Professor Charles H. Norchi Afghanistan Book Prize

Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland

Professor Charles H. Norchi Afghanistan Book Prize

On behalf of the Royal Asiatic Society and after careful consideration of a very high quality pool of nominations, the Jury is pleased to award the inaugural Norchi Prize to Annika Schmeding for Sufi Civilities: Religious Authority and Political Change in Afghanistan (2024 Stanford University Press).  The work is a beautifully written ethnographic account of diverse Sufi communities in contemporary Afghanistan by an early career scholar. Based on extensive field research among multiple Sufi communities, Dr. Schmeding examines four decades of strategies employed by Sufi leaders to weather periods of instability and persecution demonstrating how they innovatively adapted to changing conditions to renew their networks of community support, thereby affirming Sufism as a force in the Afghan civic order. The book is a rare account of how Sufi leaders responded to moments of transition in a highly insecure environment, and how humanity can pierce darkness in times of turmoil.

C. Norchi, Jury Secretary