In this interview, Professor Ali Asani addresses the following questions:
1. What are the ginans? 00:38 - 01:53
2. Why the title 'Ecstasy and enlightenment' for the book? 01:54 - 04:26
3. What do you mean when you say that the ginans belong to larger indo-Muslim folk traditions? 04:28 - 06:06
4. Can the ginans be categorised as Islamic or Hindu? Are these categories justified in the context of the ginans? 06:07 - 08:44
5. What are the challenges of studying the ginans in manuscripts? 08:45 - 11:23
6. In what way is the community's engagment with the ginans changing? 11:26 - 14:47
7. How does your book contribute to the scholarship on the ginans? 14:48 - 16:15
8. What is the scope of further academic research on the ginans? 16:16 - 19:29
9. Being old texts, are the ginans relevant to us today? 19:30 - 21:39
The ginans are a large corpus of hymns and poems composed in a variety of Indic languages and attributed to a series of preacher–saints who propagated Ismaili Islam in the subcontinent over several centuries. In the book Ecstasy and Enlightnment, Professor Asani provides an overview as well as a discussion on specific aspects of the ginans such as their history; themes, forms, prosody and melodies; their devotional character and role in Ismaili religious life; the symbolism of divine love and spiritual marriage; and addresses some of the questions pertaining to the issue of their authorship.