to have an extremely varied membership,
including converts (non-Muslims who formally join the Budshishiyya by undertaking
the Islamic rite of conversion or shahada), ‘reverts’ (those who were born Muslim and
after a period of religious disengagement go back to practise Islam) and ‘reaffiliated
 232 Marta Dominguez Diaz

Muslims’ (people who leave a particular denomination or sect to join another, all
within Islam).
A comparative analysis of ‘hybrid’ groups in the Budshishiyya (Dominguez Diaz,
2010b) reveals interesting differences among them. Avoiding a clichéd approach to
Sufi hybridity, I have found out that the scarce presence of Moroccan migrants in the
UK translates into the fact that there are no Moroccan migrants in British enclaves,
whereas in continental Europe in almost every location there is a group made up of
Moroccan members and a ‘hybrid’ group. Another difference between the
Budshishiyya in Continental Europe and in the UK is that whereas in Belgium,
France and Spain the majority of members in hybrid groups are revert Muslims of
North African descent and convert members, the majority of the British devotees are
reaffiliated Muslims of South Asian descent.9 They were often former members of
other orders, mostly of North African origin (for example the Shadhiliyya and the
Murabitun). Geaves has suggested that ‘Sufism in Britain remained tightly bound up
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with ethnic identity . . . . Sometimes these traditions are duplicated so effectively in the
diaspora situation, providing a mirror image of village customs and practices’
(Geaves, 2009, p. 97). The case of the Budshishiyya thus presents an exceptional
situation, because it shows a greater degree of cultural mixing.10
There are very few scholarly works on the Budshishiyya.11 The data gathered for
this article are mainly the result of fieldwork research carried out as part of my
doctoral thesis between December 2006 and August 2009. I have visited female
devotees from the majority of the enclaves, I have made the pilgrimage to the central
lodge (zawiya) in Madagh (Morocco) with European devotees (in March 2008) to
attend the Budshishiyya’s major celebration, the Mawlid,12 and I have been to Paris to
attend an international Budshishiyya gathering (in February 2008) with female
devotees from the London and Birmingham groups. I gathered information about the
British Budshishiyya in particular at those events and also by visiting the London
group in December 2006. Another valuable source of information has been the written
and media materials produced by members of the order (videos of Sidi Hamza, the
leader of the order, on Youtube; forums of followers; groups on Facebook; official
web pages; booklets, pamphlets and books).
The Budshishiyya is a gendered organisation and ritual gatherings and most
socialising activities are gender-segregated; as a result, and because I am a female
researcher, this paper deals only with rituals performed by female devotees. I assume
that my claims might not equally apply to the male groups, and would suggest the
need for conducting further research among male devotees to complement my
findings. Although devotees claim to perform the same practices regardless of gender,
race or nationality, I have found during my research that the meanings, purpose and
performance of rituals vary according to geography and that female members in
different enclaves perceive them differently. As a result of the fact that gender is
constitutive of how one experiences identity, one might assume that variations
between male and female might also be significant. Gender differences in the
performance and meaning of rituals constitute a still underdeveloped field of research
that would deserve further scholarly attention.

Ritual and ‘the Experiential’

Becoming a transnational organisation brought about major changes to this
Moroccan tariqa. Its expansion beyond the original context meant that the one-to-
one style of religious instruction had to be transformed, because thenceforward the
 Performance, Belonging and Identity 233

sheikh could not be physically present to teach all his disciples. Those shifts in the
relationship sheikh/devotee need to be explained in relation to the introduction of a
new way of conceiving ritual practices (Dominguez Diaz, 2010b). The personalised
method of transmitting knowledge was replaced by a new concept of religious
instruction, in which the idea of ‘Sidi Hamza’s spiritual love’ (mahabba) for his
disciples was to acquire the status of a ‘tool’ for knowledge acquisition, thus replacing
the personal training once imparted by the master. In order to feel the sheikh’s love
and improve his/her ‘spiritual knowledge’, what the devotee had to do was to perform
collective wazifat. In this way, religious instruction and knowledge were substituted by
religious practice,13 and ritual adopted an unprecedented relevance in this religiosity.
One of Sidi Hamza’s sayings illustrates the significance given to the wazifa: ‘The two
royal gates that give access to God are invocations (dhikr) and generosity’; and
another emphasises the diminishing importance of one-to-one instruction: ‘Oral
teaching is not necessary. What is most important is the transformation of hearts.’
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(Sayings, n.d)
Today, the experiential emphasis characterises this and other Sufi religiosities in ‘the
West’ (Hammer, 2004; Hermansen, 2004) and elsewhere (Howell, 2007a,b) and has
allowed them to extend transregionally and internationally.14 Beyond Sufism, the
‘experiential’ approach seems also to be common among other converts to Islam in
Europe, as Köse has noted (1996, p. 177) and among members of New Religious
Movements of the ‘world-accommodating’ type in which most rituals are performed
collectively and their performance is presented as being of individual benefit (Wallis,
1984, p. 36). British devotees of the Budshishiyya see this tariqa as an eminently
‘practical religiosity’, as a behavioural guide accompanied by a series of ritual
exercises which aims to bring about the ‘inner transformation of the seeker’.

