pronouncing the sacred formulas aloud, from stand-
ing, or from performing vigorous bodily move-
ments due to taboos on males hearing the female
voice and perceptions that women might become
excessively emotional or ecstatic and violate rules
of decorum. In Egypt, however, women may on
occasion celebrate the dhikrstanding, swaying to
the rhythms in lines or spaces separate from males
or on special days assigned to them. For example,
at the shrine of Sìdì≠AlìZayn al-≠âbidìn in the City
of the Dead area of Cairo, women attend at a spe-
cial time and weave to music performed by male
performers (munshidùn), some going into trance-
like states. Female participants often draw their
veils over their faces, symbolically demarcating pri-
vate space.
In the Iranian Ni≠matullàhìOrder women are ini-
tiates but have never been shaykhs. Among the
women’s circles a female may serve as a pir dalìl
(guide for female novices) or as a tea master/mis-
tress, but they listen to the poetry and music sung in
the men’s section conveyed by a loud speaker. One
report of a QàdirìOrder meeting for women in
Kermanshah has the female Sufis meeting separately
and drumming and chanting for their own sessions.
In general, women’s dress at Sufi ritual events is
less likely than that of males to bear special
emblems of authority. In some Sufi orders, how-
ever, women don white robes over their usual cloth-
ing during more formal dhikrsessions.
In societies such as Egypt, Sudan, and Somalia a
popular female religious practice that may be asso-
ciated with Sufism is the zàr, a sort of dance that
evokes cathartic and healing powers. Sometimes
female musical troupes perform at zàrs. Hoffman
(1995) notes that in mixed Sufi performance gath-
erings female performers face the problem that if
they sing songs of love, they may become the
objects of romantic imagination on the part of
males in the audience.
Music and performance traditions associated
with Sufism may provide scope for women’s partic-
ipation. For example in Oujda, Morocco Aissawa
women convene their own gatherings on Friday
afternoons, involving music and trance states. In
South Asian mystical poetry, the longing spiritual
aspirant is usually given the female gender in mys-
tical romance. Thus the female voice becomes the
dominant one, at least theoretically, while some
evidence for female performance in limited con-
texts can be found in the South Asian context. For
example, the well-known Pakistani artist, Abida
Parveen, specializes in Sufi songs of Punjabi saints
while affecting masculine dress and mannerisms in
her public performances of this material.768 sufi orders and movements
In addition, wealthy women are known to have
supported particular Sufi masters and institutions.
Separate convents or refuges for Sufi women have
been sponsored by female patrons at various
epochs of Muslim history. For example, rabats or
shelters for women were constructed in premodern
Cairo, Aleppo, and Baghdad. Their functions may
have overlapped spiritual retreat with charitable
shelter.Female leadership
It has been reported that charisma is passed down
in female lineages in certain Moroccan Sufi orders.
Tombs of females associated with saints as mothers,
wives, and daughters may be visited or venerated
on their own, reflecting these womens’ residual
charismatic powers.
The question of whether a female could be
appointed as an initiating master (murshida) or
even a spiritual successor (khalìfa) within Sufi line-
ages receives various responses. Some writings deny
the possibility whereas others record instances of
such female leadership while expressing concern as
to whether a female shaykhacould guide male dis-
ciples. For example, Mu±inùddìn Chishtìof India
(d. 1236) is said to have designated his daughter,
BìbìJamàl, as a khalìfa. In contrast, a later Chishtì
saint, BàbàFarìd (d. 1265), said that his daughter,
BìbìSharìfa, would have been appointed a khalìfa
except that this role was not available to women.
The twentieth-century Chishtì, Khwàja £asan
NiΩàmì(d. 1955) of Delhi, is known to have ap-
pointed some female khalìfas. Clancy-Smith (1992)
documents the case of a nineteenth-century female
Sufi leader in Algeria, Lalla Zaynab of the Ra™
màniyya. Due to the restrictions on the public role
of women, their leadership in Sufi orders was usu-
ally transmitted through female networks and female
ritual leadership generally takes place within exclu-
sively female gatherings.Contemporary developments
Islamist movements have tended to discourage
Sufi interpretations of Islam and popular practices
such as the veneration of saints and shrine visita-
tion. At the same time, elements of asceticism and
self-fashioning, together with a renewed interest in
the traditional sciences of the Unseen, enable a par-
ticular strain of Islamist piety accessible to both
males and females that is close to the mood of early
Sufism.
In other developments female members of Amer-
ican Sufi movements have agitated for greater gen-
der equality, for example, female Mevlevis have
introduced training in the sema(whirling ceremony)