Sufi Institutions

Sufi Institutions
Author :
Publisher : BRILL
Total Pages : 458
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9789004392601
ISBN-13 : 9004392602
Rating : 4/5 (01 Downloads)

Synopsis Sufi Institutions by : Alexandre Papas

This volume describes the social and practical aspects of Islamic mysticism (Sufism) across centuries and geographical regions. Its authors seek to transcend ethereal, essentialist and “spiritualizing” approaches to Sufism, on the one hand, and purely pragmatic and materialistic explanations of its origins and history, on the other. Covering five topics (Sufism’s economy, social role of Sufis, Sufi spaces, politics, and organization), the volume shows that mystics have been active socio-religious agents who could skillfully adjust to the conditions of their time and place, while also managing to forge an alternative way of living, worshiping and thinking. Basing themselves on the most recent research on Sufi institutions, the contributors to this volume substantially expand our understanding of the vicissitudes of Sufism by paying special attention to its organizational and economic dimensions, as well as complex and often ambivalent relations between Sufis and the societies in which they played a wide variety of important and sometimes critical roles. Contributors are Mehran Afshari, Ismail Fajrie Alatas, Semih Ceyhan, Rachida Chih, Nathalie Clayer, David Cook, Stéphane A. Dudoignon, Daphna Ephrat, Peyvand Firouzeh, Nathan Hofer, Hussain Ahmad Khan, Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, Richard McGregor, Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, Alexandre Papas, Luca Patrizi, Paulo G. Pinto, Adam Sabra, Mark Sedgwick, Jean-Jacques Thibon, Knut S. Vikør and Neguin Yavari

Scholars, Saints, and Sufis

Scholars, Saints, and Sufis
Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Total Pages : 420
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0520020278
ISBN-13 : 9780520020276
Rating : 4/5 (78 Downloads)

Synopsis Scholars, Saints, and Sufis by : Nikki R. Keddie

Middle East officially Near East.

The Sufi Orders in Islam

The Sufi Orders in Islam
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 370
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780198028239
ISBN-13 : 0198028237
Rating : 4/5 (39 Downloads)

Synopsis The Sufi Orders in Islam by : J. Spencer Trimingham

Sufism, the name given to Islamic mysticism, has been the subject of many studies, but the orders through which the organizational aspect of the Sufi spirit was expressed has been neglected. The Sufi Orders in Islam is one of the earliest modern examinations of the historical development of Sufism and is considered a classic work in numerous sources of Islamic studies today. Here, author J. Spencer Trimingham offers a clear and detailed account of the formation and development of the Sufi schools and orders (tariqahs) from the second century of Islam until modern times. Trimingham focuses on the practical disciplines behind the mystical aspects of Sufism which initially attracted a Western audience. He shows how Sufism developed and changed, traces its relationship to the unfolding and spread of mystical ideas, and describes in sharp detail its rituals and ceremonial practices. Finally, he assesses the influence of these Sufi orders upon Islamic society in general. John O. Voll has added a new introduction to this classic text and provides readers with an updated list of further reading. The Sufi Orders in Islam will appeal not only to those already familiar with Triminghams groundbreaking research, but also to the growing reading public of Islamic studies and mysticism.

Sufis in Medieval Baghdad

Sufis in Medieval Baghdad
Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages : 193
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780755647590
ISBN-13 : 0755647599
Rating : 4/5 (90 Downloads)

Synopsis Sufis in Medieval Baghdad by : Atta Muhammad

This book examines the political and social activities of Sufis in Baghdad in the period 1000-1258. It argues that Sufis played an important role in creating a public sphere that existed between ordinary subjects and the government. Drawing on Arabic sources and secondary literature, it explores the role of Sufis and their institutions including their ribats or lodge houses, from the use of Sufis as political ambassadors to their role in redistributing charity to the poor. The book reveals the role of Sufism in structuring a wide range of social and political arrangements in this period. It also reveals the role of ordinary, non-elite actors who, by taking part in Sufi-affiliated religious or professional associations, were able take part in public life in late-Abbasid Baghdad.

Sufis, Salafis and Islamists

Sufis, Salafis and Islamists
Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages : 219
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780857727107
ISBN-13 : 0857727109
Rating : 4/5 (07 Downloads)

Synopsis Sufis, Salafis and Islamists by : Sadek Hamid

British Muslim activism has evolved constantly in recent decades. What have been its main groups and how do their leaders compete to attract followers? Which social and religious ideas from abroad are most influential? In this groundbreaking study, Sadek Hamid traces the evolution of Sufi, Salafi and Islamist activist groups in Britain, including The Young Muslims UK, Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Salafi JIMAS organisation and Traditional Islam Network. With reference to second-generation British Muslims especially, he explains how these groups gain and lose support, embrace and reject foreign ideologies, and succeed and fail to provide youth with compelling models of British Muslim identity. Analyzing historical and firsthand community research, Hamid gives a compelling account of the complexity that underlies reductionist media narratives of Islamic activism in Britain.