Regularly practiced invocation [dhikr] will progressively make desires and

impure thoughts disappear. Likewise, if hunters go every morning to the
forest and shoot their guns, all the animals, in fear, will flee when they hear
the shots. They will return a little later in the day, but if the hunters come
back every day, the animals will change location. (Sayings, n.d.)

Approaching religion from an experiential angle is specially emphasised by its urban

followers in Morocco and Western Europe.15
The leader of the order, Sidi Hamza, presents in his sayings an individualistic
approach to religion, one that involves self-reflection by calling for an ‘inner renovation’
of the devotee, as noted in almost all the written materials produced by this tariqa.
One of the British booklets of the order reads: ‘Within the Path, one should avoid
getting bogged down on points of fixation . . . remain firmly anchored to one’s
practices’; and also ‘Do not seek the Truth; first try to purify yourself’ (Tariqa, n.d.).
This purification is meant to be achieved through ritual practice. Yet, one might notice
that this epitomises an approach to religious knowledge that involves ‘reading’ about
Islam. Berber members seem not to have adopted this approach, not only because the
‘experiential’ emphasis is the result of exporting the tariqa beyond the original rural
milieu, but also because literacy rates in rural Morocco are still very low.16

Ritual Distinctiveness and Legitimacy

The formula recited, that is the verses and phrases, the number of times they are
repeated and the order in which they are chanted changes from time to time. This
 234 Marta Dominguez Diaz

formula tends to be ‘renovated’ approximately once a year, when the central lodge
sends out booklets containing the new formula. The formula is periodically changed
because devotees believe that the needs of the community undergo natural
transformations as a result of the changing circumstances of the group; every specific
formula is designed to address the particularities of a specific milieu at a particular
time. According to various devotees, one of the most significant roles of Sidi Hamza as
a leader is to design the new formulae in accordance with the requirements of each
time. I suggest that when the contacts between sheikh and devotee are infrequent, the
annual renewal of the formula is a pivotal element in preserving the legitimacy of
religious authority.
As the majority of members do not have regular contact with the leadership of the
order, the belief in the need to change the ritual formula gives a sense of
purposefulness to Sidi Hamza’s role that otherwise seems too fuzzy to some members.
Many devotees talk about the renewal of the wazifa formulae among the first things
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mentioned when describing Sidi Hamza’s role as a leader of the order: ‘in this way he
[Sidi Hamza] guides us in our Path towards Allah’.17 Afra, a British devotee, used the
metaphor of Sidi Hamza as their ‘doctor’, with the formula being the medical
prescription which will cure the devotee’s spiritual sickness. Rituals can be expressions
of power (Leach, 2000). In the Budshishiyya, they are perceived as mechanisms to
instil order in the world. Rituals should be seen as efficacious ways of authenticating
the power of the leader among the members of the British Budshishiyya, because their
correct performance ultimately depends on Sidi Hamza.
Through the renewal of prescribed acts and the content of the wazifa, Sidi Hamza’s
leadership is reaffirmed even among those who do not have personal encounters with
him regularly – for example the majority of the British devotees. A wazifa should
always be led by a muqaddima, a person authorised by the leadership in Madagh to
lead the session. Muqaddimat are secondary authorities within the order. They are
often devotees from local enclaves who have been ‘trained’ by members of the central
lodge to perform the ritual practices adequately and to ensure that there are no ritual
deviations. Although there are subtle differences in the ways in which each devotee
enacts the sequence of prescribed recitations, the muqaddima is in charge of
minimising such variations. This feature is a key element in the ritual, one which is
central to its legitimacy. The patterned characteristics of the ritual contribute to
emphasise and corroborate the legitimacy of religious authority because the structure
is not open to improvisation and is supervised by someone who is entitled to do so by
the order’s leadership. The presence of the muqaddima in turn reinforces the authority
of the central lodge.18
Ritual is illustrative of patterns of religious authority in yet another way. Variations
in performance are subtle yet not entirely spontaneous. For example, although it is
uncommon that devotees reach trance states at small gatherings, at larger encounters
which are perceived as occasions for celebration there are groups of devotees who stay
quieter, others that move more emphatically, and a few others who may reach ahwal.19
Only the ones who are members of the order for long enough and hold a certain status
within the tariqa are likely to reach ahwal states at a session. It should be noted that
not everybody who fulfils one condition automatically meets the other; there are
people who have been in the order for a long time but who would never achieve a
corresponding status. This is generally because of internal disputes among members.
The fact that devotees do not seem to decide spontaneously whether to achieve hal
signals the pivotal role of ritual in reproducing power dynamics occurring in intra-
tariqa relationships. The case exemplifies the fact that rituals are illustrative ‘windows’
 Performance, Belonging and Identity 235

