From Sainthood to Saintly Kinship: How Claiming Saintly Kinship Is Structuring the Social and Patronage Relationships in Rural Punjab, Pakistan.

This article examines the contested claims of sainthood and saintly kinship among two zamindar (land-owning) biraderies (endogamous kinship groups) in rural Punjab, Pakistan—the Chishti biraderi, descendants of the 12th-century Sufi saint Baba Farid of Pakpattan, and the Dhuddi biraderi, claiming descent from the earlier saint Baba Haji Sher Dewan. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in three villages of Vehari district, the study highlights how these spiritual lineages are appropriated and contested as sources of social superiority, political power, and economic patronage within a hierarchical rural society shaped by colonial land policies and ongoing local competition. The article problematises traditional views of Sufism as inherently egalitarian by showing that saintly kinship functions as a strategic resource in the reproduction of inequality and status among zamindar patrons and their clientele. It argues that sainthood in this context is neither fixed nor purely spiritual but is deeply embedded in everyday socio-political struggles over legitimacy and influence.