SOAS Research Online

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Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which village Muslims living in the Chitral region of northern Pakistan seek to nurture and sustain their region as a socially heterogeneous space by actively embarking on local forms of travel. The heterogeneity of places in the region offers potentials for Chitrali Muslims to enact diverse ways of being Muslim, forge complex structures of attachment to Chitral, and cultivate an attitude of curiosity as to the heterogeneity of life in their region. The expanding body of anthropological work on sacred landscapes is brought into conversation with ethnographic studies in urban settings of the role played by everyday practices in the formation of Muslim ethical selfhood. In doing so, I suggest the wider insights into understanding the complexity and diversity of Muslim experiences of and responses to modernity that are afforded by a consideration of rural societies.