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Asceticism, and the insensibility and detachment from the world with which it is associated, is seen as an important dimension of Sufism, the mystical tradition within Islam. And yet it has attracted acerbic criticism from reformists and modernisers, who see it as a quietist stance that has contributed to the decline of the Muslim world. How, then, can asceticism be reconciled with a modern religious outlook concerned with the here and now, well-being and self-fulfilment? Drawing on long-term ethnographic studies in Pakistan focusing on Sufi women living in large urban centres, this article seeks to decode the system of meanings that arise from the embrace of a rich emotional landscape, including the rehabilitation of the body as a receptacle for the divine.