Role of Remittances in Religion: A Case Study of Potohari Village
Author: Maryam Naz

Pakistani society revolves around faith. It has a deep influence over the lives of people. In Pakistan, shrines are considered as a social structure and an aspect of religion. The scholastic material shows that Islam is depicted by the Sufis. Sufism is cited as one of the biggest, evolutionary and dominant reason for the popularity and development in spreading of Islam in the subcontinent. History highlights that since the last eighty years, Sufi saints played an important and critical role in the process of Islamisation. It is also cited in literature that people migrate to assess personal and family needs. Migration is important because home country receives remittances for their left behind families and Pakistan is receiving billions of dollars as remittance. Remittances boost economy of the country. Both the economy and religion are two separate institutions. Current study will investigate the role of remittances in religion as the relationship between remittances and religion is overlooked by the scholars who work on these domains. This study highlights that although Pakistan is a society where popular Islam is practised and common people visit shrines, pirs, and sacred places to end their socio-economic issues such as health, household, family matters and psychological and personal issues. The study is qualitative in nature and thematic analysis is used as a data analysis tool. Findings of the study show that rural people do believe and have firm faith on the pir and sajjadanashin of the shrines. They give money to the shrines to fulfil their religious activities and offer langar and nazrana. It is recommended in this study that there should be proper data of the usage of remittances. Supervisor:- Dr. Zulfiqar Ali

Meta Data

Supervisor: Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro

Related Thesis​