An earlier book of mine was Investigating the Sai Baba Movement A (2005), which included coverages of Shirdi Sai Baba (d.1918) and Upasani Maharaj (d.1941), along with Meher Baba (d.1969). In some basic respects, Investigating was the response to Antonio Rigopoulos, The Life and Teachings of Sai Baba of Shirdi (1993). In the publishing format for the latter volume, the State University of New York Press affirmed: "A vast and diversified religious movement, originating from Sai Baba of Shirdi, is often referred to as 'the Sai Baba movement.' "This subject needs some qualification, as I have formerly urged.
The "Sai Baba movement" has been the focus of disagreements and different presentations. The attendant "guru" entities in Maharashtra may be considered a distinctive feature of nineteenth and twentieth century mysticism in India. However, the purported extension via Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi (d.2011) is viewed by some assessors as a complication, in that Sathya Sai Baba claimed to be the reincarnation of Shirdi Sai.
The present work is not concerned with the debated "movement." Instead, my objective here is to probe diverse sources and materials on Shirdi Sai Baba, in an attempt to fathom the nature of events in his biography.
When my preliminary work Gurus Rediscovered appeared in 1986, there were already numerous books on Shirdi Sai Baba, all of them opting for the "Hinduised" version associated with well-known Indian commentators. In contrast, my coverage emphasised Muslim Sufi elements discernible in the biography of Shirdi Sai. This was a sufficiently radical departure for Dr. Rigopoulos to describe my contribution in terms of "a ground-breaking work" (Rigopoulos 1993:xxvii). In 1999 appeared a book by the late Dr. Warren entitled Unravelling the Enigma: Shirdi Sai Baba in the Light of Sufism. This work strongly argued for a Muslim and Sufi identity, presenting a long overdue translation of Abdul Baba's Urdu Notebook.
To get the Hindu and Muslim aspects of Sai Baba into perspective is not an easy undertaking. There is, in general, a strong tendency to emphasise the former at the expense of the latter, and so a degree of compensation may be necessary in some respects. My conclusions are that Sai Baba is compatible with both Bhakti Hinduism and unorthodox Sufism. I differ from Dr. Warren in explicating the nature of Sufi affinities, which is a fairly complex subject. Warren had a tendency to associate Shirdi Sai with Sufi Orders, whereas my interpretation places him outside those organisations. Thus, the phrase "Muslim Sufi" can become ambiguous, admitting an independent context not generally envisaged.
The many popular books on Shirdi Sai Baba have not always appealed to scholars. Some Western (and Indian) academics tend to dismiss him as being a product of the "miracle and lila" genre. I believe this to be an erroneous judgment. My own inclination is to pursue historical details, insofar as these can be charted. The historical content of the Shirdi Sai biography is definitely in evidence, although much more obscure in the subject's earlier years, and accompanied by hagiological features.
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