into the hierarchical structure of religious organisations, including not only its formal
components, but also the more subtle informal aspects. In achieving or not achieving
hal states, individuals behave according to the relative position they occupy in the
order regarding the way, and the extent to which, they channel expressions of emotion
as part of the ritual. Social relations within the order are thus routinely manifested
and reinforced within the context of the religious ritual itself through this informal
regulation of emotional expression (see Asad, 1993).
Another important function in the renewal of the wazifa formulae is to give
distinctiveness to the character of the Budshishiyya and thus increase its appeal for
people to convert. Among Berber groups, wazifat are based in customary practice.
The performance follows a prescribed pattern that remains the same and is
transmitted from one generation to the next. There is no evidence to suggest that
the existence of these booklets and the renewal of the formulae in the Budshishiyya
occurred before the order became an international organisation. It seems, on the
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contrary, that the renewal of the formulae is intimately related to the expansion of the
order on a transnational scale. European followers of Sidi Hamza may have access to
the ritual sessions of other Sufi groups and thus begin to feel closer to people from
other orders – this in fact occurs quite frequently. The Budshishiyya sees the
commingling with devotees from other orders as a potential risk, because devotees
might end up leaving the Budshishiyya to join another order. By performing rituals
that are periodically renewed and easily distinguishable from those of other orders, the
Budshishiyya aims to signal its uniqueness before devotees and transmit to them the
idea that none of the other choices available at the religious market are in any way
comparable to the experience of being a member of the Budshishiyya. Besides the
renewal of the ritual formulae, devotees are discouraged from attending the ritual
sessions of other Sufi groups, befriending their members or participating in their social
activities.
In European contexts, in which the Budshishiyya coexists with other religiosities
and competes with them in gaining the adherence of potential followers, the common
practice of collective dhikr sessions that exists in other Sufi orders needs to acquire a
sense of distinctiveness that it makes it easily differentiable from other Sufi groups.
The renewal of the wazifa formulae and keeping them secret add a point of difference
to the Budshishiyya. Different orders around the globe are characterised by different
sets of prescribed recitations, yet individual recitations tend to be kept the same over
time. However, I would argue that Budshishiyya’s periodical change in the formulae is
a tactic related to the fact that the order in Europe exists in a plural religious milieu
in which it needs to compete with other groups to gain the adherence of the same
potentially interested audiences; a competitive religious arena of the type described by
Finke and Stark (2000).

Ritual Variations in the British Budshishiyya

Rituals enhance a sense of belonging among performers and as a result are distinct
features of the identity of a religious group. One of the outcomes of the process of
transnationalisation in the Budshishiyya is that members can no longer perform ritual
practices all together on a regular basis. This is the reason why leaders of this tariqa
encourage devotees to arrange international gatherings for all the followers to meet.
As a result there are regular international gatherings held at Paris and Madagh yearly
and devotees are encouraged to attend. International gatherings show that wazifat
as a ‘body technique’ (Mauss, 1973) not only contributes to shape the devotee’s
 236 Marta Dominguez Diaz

subjectivity but forges and reproduces social relations. Among Sufi orders, the
relevance of ritual in creating social bonds is attested in the fact that such
international gatherings mainly comprise the performance of ritual practices.
International gatherings in the Budshishiyya consist entirely in the performance of
lilat,20 with few hours left to sleep and eat. It is interesting to notice, however, that
although in theory the ultimate goal of these events is to meet other followers of the
order, in reality, during these ceremonies there are very few chances to meet and
socialise with members from other locations. Instead, most of the time is devoted to
the performance of ritual practices.
Being in the presence of other devotees during wazifat and lilat reinforces the
commitment of individuals to the group beyond mere formal membership, because the
collective performance of a reiterative act and the rhythmic music produce the loss of
a sense of self which results in a strong feeling of unity and amity towards other
members of the group (Marshall, 2002). I argue that one of the reasons why the
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order’s leadership encourages these international visits is to renew the sense of

