Ajam Podcast #46: Sufi Communities in Afghanistan

In this episode, Belle interviews Dr. Annika Schmeding, Senior Researcher at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and a Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), about her first book, Sufi Civilities: Religious Authority and Political Change in Afghanistan (Stanford University Press, 2023). In Sufi Civilities (and in our podcast episode), Schmeding examines how contemporary urban Sufi communities in Afghanistan deal with violence and transition. She addresses how threads from Afghanistan’s history shape the experiences and practices of Sufi communities in the present, particularly through ongoing poetic traditions, and she examines how they navigate tensions and ambiguities internally as well as amid the wider political and social context. Schmeding shows how Sufis in Afghanistan have adapted to political changes in recent decades, demonstrating resilience by creatively responding to and navigating historic shifts rather than remaining unchanged.