RESEARCHING MUSLIM SAINTS OF THE MARATHI DECCAN: SOME PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES.

This paper seeks to review some of the dominant trends in the research on Muslim saints of the Marathi Deccan. It attempts to locate the main problems in the nexus of the uncritical application of modern collective categories organised along the lines of ethnicity, language and religion to pre-colonial materials. These problems and the lack of clarity that they cause are illustrated by an example from the study of Shaikh Muhammad from Shrigonda, a popular Muslim saint, whose medium of communication was Marathi. The last part of the paper makes some suggestions about how it is possible to see Muslim holy figures differently and why this is, perhaps, necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]