f Let the bird fly: Somatic practice and Sufi hadra performance, the embodied experience

Based on an ethnographic case study conducted amidst the Sufi women of the Naqshbandi group in Cape Town South Africa in 2013/14, this article discusses and analyses Sufi women’s verbalized ideas of the embodied ritual practice named hadra. From their experience with the ritual I argue that body and mind can somatically co-habit in a relationship in Sufi religious ritual practice. I challenge Sufi women’s ideas of an ‘outside of the body’ and ‘inside of the body’ experience during the fan’a, or final stage of the ritual. This article argues that when body and mind are connected within ritual praxis, an embodied experience is generated; this holistic experience goes beyond current Sufi theological thinking. This theory is evidenced in my research through an analysis of how dancers make sense of their own body and movement experience.