In recent decades, Sri Lanka's Sunni Muslim population has experienced a dramatic but paradoxical religious revitalization. Pan-Islamic movements such as the Tabliqi Jamaat have had a widespread impact on Muslim dress and public religiosity. At the same time, Sufi saintly traditions and devotional practices have exploded in popularity. Ecstatic Bawa faqirs have revived extreme self-mortifying practices, lavish annual festivals commemorating both established Muslim saints and the "new" saints who are emerging in military conflict zones, and Sufi leaders circulate between Lakshadweep, Kerala, Tamilnadu and Sri Lanka.

Professor Dennis McGilvray, a member of the Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Boulder, is the world authority on these new expressions of Islamic devotion in Sri Lanka. He presented his research at Harvard University on May 3, 2005. McGilvray's work was funded in part by a fellowship from the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies (AISLS) in 2001-2002. McGilvray also presided over an international conference, Muslims of Sri Lanka: History, Culture, Politics, sponosored by the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in July 2003. Dr. McGilvray's research points out that despite the common perception of a monolithic Islamic fundamentalist discourse, there is a multiplicity of expressions of Muslim religious devotion in Sri Lanka as elsewhere. Moreover, McGilvray also documents the transnational influences on South Asian Islam past and present.