The Extraordinary Ordinary Man: Passion, Narrative, and Blasphemy Politics in Pakistan

This paper examines how a century-old hagiographic tradition centered on the figure of the Ghazi, an ordinary man who achieves extraordinary fame as a slayer of blasphemers, has been revitalized by the Tehrik Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a new Barelvi movement that calls on ordinary people to reclaim their dignity by taking violent action against those deemed blasphemers. It argues that Ghazi narratives provide an ideological medium through which ordinary believers can imagine achieving recognition as protectors of the Prophet’s honor. The paper traces the collective production of these narratives from the 1920s to the present following the killing of a Hindu publisher accused of blasphemy by a young Muslim man named Ilmuddin. In reconstructing him as a saint, Ilmuddin’s hagiographers created a narrative template in which an otherwise unremarkable man attains the highest form of social and divine recognition by being chosen, almost randomly, as God’s instrument for avenging blasphemers.