solidarity among devotees at an international scale and maintain the cohesion of the
order despite the existence of a trend towards differentiation derived from becoming
transnational. The case of the Budshishiyya suggests that these feelings of solidarity
and amity do not spontaneously occur among members of the order unless they have
the chance to perform rituals together.
British devotees are not regularly seen at international meetings, neither in Morocco
nor in continental Europe. Many reasons could be cited for this, including (1) the fact
that most British members are unable to communicate in French, the language used at
international gatherings of the order; (2) the fact that there is no ‘transplant’
Moroccan group in the UK that keeps a closer relationship with the leadership in
Madagh; and, above all, (3) the fact that most members in the UK may not have a
particular interest in Moroccan culture as such, and may not associate ‘Islam’ with
‘Marocanité’.21 By contrast, the majority of the Muslim population in France and
Spain is of North African origin and Islam tends to be primarily identified with North
African (primarily Algerian and Moroccan) religiosities. My findings suggest that the
majority of converts interviewed in continental European groups associate ‘Islam’
with Morocco, and consider, for example, some aspects of Maliki sharia as being
‘rules followed by all Muslims’.22 Equally, continental European devotees often
consider that dressing ‘in an Islamic way’ for a wazifa equates to wearing a Moroccan
jilaba. British members, who in many cases were born as Muslims from South Asian
families (particularly in the Birmingham enclave), do not make this connection and
often wear South Asian clothes such as shalwar qimiz in ritual gatherings.23 For all
these reasons, contact between the central lodge and the British groups is rather
sporadic, and as a result, one might question the feeling of amity among members
towards the rest of the international order and query the pride of being part of the
same organisation.
The case of the British Budshishiyya provides evidence that the relationship
between ritual performance and cohesiveness within a religious group is strong. It
illustrates that when a group no longer feels identified with the religious character of
the organisation at a transnational level, new patterns of performance begin to appear
in its ritual praxis. This does not occur without contest: Wahida from the Birmingham
group complains about how different the sessions are in Birmingham and in France or
Morocco (she is one of the few who keep in contact with people of the order abroad).
Despite following the same prescribed sequence, wazifat in Birmingham do regularly
include people attaining ahwal (trance states). The tension between a minority willing
 Performance, Belonging and Identity 237

to keep in line with the directives and style of the central lodge and a majority more
inclined to differ is also conspicuous in the words of Aisha, one of the few British
members who disagree with the dynamics undertaken by the Birmingham branch:

Most women in the tariqa [in Birmingham] have entered the order through
their [Pakistani] husbands, they are the only fuqara [devotees]24 they know.
Husbands might have been members for quite a lot of years but keep doing
things their own way. They [the wives] consult with them how to do things,
how to perform wazifat, and they do what their husbands tell them to do.
This is why most of the behaviour that they reproduce is totally the opposite
to what is the core, the spirit of this tariqa.

For most followers in Birmingham, ahwal loses the exceptional, liminal character that
it has for other members of the order – there will be devotees reaching ahwal at major
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international gatherings, but not on a weekly basis. The more frequent occurrence of
ahwal in the Birmingham group contrasts with the more sober performance in the
group in London, which more closely resembles the ones in France and Spain and
with what is predicated in the sayings of the order: ‘Do not seek spiritual states,
ecstasies, proposals or visions! Seek only the knowledge of God. Desires and visions
may shield us from this knowledge. Internal advancement must spring out and impact
external behavior’ (Sayings, n.d.). Devotees from London also keep regular contact
with the central zawiya at Madagh and with devotees in Paris: the majority of
members are converts. The differences in ritual performance occurring between
various European groups reveal the diversity characteristic of transnational Sufism
and question the validity of ‘westernisation’ theses, with various ‘western’ groups
behaving in markedly different ways.
One could argue that the higher recurrence of hal among the Birmingham group
might have to do with the fact that the majority of their devotees are of South Asian
background, which is not the case in any other location. However, I would suggest
that to identify South Asian Sufism with more exalted ritual performances would be
inaccurate. As Green (2008) has indicated, South Asian Islam is kaleidoscopic,
containing reformed trends that defend a rationalistic approach and stand against
forms of religiosity that are perceived to be superstitious, alongside others which
emphasise the belief in the ability of its leaders to perform miracles, and the
importance of its devotees entering hal during ritual sessions. It is possible that some
members in Birmingham had previously been devotees of an order that stressed the
attainment of ahwal, and that they are influential in deciding the details of ritual
performance in the Budshishiyya. Nonetheless, the case reveals that the religious
identity of a group of devotees of South Asian descent who have joined a Moroccan
Sufi order needs to be seen as a process of multiple cultural exchanges.
Further, the fact that performance deviations in the major British group25 appear at
the same time as disagreements suggests that the path towards developing a schismatic
branch tends to be mirrored in differences appearing in ritual practice. The function of
ritual in generating social amity is thus underlined as one of the most relevant
outcomes of the role of ritual itself (Durkheim, 1995; D’Aquili and Laughlin, 1975;
Rappaport, 1999), and further illustrates the influence of ritual innovation in social
change (Geertz, 1957). Nonetheless, this episode reveals yet another dimension of
rituals, and this is that they can fail (Hüsken, 2007), or perhaps not entirely succeed in
achieving their goals.26 The introduction of ahwal may contribute to reinforcing
a sense of solidarity among most of the members at the Birmingham enclave, but this
 238 Marta Dominguez Diaz

