Seema Golestaneh, Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 256 pp., 2023
Seema Golestaneh's Unknowing and the Everyday: Sufism and Knowledge in Iran is an ethnographically rich and convincingly argued book that analyses the everyday life of Sufis in Iran. It is based on a decade of fieldwork from 2009 to 2011 with Iranian Sufis who follow Twelver Shi'ism. Central to Golestaneh's inquiry is the concept of ma'rifat, an epistemological orientation that takes the finitude of human knowledge as the starting point of acquiring knowledge about the divine. The author offers an ethnographic interpretation of ma'rifat, translating it as ‘unknowing’. In so doing, she ethnographically engages with the pedagogy of two Sufi sheikhs, the musical zekr ritual, her interlocutors’ response to the demolition of a shrine, and the mystical idea of sargadan or intentional wandering. Golestaneh's book is thus an ethnography of a concept, rather ‘than an exhaustive study of what might be called Iranian Sufism in and of itself’ (p. 6).
In the first chapter, Golestaneh traces the intellectual and political history of mysticism in Iran through an analysis of the concepts of erfan, tassawuf (mysticism) and sufigari (organised Sufism). She offers an account of how developments within Iranian politics led to erfan and sufigari becoming distinct concepts. For the epistemologies of Golestaneh's Sufi interlocutors, erfan connotes a form of esoteric knowledge that one acquires through a sustained engagement with mysticism. This is further explored in the second chapter wherein Golestaneh examines the relationship between textual and spiritual authority through the pedagogical practices of two Sufi sheikhs. While recognising the importance of a guide, they argue that it is ultimately the student's inner heart (ghalb-e-batin) that can discern the esoteric (batin) meaning of the Quran or poetry (p. 60). Thus, they affirm their belief in ma'arifat (unknowing), foregrounding the limits of human efforts at interpretation. This emphasis on the unknowability of text complicates assumptions about spiritual authority in Islam as it privileges the intuition of ordinary people over the expertise of learned scholars.
In the third chapter, Golestaneh explores the concept of fana through the zekr ritual. In doing so, she analyses the role of music and sound in displacing subjectivity during zekr gatherings where it is the affective experience of music rather than an intellectual exploration of its meaning that makes one lose oneself to the divine. Her interlocutors interpreted fana either as a complete annihilation of the self or as the estrangement of the self from the sociopolitical realm (p. 100). This inquiry into politics is extended further in the fourth chapter that analyses how Sufis responded to the demolition of their khaneqah by local authorities. Rather than mourn the razing of the site, they employed deliberate forgetting to render the materiality of the physical space inconsequential to the spiritual force of their mysticism. Thus, the Sufi stance towards the destruction of the shrine constitutes a form of ‘unknowing of memory’ that has a direct correlation with the concept of ma'rifat.
Taking her exploration of ma'rifat further through the idea of place and sound, Golestaneh explores the concept of intentional wandering (sargardan) and intentional listening (sama). The fifth chapter explores the ‘unknowing of place’ wherein Golestaneh describes how the venue for zekr gatherings is not announced beforehand due to political concerns and how her interlocutors find their way to the place of the zekr ritual by carefully following the slow music of the daf (p. 166). In so doing, she demonstrates that just as mystical thought regards knowledge to be limitless, so is its pursuit, symbolised through the Sufi act of wandering and listening.
Though Golestaneh's interlocutors do not follow the Nimatullahi Sufi order, all of them identify with Shah Nimatullah Vali. Due to this identification, the author offers a historical account of the Nimatullahi order and draws out its mystical ideas throughout the book. However, since Golestaneh mentions that her interlocutors belong to different Sufi orders, it would have been interesting if readers had been offered some information about these mystical orders and given a sense of what distinguishes Golestaneh's interlocutors from those who follow the Nimatullahi Sufi order. Nevertheless, the author's engagement with the shared epistemology of her interlocutors beautifully interweaves her four ethnographic case studies into an illuminating analysis of ma'rifat or ‘unknowing’.
Through her exploration of the unknowing of authority, self, memory and place, Golestaneh contributes to wider discourses on the role of texts, soundscapes, and remembrance in the discursive tradition of Islam. The book is a valuable addition to scholarship on the anthropology of Islam that deals with destabilised subjectivities and the realm of the unseen, which complicate the role of ethical self-cultivation in the constitution of pious subjects. Through an analysis of sama or intentional listening, Golestaneh also offers a remarkable contribution to studies on the anthropology of sound by foregrounding how sound destabilises the subjectivities of her interlocutors and how politics influences their listening practices. Thus, through its rigorous ethnography of a theological concept, the book enriches our understanding of mystical epistemologies and everyday Sufism within the Shi'i tradition of Iran.
