Ethnographie d'un islam indien : organisation culturelle et sociale d'une institution musulmane : la dargâh du martyr Ghâzî Miyân (Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, Inde du Nord)

This thesis deals with a dargâh, the most representative institution of Islam on the Indian subcontinent. The study of the dargâh of the martyr Ghâzi Miyân in Bahraich (Uttar Pradesh) raises issues concerning the role of Islamic values in local Hindu society. These have been studied from three different perspectives: organization of worship, social organization, and the martyr’s acts. Both daily and festive worship, analysed on the basis of notions of time and space, reveals the distinctive roles played by Muslim and Hindu inhabitants of a territory defined by the worship of Ghâzi Miyân. He appears to be a kind of local power who reacts in function of human events. The social organisation of the sanctuary as an institution, comparable to the ancient landownership system, is based on relations of service and the sharing of wealth between several beneficiaries. The hagiography of the martyr describing him as a Jihad conqueror seems at first sight to be in contradiction with his veneration. His story is interwoven with hagiography, local legends and ballads and reveals itself to be a reconfiguration based on a universe of shared Islamic and Hindu values of the classic young warrior hero who dies a martyr’s death.