is not necessarily consensual. In this case those that keep contact with Moroccan or
continental European lodges (which in turn are in touch with Madagh more regularly)
tend to support a more sober approach to wazifa performance. In fact, the lodge in
Paris, which is the biggest outside Madagh, acts as a referential point for many
devotees in continental Europe as well as for a few British members.
A British devotee explained to me at an international gathering in Paris: ‘When
I come and see the faqirat here, I realise how nice they are and how things should be
done back in the UK.’ Additionally, accounts by British members who disagree
with the approach to ritual adopted by the majority of followers in Birmingham
attest that ritual change is not left uncontested, but needs to be negotiated and
rearticulated in ways which build consensus among the vast majority of performers
and which demonstrate its efficacy. The performer of a ritual is not solely
undertaking an act of submission to a patterned set of action, as Humphrey and
Laidlaw (1994) have suggested; subjectivities play a role in rituals in the sense that
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consensus needs to be reached with regard to the act of submission. Different

conceptions of performance among British devotees also show that rituals can also
serve as a source of contest.
The case also demonstrates that westernisation theories are insufficient to scrutinise
how transnational Sufi orders are shaped by processes of reterritorialisation. For
example, it would be difficult to define whether a higher recurrence of trance in ritual
performance is characteristic of ‘westernised’ or ‘nonwesternised’ religiosities. Several
Moroccan orders, such as the Gnawa, display more exalted performances, while
others have opted for a more sober version of enacting wazifat.27

Adapting to the Transnational Character

If a final breakaway is not to occur, deviations need also to be negotiated with the
higher authorities of the order, which is precisely what seems to happen in the
Budshishiyya. At the 2008 international gathering held in Paris a British devotee who
disagrees with the approach taken by the Birmingham lodge spoke to Sidi Munir, son
of Sidi Hamza and highest authority of the order in Europe. Interestingly, Sidi Munir
did not suggest that religious praxis should return to its original form, and that the
followers at Birmingham should perform wazifat in any particular way, but rather
that groups of people who might be willing to perform wazifat differently should
gather separately. It seems that the Budshishiyya sees that for a transnational
organisation it is no longer possible to stick to an invariable model of practice.
Sidi Munir’s response of not condemning what were to be considered ‘deviant’
practices by some suggests that the order needs to find a balance between trying to
keep variances at a minimum and allowing some room for each group to develop its
own character. The will to maintain the same performance is the reason for issuing the
yearly booklet containing the sequence of performance that is distributed among all
the groups beyond the original enclave. However, the Budshishiyya’s religious
authorities seem to have realised that a certain degree of variability is inevitable.
Sidi Munir further argued that wazifat should be performed in groups of people
who feel comfortable with each other. That is most likely to happen, according to
him, in groups that show certain homogeneity in terms of cultural background, class
and age.
This recommendation may be a surprise for those who think about the universalistic
claims characteristic of many Sufi orders. In the Budshishiyya, the appeal to
universalism is twofold: on the one hand, it is a plea to recognise sharedness despite
 Performance, Belonging and Identity 239

differences in appearance. According to this view, anyone, regardless of ideology,

