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This chapter deals with the destruction of the Sufi saints' mausoleums (a World Heritage Site) during the six-month occupation of Mali's northern regions by Tuareg-Islamist forces. Prior to the occupation, the government, foreign entities, and religious NGOs had deeply invested in the field of culture as a strategy to strengthen the influence of moderate Islam in Mali and to counter the Islamist groups' proselytizing in the north. The chapter investigates the symbolic implications the mausoleums' destruction held for different constituencies (e.g. Islamist groups, UNESCO representatives, the local heritage elite, Mali's religious leaders) and charts some of the unintended consequences of the incursions by state and quasi-state organizations into the religious sphere—actions that ultimately produced a conservative shift in the Muslim community. The chapter lends support to efforts promoted by some representatives of Mali's Ministry of Culture to sustain and diversify Mali's cultural patrimony by not limiting heritage work to the protection of Sufi shrines, and suggests the importance of considering some of the debates surrounding the protection and restoration of Sufi heritage sites in Mali today.

This introductory chapter provides a background of the Mughal Empire in sixteenth-century India, and its antecedents and parallels in Timurid Central Asia and Safavid Iran. These interconnected milieus offer an ideal window to explore and rethink the relationship between Muslim kingship and sainthood, for it was here that Muslim rulers came to express their sovereignty, and embody their sacrality in the manner of Sufi saints and holy saviors. In their classical phases, both the Mughals and the Safavids embraced a style of sovereignty that was “saintly” and “messianic,” modeling their courts on the pattern of Sufi orders, and fashioning themselves as the promised messiah. This style of sovereignty resulted in the development of a set of knowledge and rituals to make the body of the king sacred, creating a prophesied savior, a figure who would set right the unbearable order of things, and inaugurate a new era of peace and justice—the new millennium.

Chapter 2 explores pack animal life, particularly that of camels, prior to impressment in the army. After laying out the physical features of northwest British India, the chapter discusses its fauna and flora, ways of life, and the codependent relations of animals, pastoralists and agriculturalists. In some cases, these codependencies were informed by Islamic ethics and were expressed in the rich cultural life of Sufi shrines, where nomads, farmers and townspeople intermixed on key ritual occasions.