Programme
Susan Schomburg
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy and Religion
Bates College
E/ sschombu@bates.edu
Hey, Girl! Dance the Kummi Called Motcam: The Sufi Poetics of Ilaiyankuti Kaccippillaiyammal
Defined in male-authored normative discourses across world religious traditions as other vis-à-vis the human, we might reasonably ask how women have made sense of their own lives, in light of this marginal status. South Asian culture, generally, and Tamil culture, specifically, offer avenues for empowerment through emphasis on piety and spiritual quest, a kind of cultural capital available to all marginalized folk, including men, but particularly important for women. In Tamil culture, strong traditions of veneration of the Goddess, as well as valorization of femininity in a variety of gendered literary genres and ritual traditions, add to this cultural capital in unique ways. Based on my translation of the Sufi poetry of Ilaiyankuti Kaccippillaiyammal (initially published in Tamil in 1918), this paper reveals the unique creative agency of one poet who draws on the devotional traditions common to her peers, as well as on the more abstruse wisdom-centered traditions of Islamic mysticism. Humanity, in all of its fallibility and ignorance, is transcended through meyjnanam, or spiritual insight. And insight, in this Islamic worldview, is cultivated through rigorous effort and devotion to God, the Prophet and the guru-saints. Deploying gendered folk literary genres including the uncal, or swinging song, kuravanci, or rustic male-female dialogue, and kummi, or girls dancing song, Ilaiyankuti Kaccippillaiyammal exhorts her audience to take up the task. Her Sufi poetics implicitly assert the full humanity of women before a more important Reality and do so in a uniquely authoritative, creative, Tamil and feminine -- key. As with much of Islamic Tamil literature, the vocabulary and images of Ilaiyankuti Kaccippillaiyammals Meynnana Malai problematize common assumptions of discrete and competing Hindu and Muslim identities and cultures spiritual quest is a shared Tamil project.
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Prof. Schomburg's research focuses on Islamic Tamil history and culture,
incorporating historical, literary and ethnographic research methods. Special
research topics of interest include Tamil Sufism, Hindu-Muslim “shared
spiritualities” (the Tamil Muslim cittars), Tamil dargah culture and ritual
practices, and Tamil women’s religious experience. Her publications include,
'Reviving Religion': The Qadiri Sufi Order, Popular Devotion to Sufi Saint
Muhyiuddin" Abdul Qadir al-Gilani and Processes of ‘Islamization’ in Tamil Nadu
and Sri Lanka ( dissertation; 2003) and "Lovely Recalcitrant Women: Tay
Tamil, Cultural Agency, and Islamic Histories" in
History and Imagination: Tamil Culture in the Global Context (2007).