Dennis McGilvray, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, will discuss his recent research in Sri Lanka at the final CAS Luncheon Series event of Spring 2014. This event will be held on Thursday, May 1, at 12:00 p.m. in the CAS Conference Room at 1424 Broadway on the CU-Boulder campus.
The century-old Muslim shrine at Daftar Jailani, located on the southern escarpment of the Kandyan Hills in central Sri Lanka, celebrates an annual flag-raising and kandoori (urs) festival in memory of the popular Sufi saint Abd al-Qadir Jilani (1077-1166 C.E., buried in Baghdad), who is believed to have meditated for twelve years in a cave overlooking the jungles below.
Recently, the shrine has become the target of militant Sinhala Buddhist monks who wish to reclaim the site as an ancient 5th century BCE monastic center. In 2013 a successful campaign to assert Buddhist control over Jailani was waged by monks of an anti-Muslim organization called the Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Strength Force) supported by the current Sri Lankan Defense Minister and the Sri Lankan Archaeology Department. The most recent celebration of the Jailani festival in February 2014 reveals the extent to which Sinhala Buddhist ethno-nationalism and anti-Muslim activism is affecting this traditional site of Sri Lankan Sufi devotion.