Healing and Faith: Popular Healing Practices in Delhi and Mewat in the 19th and 20th Century

This dissertation, “Healing and Faith: Popular Healing Practices in Delhi and Mewat in the 19th and 20th Century,†explores the role and persistence of faith-based healing traditions in North India, particularly in Delhi and Mewat, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The study examines how spiritual and ritual healing practices continued alongside the rise of colonial and modern biomedical systems. It argues that healing in South Asia was not understood only in physical or medical terms, but also through emotional, spiritual, and social frameworks. The dissertation focuses on practices such as jhaad-phook, taweez, Qur’anic recitation, shrine visitation, vow-making, and other ritual methods associated with relief from illness and distress. It also analyses beliefs related to nazar, jinn possession, oopri hawa, and taklīf, which shaped local understandings of suffering and recovery. Through a comparative study of urban Delhi and rural Mewat, the research highlights how healing traditions adapted to different social and cultural environments while maintaining shared religious foundations. Special attention is given to sacred healing spaces such as Nizamuddin Dargah and Feroz Shah Kotla, where individuals sought emotional comfort, spiritual support, and solutions to personal difficulties. Using historical analysis, oral narratives, and ethnographic observation, this study demonstrates that faith healing remained an important part of everyday life despite modernization and scientific advancement. Ultimately, the dissertation argues that these practices survived because they continued to provide hope, reassurance, and culturally meaningful ways of understanding suffering and healing.