38. Carl Ernst | The History of Sufism and Yoga

In this episode we speak with Carl Ernst about his career of
scholarship on Sufism—which he describes as the tradition of
ethics and spirituality associated with Islam. In particular we
discuss the unique history of Sufism's engagement with Hindu
forms of yoga in northern India, which has been the subject of
numerous important publications by Ernst.  We discuss the
nature of Sufism, the fluid boundaries of religious identity, and
the fascinating history of translation and adaptation of yoga
within the Sufi orders, including the unique transmission of the
"Ocean of Life" (Baḥr al-ḥayāt), compiled by Muḥammad Ghawth in
1550. We conclude with a  preview of Ernst's upcoming online
course, YS 123 | Sufism and Yoga.

Speaker Bio


Dr. Carl W. Ernst is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished
Professor of Religious Studies Emeritus, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is an academic specialist in Islamic
studies, with a focus on West and South Asia. Ernst has received
research fellowships from the Fulbright program, the National
Endowment for the Humanities, and the John Simon Guggenheim
Foundation, and he has been elected a Fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research, based on the study of
Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, has been mainly devoted to the study
of three areas: general and critical issues of Islamic studies,
premodern and contemporary Sufism, and Indo-Muslim culture. 


He studied comparative religion at Stanford University (A.B.
1973) and Harvard University (Ph.D. 1981). He has done extended
research tours in India (1978-79, 1981), Pakistan (1986, 2000,
2005), and Turkey (1991), and has been a regular visitor to the
Gulf, Turkey, Iran, and Southeast Asia for lectures and
conferences. His next publications, coming out in August 2023,
are I Cannot Write My Life: Islam, Arabic, and Slavery in Omar
ibn Said’s America, co-authored with Mbaye Lo (UNC Press, 2023),
and Breathtaking Revelations: The Science of Breath, from the
Fifty Kamarupa Verses to Hazrat Inayat Khan, co-authored with
Patrick d’Silva (Suluk Press, 2023).


Links


YS 123 | Sufism and Yoga

https://carlwernst.web.unc.edu/