The Tale of the Hidden Pir

Abstract

Histories tell us how, threatened by state power and by various pressure groups, resisting communities have chosen to go underground, surviving clandestinely as a whole or partly concealing their activities. This phenomenon testifies to the permanence of dynamic, antinomian trends in societies. A particular type is expressed by the tales of religious dissimulation - practised by Jews, Christians, and Muslims - referred to in the Islamic idiom as taqiyya.