culture or race can become a member of the order, because in the eyes of Sidi Hamza
all devotees are equal. The story of how the members of a French heavy metal band
joined the order is recurrently used by members to illustrate this idea of sharedness
and the amity existing between devotees.
On the other hand, the appeal to universalism may also refer to the truthfulness of
the order’s message. This implication is often brought to the fore by members in
Europe. It is for instance common among British devotees to claim the universal
character of the Budshishiyya’s message as an attempt to tone down the Moroccan
character evidenced in elements such as the Moroccan dress worn during wazifat and
the use of Moroccan Arabic in the terminology employed to refer to the different
levels of religious authority. Generally speaking, British groups do not observe
those aspects as rigorously as devotees do in other enclaves. For example, British
Budshishiyya devotees often use the term murid to refer to Sufi devotees, a word used
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in various parts of the Muslim world including South Asia but uncommon in North
African Sufism. Among non-British members of the Budshishiyya the term used to
refer to other devotees is faqir, the term generally used in North African orders. A
description of a wazifa session by a British devotee illustrates not only the relevance
given to hal, but the use of the term murid to refer to fellow-devotees: ‘And
then . . . the singing starts and the murids going into a real hal [original emphasis] –
this can carry on from 30 min to 2 hours all depending on the night!’28
On the basis of meeting devotees from different locations and looking from a
comparative perspective at the ways they think about and experience religion, this
article has been exploring the ongoing tension existing between trends that tend
towards developing a distinct sense of locality and those which push for maintaining
a sense of sharedness and universality. The conflict ‘universality/locality’ is not
something specific to the Budshishiyya, but an observable phenomenon contingent
upon the processes of reterritorialisation in transnational religious groups in general.
As Hervieu-Léger has rightly pointed out, the tension between universality and
locality is ‘internal to the religious bond itself . . . . This contradiction ties in with the
tension that has grown up between the imperative to affirm the singular identity of the
religious community and the imperative to show the universal significance of the truth
it declares itself to be carrying’ (2002, pp. 102–03).
Thus the capability of transnational religions to survive over time largely depends
on their ability to develop an adequate balance between what unites the diverse groups
and what makes them different. The Budshishiyya has so far succeeded in upholding
the delicate universality/locality equilibrium. Instead of exclusively encouraging the
building of a sense of amity that transcends national and cultural borders, the tactic
used consists of creating a transnational network of separate small groups in which
the sense of solidarity mainly focuses upon devotees of the same enclave. The sense of
amity mainly and almost exclusively develops among those who undertake prescribed
sets of actions together, because ritual action creates identification. A substantial
finding in ritual studies points to the fact that people set up spatial and temporal
boundaries that enable the capacity of the individual to feel identified with and
represented by the group (Lévi-Strauss, 1962; Durkheim, 1995; Mauss, 1973). This is
confirmed in the Budshishiyya by the fact that even among those members who visit
others internationally the resulting relationship between them is rather insubstantial
and does not go beyond more than few minutes of casual conversation. This
emotional distance utterly contrasts with the feeling of sisterhood that emerges among
individuals of the same enclave.
 240 Marta Dominguez Diaz

Concluding Remarks
Religious reterritorialisation is more diverse than models proposed by theories of
‘westernisation’ often applied to Sufi orders suggest. The case of the Budshishiyya in
Europe illustrates how the paths of rerooting are diverse and depend not only on the
character of the original religiosity, but on other variables, such as the degree of
contact of each enclave with the central lodge. This article also shows how the export
of a religiosity occurs at a dialectic level in which the religious identity is not merely
incorporated, but it is more often adapted, reappropriated and contested.
The Budshishiyya is an illustrative example of how telling rituals can be about
identity and change within a transnational religious group. I have shown how, in the
case of the Budshishiyya, the reconfiguration of ritual practice has been central in
the expansion of the order beyond its original enclave, because only then ritual
practice acquired a relevance that came to substitute the prominence previously given
to religious instruction.
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This article also exemplifies how rituals can be illustrative of the formal and
informal power relations existing in a religious organisation. The differences in the
roles of performers attest that under an appearance of spontaneity, rituals reveal
channelled ways of expressing emotions, which reinforce the hierarchical structure by
reproducing the ways in which religious authority is instilled in the group.
A comparative perspective on the approach that different Budshishi groups adopt
to the same ritual practice reveal that rituals endorse specific purposes and that the
expectations put onto the ritual practice may differ from one enclave to another. The
case of the Birmingham group shows that when the majority of performers pursue
a different purpose from that prescribed by the standardised format, the tendency
of the ritual is to incorporate change, implying that the relationship between
performance and performer, and between ritual and context, are intimate. Rituals
are communicative acts that do not consist in the blind submission of the devotee to
the reproduction of a bodily discipline, but entail a certain degree of agency by the
performer as well as by the group as a whole.
This article suggests that the effects of ritual upon the devotee’s sense of belonging
to the group are pivotal in understanding the dynamics of change within a religious
organisation. As a result, variations in the performance of ritual demonstrate shifts in
the loyalty of members to the religious organisation. In order to maintain the cohesion
of the religious community at a transnational scale, the leadership of the order
encourages the regular performance of collective rituals at international gatherings.
Conversely, the leadership also needs to allow certain room for performance diversity
if it wishes to avoid indirectly causing the emergence of schisms. Keeping an adequate
balance between universality and locality in each of the enclaves is vital to the
processes of territoriality and one of the biggest challenges faced by transnational Sufi
orders like the Budshishiyya.

Acknowledgment
I would like to thank James Weaver for his feedback on an earlier draft of this article.

