The book discusses the role of popular Islam in structuring individual and collective identities in contemporary South Asia. It identifies similarities and differences between the worship of saints and the pattern of religious attendance to tombs and mausoleums in South Asian Sufism and Shi`ism. This geographical re-mapping of Muslim religious gatherings in contemporary South Asia contributes to a new understanding of South Asian and Islamic Studies.

1. Authority, Shrines and Spaces: Scrutinizing Devotional Islam from South Asia Part I: Authority and the Figures of Sainthood 2. Vagrancy and pilgrimage according to the Sufi Qalandari path: The illusions of anti-structure 3. Qalandars and Ahl-e Haqq 4. Woman [Un] like Woman: The question of spiritual authority among female fakirs of Sehwan Sharif 5. Negotiating Religious Authority at a Shrine Inhabited by a Living Saint - The dargah of "Zinda" Shah Madar 6. How Discourses Construct Figures of Holiness: The Example of the Indo-Muslim Martyr Ghazi Miyan (Uttar Pradesh, North India) Part II: Shrine and Circulation 7. Meditative Practice, aesthetics and entertainment Music in an Indian Sufi shrine 8. Evolution of the Chishti Shrine and the Chishtis in Pakpattan (Pakistan) 9. The Mother and the Other. Tourism and pilgrimage at the shrine of Hinglaj Devi/Bibi Nani in Baluchistan 10. Sacred Journeys, Worship and reverence: The Sufi legitimation of the ziyarat in Hyderabad 11. An ambiguous and contentious politicization of Sufi shrines and pilgrimages in Pakistan