Politics of Worship in the Contemporary Middle East

Andreas Bandak is an anthropologist and PhD Fellow at University of Copenhagen. His research focuses on the Christian minorities in Syria. He has co-edited a special issue of Ethnos entitled Foregrounds and Backgrounds: Ventures in the Anthropology of Christianity (2012).Mikkel Bille holds a PhD in anthropology from UCL (2009) and is Assistant Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He has co-edited An Anthropology of Absence (2010), and co-authored Materialitet. En indføring i kultur, identitet og teknologi (2012) in Danish.

• AcknowledgmentsList of FiguresIntroduction: Sainthood in fragile states - Andreas Bandak and Mikkel BillePart I - Sustained SainthoodContesting Fragile Saintly Traditions: Miraculous healing among Twelver Shi‘is in contemporary Syria - Edith SzantoSaints, Media and Minority Cultures: On Coptic cults of Egyptian revolution from Alexandria to Maspero - Angie Heo Part II: Contested RepresentationsEnigmas of a Pakistani Warrior Saint: Interrogating media conspiracies in an Age of Terror - Pnina WerbnerThe Samer, the Saint and the Shaman: Ordering Bedouin heritage in Jordan - Mikkel BillePart III: Indeterminate SainthoodOur Lady of Soufanieh: On knowledge, ignorance and indifference among the Christians of Damascus - Andreas BandakEcstatic Sainthood and austere Sunni Islam: A majzūb in northern Pakistan - Juergen FrembgenPart IV: Secular SainthoodImbued with Agency: Contesting notions of the extraordinaryness of Türkan Saylan - Daniella KuzmanovicThe Secular Saint: Iconography and ideology in the cult of Bashir Jumayil - Sune Haugbolle