Notes
1 By deterritorialisation I mean the surpassing of national boundaries by religious
organisations, a process followed by reterritorialisation, where religious groups (including
members migrating from the original land but also newly attained devotees) create new
 Performance, Belonging and Identity 241

social bounds in the host society. The terminology has been broadly used in studies on
transnational religion (for example: Dianteill, 2002; Plüss, 2006) but was originally taken
from Deleuze and Guattari (1972) who used these terms to describe the transnational flows
of labour generated by capitalism.
2 The model was first introduced by Hermansen (1996) to describe Sufi orders in the USA, and
since then has been widely used.
3 Geaves has called these groups ‘cultural binary fission’ (2009). The term was coined drawing
upon terminology referring to the biological process of cellular division or mitosis in which
there is exact duplication of the original material. In the case of Sufism, Geaves argues that
traditions are duplicated so effectively in the diaspora situation that they provide a mirror
image of ‘original’ religious customs and practices.
4 This approach owes its formulation to perennialism in general and to Rene Guénon’s
thought in particular. By ‘perennialism’ I mean the contemporary esoteric philosophy,
critical of modernity, which is based on a reinterpretation of the concept of ‘philosophia
perennis’. According to this view, the ‘philosophia perennis’ is something that has been
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apprehended and incorporated into the wisdom of peoples of every region in the world since
the origins of humankind. For more information, see Dominguez Diaz, 2010a.
5 In terms of cultural borrowings Appadurai suggests that globalisation can be defined in
terms of ‘the tension between cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization’
(Appadurai, 1990, p. 588). ‘Westernisation theories’ often argue that globalisation is a mere
process of westernisation, in which global forces operate to impose western cultural
imperialism on the non-western world. Such voices contend that westernisation is
destroying cultural diversity (see for example Holton, 1998). By contrast, Appadurai
criticises these theories on the grounds that they consider only one facet of cultural
globalisation. He instead proposes to understand patterns of cultural influencing in the
context of globalisation as multifocal rather than dominated by a single centre. Besides,
global culture is to be viewed not merely as ‘westernised’ but also in its heterogenised,
decentralised, localised and retribalised components. In his view, we need not only to look
at how ‘western’ ideas have colonised the world but also at the increasing relevance that
identity markers of local cultures such as ‘ethnicity’, ‘nationalism’ or ‘religion’ have taken in
recent times.
6 The analysis of ‘transplant’ groups in orders like the Budshishiyya should be treated
separately, and it falls beyond the scope of the present paper: there are no ‘transplant’
groups among the British enclaves of the Budshishiyya which are the ones that occupy the
attention of this article.
7 For example, some of the Budshishiyya’s devotees in Casablanca and Rabat approach
religion in an individualistic way and are influenced by ‘New Age’ thought, features often
associated with processes of ‘westernisation.’ For further analysis of this aspect, see Haenni
and Voix (2007) and Dominguez Diaz (2010b).
8 Although, technically speaking, wazifa refers only to the part of this ritual dedicated to the
invocation of Allah’s qualities, most of the members use the term to refer to dhikr sessions
performed in a group. In this paper I try to use terminology in the same way as it is used by
members of the order; this is in order to provide a more accurate picture of their
understanding and to facilitate reference to specific aspects of their religiosities. Therefore,
although aware of the inaccuracy involved, I shall, as Budshishi devotees do, use the terms
‘collective dhikr’ and ‘wazifa’ interchangeably.
9 Although most of the British members are of South Asian origin, there are some small
enclaves in which the majority of members are British converts (for example in London).
There are some differences in the ways in which these two groups understand and embody
Islam; some of them are detailed in this article. For further exploration of these differences,
see Dominguez Diaz (2010b).
10 The first Budshishiyya devotees in Britain had previously been members of other North
African orders (mainly the Shadhiliyya and the Murabitun). In order to understand how
people of South Asian background joined an order which is heavily Moroccan in language
 242 Marta Dominguez Diaz

and culture, we should look at why and how the Shadhiliyya and the Murabitun managed to
strike roots in contexts where there was little North African presence. For some insights
about the implantation of these two orders in Britain, see Geaves (2000) and Köse (1996).
11 Most of what has been written is authored by Moroccan scholars and members of the order.
These works contain valuable data, but lack critical insight and scholarly consistency (see
for example: Barahab, 2004; Ben Driss, 2002; Ben Rochd, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004; Qustas,
2007). Aside from that, there are an unpublished PhD thesis that compares British convert
members of the Budshishiyya and the Naqshbandiyya (Draper, 2002) and the articles of
Sedgwick (2004), who introduces the order, and Haenni and Voix (2007), that deals with the
New Age trends that exist among some of the Moroccan urban followers.
12 Mawlid is the celebration that commemorates the birthday of the prophet Muhammad. It is
also known as mawlid an-nabi and it occurs during the third month of the Islamic calendar
(rabi al-awwal). In the Budshishiyya, Mawlid is considered a major festival, consisting of
an entire week of celebrations. Followers from all over the world go to Madagh to visit Sidi
Hamza, the leader of the order. The event is broadcast by Moroccan television and by some
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local channels in southern Spain.

