This article discusses the significance of growing large beards among the young Danish Pakistani members of a newly established Naqshbandi Sufi order in Copenhagen, where the beard is not simply an imitation but a reflection of the Prophet Muhammad. Exploring emic understandings of emulation and embodiment, the article suggests that a conceptual displacement from imitation to reflection enables our analytical framework to move beyond the ‘self-cultivation paradigm’ that has dominated recent writings in the anthropology of Islam, so that it can accommodate the numerous ways in which devoted Sufis are being acted upon; a change from ‘technology of self’ to ‘technology of Other’ enables connections between this world and Elsewhere to be included in the analytical framework. The article further discusses how the beard is significant in the brotherhood’s attempts at sacralization and world transformation based on nur (light) and love.
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