As a case study of transnational religious identity, this chapter charts how a distinctly South Asian Sufi order has taken root in twenty-first century Southeast Asia. The Chishti Sabiri silsila is grounded in a long and storied Indo-Muslim past, and now thrives in contemporary Pakistan. Recently, however, the order has spread beyond the Indian subcontinent, expanding its cultural and historical boundaries via a complex teaching network centred on an interlocking web of master-disciple (pir-murid) relationships. During the 1970s, a number of Malaysian students studying medicine in Karachi became disciples of the Pakistani Sufi master, Shaykh Wahid Bakhsh Sial Rabbani (d. 1995). Over time, this interpersonal network continued to develop. Today, a dynamic group of Malaysian Chishti Sabiri disciples live and work in and around the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. Fully enmeshed in the contingencies of modern life in urban Southeast Asia, these modern Sufis move fluidly between multiple epistemological, linguistic, and geographical universes. At the same time, as the devotees of Pakistani Sufi masters, these Malaysian disciples are directly linked to a definitively South Asian religious identity. Drawing on recent fieldwork and research, this chapter traces the complex process of cultural accommodation and adaptation involved in transplanting the Chishti Sabiri silsila across the Indian Ocean, from Karachi to Kuala Lumpur. With attention to both texts and ethnographic contexts, I explore how today's growing contingent of Malaysian Chishti Sabiri disciples experience and explain their Sufi identity.

My inquiry here focuses on two particular dimensions of Sufi experience: pilgrimage and publication. Embodied ritual performance has always been at the very heart of Sufi practice and Chishti Sabiri identity. Sufism (Islamic mysticism) centres on techniques of mental and bodily discipline, coupled with a detailed theory of subjectivity. On entering a Sufi order, a disciple (murid) relinquishes personal autonomy, surrendering autonomy to the will of a teacher (shaykh). To quote a well-known adage, this surrender must be total and uncompromising, “like a corpse in the hands of a washerman”. That's the ideal. In practice, however, the intimate relationship with a Sufi shaykh is far more complex, a balancing act between submission to hierarchical authority, and an imperative for individual action and moral responsibility. In their spiritual quest, individual Sufi disciples are not alone. Devotees provide their spiritual compatriots with a vital support system — sharing experiences, clarifying doubts, ambiguities and anxieties, and participating in communal ritual activities.