13 A similar transformation in the sheikh’s role is not uncommon among other Moroccan
orders, but has been better documented in South Asian Sufism (see for example, Buehler,
1998; Rozehnal, 2007).
14 I do not mean that this is an eminently modern phenomenon; but is difficult to assert
whether the ‘experiential insight’ that appears in medieval Sufi sources is in any way
comparable to our modern understanding of religious experience. However, Ghazali’s
notion of dhawq (literally ‘tasting’) implies that the core of mysticism cannot be apprehended
by study but only by ‘experience’ (that is, ecstasy), and to that extent it seems to resemble
Budshishiyya’s idea of ‘experience’. For further information on Ghazali’s approach to
dhawq, see al-Ghazali (1953).
15 The more individualistic approach to Islam that characterises the Budshishiyya’s urban
groups seems to be rather common in urban areas of the Muslim world. For example,
Mahmood (2005) in her study of female piety in Cairo contends that ritual is central in
‘self-shaping’ religious identities and in sealing the person’s commitment to the religious
community.
16 The rate of female illiteracy in the countryside remains at 87 per cent (UNICEF, 2004).
17 Personal communication with Jamila; names are pseudonyms in order to protect the
anonymity of all my interlocutors.
18 One of the main roles of the muqaddima is to successfully accommodate the tensions between
the global and the local. She has to ensure that the Moroccan character is kept and that no
deviations occur. For further exploration on the ways in which religious authority is
organised in the order and how secondary authorities are selected, see Dominguez Diaz
(2010b).
19 Hal; pl. ahwal: generally translated as ‘condition’ or ‘state’. In medieval Sufism it meant the
state of realisation of an encounter with the Divine, a moment described as acquisition of
perfect balance of the soul as a result of the acceptance of this encounter. Today the term is
used to refer to states of ecstasy attained during ritual sessions.
20 Lilat: literally meaning ‘night’, it is a term used in North African Sufism to refer to a
particular ritual ceremony performed at night. It involves reciting Quranic verses in
remembrance of God (dhikr), singing Sufi music (sama) and an eventual attainment of
ecstatic states by some of the participants.
21 Another factor that one might assume might hold some relevance is the fact that most
Pakistani Muslims belong to the Hanafi legal school, not to the Maliki school to which the
Budshishiyya belongs. However, it is difficult to assess whether this constitutes a real reason
in explaining the reluctance of British devotes to mix with the rest of members in Europe:
first, because this reason has never been mentioned by any member of the order; and second,
because as Sidi Hamza’s devotees, British devotees also recognise the authority of the Maliki
school. Nonetheless, it is unclear to me whether this loyalty occurs only at a superficial level.
 Performance, Belonging and Identity 243

A study of the extent to which there is an eclectic approach to religious law would deserve
further consideration.
22 Personal communication with Tasnim.
23 The lingua franca of the order in Europe is French, although local enclaves do operate in
local languages: for example in the enclaves of Barcelona and Girona, Catalan and Spanish
are the languages used, whereas in Birmingham and London gatherings are conducted in
English.
24 Faqir/a; pl. fuqara/faqirat: in Arabic it means ‘poor’, and in popular parlance it is used for a
homeless person, a pauper or a beggar. Among North African Sufis the term is used as a
synonym for devotee. The traditional connotations of the term describe someone who
entirely accepts the will of God and has no private property, considered to be indispensable
attributes of the faqir. Today reformed Sufi orders such as the Budshishiyya use the term
simply to refer to a member of the order, irrespective of his/her economic status and degree
of spiritual commitment.
25 Paris and Birmingham are the only locations outside Morocco that have a lodge, which
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facilitates having larger gatherings. The availability of a physical space seems to be closely
connected to the size of the enclave, Paris and Birmingham being the two largest groups of
devotees in Western Europe. It would be difficult to give an accurate estimate of the number
of people who attend each session because attendance is quite intermittent and the size of
groups constantly changes. However, whereas smaller enclaves may congregate a maximum
of ten devotees weekly, no fewer than twenty people easily gather at Birmingham and Paris
every week.
26 This is a topic that has received little scholarly attention. The only comprehensive work done
on the failure of rituals so far has been published in a volume edited by Hüsken (2007).
27 Within the wide spectrum of Sufi orders, the poles of sober versus exalted are only a
simplification that we use for convenience. Although turuq are identifiable for being more
markedly sober or exalted, these are not mutually exclusive categories and it is not
uncommon to see them intertwined. For example, and despite the fame of sobriety usually
associated with the Budshishiyya, in some of the major events even members of the religious
leadership will reach states of hal.
28 The quote used to be available at one of the British websites, www.sufievents.co.uk (last
accessed 23 April 2010), but it has recently been removed.

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