Saniya Ahmad
Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge
Ernesto De Martino, The End of the World: Cultural Apocalypse and Transcendence, trans. Dorothy Louise Zinn, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 352 pp., 2023
The End of the World: Cultural Apocalypse and Transcendence is the first English translation of Ernesto de Martino's La fine del mondo: Contributo all'analisi delle apocalissi culturali, a book exploring cultural apocalypses and humanity's ability to transcend existential crises. Published posthumously in 1977, the work was incomplete at de Martino's death in 1965, consisting only of drafts and notes. Anthropologist Clara Gallini organised these into a coherent text, which was followed by subsequent reworkings in later editions. This 2023 English translation by Dorothy Louise Zinn, based on the 2019 Italian edition, brings de Martino's ideas to a wider audience.
The translation is both faithful and accessible, making de Martino's dense and philosophical language clear without sacrificing its complexity. The remarkable introduction, along with the glossary and explanatory notes are especially helpful, and provide crucial context for readers unfamiliar with the intellectual traditions de Martino draws from.
As an Italian anthropologist, I was initially sceptical about the prospect of this work reaching a new, international audience. While de Martino's legacy is profound in Italy and France, I wondered how necessary the recirculation of this unfinished work could be. To a certain extent, translating an Italian classic can be seen as part of decolonising anthropology from English-language dominance, but given that the work dates back to the 1960s, could it still be read as timely and salient? I believe the answer is yes.
De Martino argues that the apocalypse is not a singular event but a recurring phenomenon throughout human history. He broadens ‘apocalypse’ to include political, social, and psychological breakdowns. These ‘cultural apocalypses’ reflect moments when human worlds face collapse but also offer the potential for renewal (Chapter 1, Chapter 2). Whether through Roman rituals of renewal (Chapter 1) or Christian eschatology (Chapter 3), apocalyptic narratives offer societies pathways to confront existential threats and transcend them.
A key concept in de Martino's analysis is the ‘crisis of presence’, which refers to moments when individuals or societies lose their grounding in the world, leading to disintegration. He connects psychological crises with broader cultural collapses, relying on the notion of Weltuntergangserlebnis – the lived experience of the world's end – seen in psychiatric cases like schizophrenia (Chapter 2). He shows how personal breakdowns mirror societal crises, illustrating how the dissolution of cultural horizons can destabilise human presence, making the apocalypse both an individual and collective experience.
Central to de Martino's framework is the ‘ethos of transcendence’: the human drive to overcome crises. This ethos motivates individuals and societies to create meaning in the face of collapse, serving as a foundation for cultural renewal and re-establishing presence (Chapter 7).
De Martino criticises Western culture for having lost its eschatological horizon, resulting in what he terms an ‘apocalypse without eschaton’ – a world-ending vision devoid of redemption (Chapter 5). He draws on existentialist literature, such as Sartre's Nausea, to demonstrate how modernity's obsession with nihilism reflects a deeper cultural unease, where apocalyptic visions no longer promise transformation.
His comparative approach, examining both Western and non-Western millenarian movements (Chapter 4), is one of the book's most compelling features. In colonial contexts, he argues, millenarianism acts as a cultural apocalypse aimed at restoring shattered worlds. This situates his work within the legacy of colonialism, showing how oppressed societies use apocalyptic narratives as responses to the destruction of their cultural frameworks.
Another vital theme is the tension between ‘settling’ (appaesamento) and ‘unsettling’ (spaesamento) (Chapter 7). Settling refers to the process of familiarising the world, while unsettling describes alienation and disruption. For de Martino, apocalyptic events unsettle the familiar world, but they also present opportunities for renewal and the remaking of cultural worlds.
Although The End of the World was written in the 1960s, its relevance to contemporary conflict and anthropogenic crises is clear. Beyond this, the book resonates with modern anthropology. Readers familiar with the anthropology of religion, magic, and witchcraft will recognise parallels with analyses – common in the 1990s – of ‘occult’ phenomena and millenarianism, particularly in colonial contexts. De Martino emphasises ‘critical ethnocentrism’ (Chapter 4), arguing that scholars must critically reappropriate their biases, not impose Western assumptions on other cultures. This anticipates debates on reflexivity that became central to anthropology after Writing Culture (1986). De Martino's ideas on crises, culture, and psychopathology echo later scholars like Arthur Kleinman and Vincent Crapanzano. His focus on settling recalls Ingoldian notions of ‘dwelling’, while his attention to individual and collective crises resonates with affect theory.
The End of the World is an exploration of how societies confront existential limits. De Martino's examination of how cultures deal with threat or collapse – whether through ancient rituals, religious eschatology, or modern cultural production – offers helpful insights for contemporary crises. Perhaps more importantly, this book shows that de Martino was more than ‘simply’ a precursor to later anthropological ideas. It is a powerful reminder of a potential anthropological ethos to work for ‘a very humbly human, and very historically determined, task of unification’ (p. 8).
Andrea De Antoni
Kyoto University