This book is the result of a multi-decade fieldwork project in Sudan and focuses on Ṭumbura, a local variant of the Zār cult, a spirit possession practice widespread in the Horn of Africa and the adjacent Middle East. The study proceeds chronologically, beginning with an analysis of the cult's origins, tracing them to the Islamic tradition of northern Sudanese “Arab” enslavers, who forcibly converted southern African slaves. The first chapter explores how this hybrid foundation shaped Ṭumbura's complex relationship with Islam, setting the stage for later transformations. The following chapter examines the cult's spiritual hierarchy, particularly the interplay between the overseeing figure of shaykh ᶜAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī and the zār spirits, whose manifestations occupy a more ambiguous space. Chapter 3 moves into the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, a period of relative economic stability and argues that, during this time, Ṭumbura experienced a revival through the broadening of its social base. Under the leadership of innovative shaykhas, the cult was reframed as an Islamic “legitimate” ritual practice (ṭughūs) while preserving its African heritage. The final chapters present detailed case studies illustrating how recent political and social changes, particularly the policies of the Islamist regime between 1989 and 2019, reshaped the cult's structure and meaning. The fragmentation of social ties and the emergence of new elites are reflected in the increasing individualization of ritual practice and the autonomy of specific spirits such as Azraq Benda. Beyond the meticulously gathered documentation, for which Makris is an absolute expert, and which provides a comprehensive analysis of the cult, the book is also accessible to nonspecialist readers, albeit they may at times feel disoriented by the density of Sudanese terminology. Beyond the immediate subject, the book offers an insightful reflection on slavery, showing, for example, how Sudani Ṭumbura practitioners have idealized the arrival of British colonialism as liberation from the Arab or Arabized slave owners. The study of Ṭumbura and its surrounding dynamics also provides a lens through which to understand the history of Sudan, a country that, unfortunately, only continues to appear in the news as a site of recurring atrocities and civil wars.
Davide Marino (Mon,) studied this question.