History of Shrine Architecture: Studying Cultural History of Sufi Shrines in Colonial Punjab

Abstract

This article surveys the current trends for studying the architecture of Sufi shrines and proposes a historical method for writing cultural history of Sufi shrines of colonial Punjab. Cultural, social and architectural historians, and cultural anthropologists use various methodologies for this purpose, I will highlight the pre-suppositions and methodological limitations of these approaches. The proposed historical method for studying Sufi shrines derives certain features from each approach discussed in the article, thus attempts to historicise sacred architecture by engaging the role of patrons, builders, images and inscriptions within the larger political and social context in which building was constructed. Works of Pakistani cultural and architectural historians, such as Kamil Khan Mumtaz, KK Aziz and Ghafer Shahzad3 focus either on religious meanings or stylistic aspects of architecture. These are interesting ways of explaining architecture. However, the contemporary scholarship of architectural history has developed new theoretical frameworks and methodologies based on the critique of techniques which Pakistani historians still use uncritically. Each methodology developed for writing architectural history has its own academic and cultural context thus cannot be borrowed as such. Considering this constraint, I propose here a methodology by making use of various techniques of cultural anthropology, art and architectural histories. I divide this article in two sections: the first section explains contemporary approaches to the study of sacred architecture and the second portion suggests a method for studying nineteenth-century Sufi shrines in colonial Punjab.