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There is a vast body of imaginal literature in Bengali that introduces fictional Sufi saints into the complex mythological world of Hindu gods and goddesses. Dating to the sixteenth century, the stories—pir katha—are still widely read and performed today. The events that play out rival the fabulations of the Arabian Nights, which has led them to be dismissed as simplistic folktales, yet the work of these stories is profound: they provide fascinating insight into how Islam habituated itself into the cultural life of the Bangla-speaking world. In Witness to Marvels, Tony K. Stewart unearths the dazzling tales of Sufi saints to signal a bold new perspective on the subtle ways Islam assumed its distinctive form in Bengal.

About the Author

Tony K. Stewart is Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in Humanities at Vanderbilt University and a specialist in the religions and literatures of early modern Bengal. His works include The Final Word: The Caitanya Caritam?ta and the Grammar of Religious Tradition and Fabulous Females and Peerless Pirs: Tales of Mad Adventure in Old Bengal.

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"Stewart provides rich insights into the nature of fiction in the context of premodern forms of storytelling. His analysis is conceptually rich and offers abundant opportunities to think about the directions that the study of similar narratives can take in the scholarship of other Indian languages."
— Marginalia Review of Books

"The book will be of interest to scholars who work on Islam in South Asia, as well as those who engage in literary studies, while the stories translated here will be a great resource for courses that engage in South Asian Islam."
— New Books Network

"With its elegant translations and careful literary analysis, Witness to Marvels allows non-Bengali-speaking scholars to enter the long-overlooked narrative world of the fictional Sufi saints of Bengal. Stewart’s masterful work makes a tremendous contribution to the fields of religious studies and comparative literature."
— Reading Religion

"An essential book that illuminates Bengali Islam and challenges scholars of Islam to expand the vision of their field."
— Religious Studies Review

"The tales that are the subject of Tony K. Stewart's book depict a Bengal that is miraculously hybrid, innocent of the estrangements of the modern era. In these stories beings of all sorts—animal, human, superhuman and divine—are seen to be deeply engaged with each other. This is essential reading for everyone interested in precolonial South Asia."—Amitav Ghosh, author of The Great Derangement

“This is a work of great erudition; the sophisticated analysis is testament to Stewart’s deep engagement with Bengal’s religious, cultural, and literary histories. It is a pathbreaking work in many ways, one whose theoretical, conceptual, and methodological insights will be valuable to scholars of religion, literature, and history—of Bengal, South Asia, and beyond.”—Farina Mir, Department of History, University of Michigan

"While inspiring readers to acquire fresh methodological and analytical tools for studying religion and region, history, and aesthetics, this triumph of a book also causes us to pause and marvel at the art of translation. The translated versions we encounter here are true to the English idiom at its eloquent best while they retain the flavors of South Asian languages. This is nothing less than a standard-setter in the studies of South Asia, Islam, and literature." —Syed Akbar Hyder, Professor of Asian Studies and Islamic Studies, University of Texas at Austin

Awards

Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize 2021 2021, Association for Asian Studies

About the Book