![]() | In Amma''s Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South India Subjects: Muslim women -- India -- Hyderabad (District); Healers -- India -- Hyderabad (District) -- Biography; Hyderabad (India : District) -- Social life and customs; "[I]t is extremely salubrious to see the ways Islam works in the lives of ordinary people who are not politicized in their religious lives. . . . No other book on South Asia has material like this." --Ann Grodzins Gold In Amma's Healing Room is a compelling study of the life and thought of a female Muslim spiritual healer in Hyderabad, South India. Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger describes Amma's practice as a form of vernacular Islam arising in a particular locality, one in which the boundaries between Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity are fluid. In the "healing room," Amma meets a diverse clientele that includes men and women, Muslim, Hindu, and Christian, of varied social backgrounds, who bring a wide range of physical, social, and psychological afflictions. Flueckiger collaborated closely with Amma and relates to her at different moments as daughter, disciple, and researcher. The result is a work of insight and compassion that challenges widely held views of religion and gender in India and reveals the creativity of a tradition often portrayed by Muslims and non-Muslims alike as singular and monolithic. Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger is Professor of Religion at Emory University and author of Gender and Genre in the Folklore of Middle India. |
![hidden image for function call](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/1x1.png)