Sufism and Society

Sufism and Society
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 371
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781136659041
ISBN-13 : 1136659048
Rating : 4/5 (41 Downloads)

Synopsis Sufism and Society by : John Curry

In recent years, many historians of Islamic mysticism have been grappling in sophisticated ways with the difficulties of essentialism. Reconceptualising the study of Islamic mysticism during an under-researched period of its history, this book examines the relationship between Sufism and society in the Muslim world, from the fall of the Abbasid caliphate to the heyday of the great Ottoman, Mughal and Safavid empires. Treating a heretofore under-researched period in the history of Sufism, this work establishes previously unimagined trajectories for the study of mystical movements as social actors of real historical consequence. Thematically organized, the book includes case studies drawn from the Middle Eastern, Turkic, Persian and South Asian regions by a group of scholars whose collective expertise ranges widely across different historical, geographical, and linguistic landscapes. Chapters theorise why, how, and to what ends we might reconceptualise some of the basic methodologies, assumptions, categories of thought, and interpretative paradigms which have heretofore shaped treatments of Islamic mysticism and its role in the social, cultural and political history of pre-modern Muslim societies. Proposing novel and revisionist treatments of the subject based on the examination of many under-utilized sources, the book draws on a number of disciplinary perspectives and methodological approaches, from art history to religious studies. As such, it will appeal to students and scholars of Middle East studies, religious history, Islamic studies and Sufism.

The Nature of the Sufi Path

The Nature of the Sufi Path
Author :
Publisher : Bilquees Press
Total Pages : 484
Release :
ISBN-10 :
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 ( Downloads)

Synopsis The Nature of the Sufi Path by : Anab Whitehouse

The material in The Nature of the Sufi Path consists of 70 commentaries on a book entitled Sufism: A Short Introduction by Professor William C. Chittick. Many, if not most, of the paragraphs that comprise the 163 pages (preface plus text) of Professor Chittick’s book contain problems, errors, misleading statements, and/or incorrect understandings concerning Islam, in general, and the Sufi path, in particular. This is both surprising and disturbing since the author is someone who, apparently, enjoys a considerable reputation in North America -- and, perhaps, elsewhere in the world -- as an expert on, and scholar of, the Sufi mystical tradition. I do not claim that what I say in this book is a definitive, exhaustive, ‘incapable-of-being-improved-upon’ treatment of the Sufi path. Rather, my hope is that the present book might move a person closer to the truth concerning the nature of that path than Professor Chittick’s aforementioned introduction to Sufism does and, as such, would represent an improvement over his work.

State and Sufism in Iraq

State and Sufism in Iraq
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 328
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781000508758
ISBN-13 : 1000508757
Rating : 4/5 (58 Downloads)

Synopsis State and Sufism in Iraq by : David Jordan

State and Sufism in Iraq is the first comprehensive study of the Iraqi Baʿth regime’s (r. 1968–2003) entanglement with Sufis and of Sunnī Sufi Islam in Iraq from the late Ottoman period until 2003 and beyond. For far too long, the secular and authoritarian Baʿth regime has been reduced to the dictator Saddam Husayn and portrayed as antireligious. It’s growing political employment of Islam during the 1990s, in turn, has been interpreted either as an abstract Baʿthist-nationalist Islam or as an ideological U-turn from secularism to a form of Islamism that ultimately contributed to the spread of Islamist terrorism after 2003. Broadening the narrow focus on Saddam Husayn, this book analyses other leading regime figures, their close entanglement with Sufis, and Baʿth religious politics of a state-sponsored revival of Sufi Islam and Iraq’s broad and distinct Sufi culture. It is the story of a secular regime’s search for "moderate" Islam in order to overcome the challenges of radical Islamism and sectarianism in Iraq. The book’s two-pronged interdisciplinary approach that deals equally with politics and Sufi Islam in Iraq makes it a valuable contribution to scholars and students in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Religious Anthropology and Sociology, Political Science, and International Relations.

Sufism in Western Contexts

Sufism in Western Contexts
Author :
Publisher : BRILL
Total Pages : 423
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9789004392625
ISBN-13 : 9004392629
Rating : 4/5 (25 Downloads)

Synopsis Sufism in Western Contexts by : Marcia K. Hermansen

Sufism in Western Contexts explores both historical trajectories and multiple contemporary manifestations of Islamic mystical movements, ideas, and practices in diverse European, North and South American countries, as well as in Australia – all traditionally non-Muslim regions of the “global West”. From early French and British colonial administrators who admired Persian poetry to nineteenth-century American transcendentalists, followed by South Asian and Middle Eastern immigrant Sufi guides and their movements, expansive and many-faceted expressions of Sufism such as its role in Western esotericism, female whirling dervishes and Rumi cafes, and new articulations in cyberspace, are traced and analyzed by international experts in the field.

Sufi Castigator

Sufi Castigator
Author :
Publisher : Routledge
Total Pages : 257
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781134373987
ISBN-13 : 1134373988
Rating : 4/5 (87 Downloads)

Synopsis Sufi Castigator by : Lloyd Ridgeon

Sufi Castigator investigates the writings of Ahmad Kasravi, one of the foremost intellectuals in Iran. It studies his work within the context of Sufism in modern Iran and mystical Persian literature and includes translations of Kasravi’s writings. Kasravi provides a fascinating topic for those with interests in Sufism and Iranian studies as he attempted to produce a form of Iranian identity that he believed was compatible with the modern age and Iranian nationalism. His stress on reason and the de-mystification of religion caused him to repudiate Sufism and much of the Sufi literary heritage as backwards and believed it a reason for the weakness of modern Iran. Kasravi’s historical observations were weak, and his writings indicate that he was working towards pre-determined conclusions. However, his works are of significance because they contributed to a major discussion in the 1930s to 1940s about the ideal image and identity that Iranians should adopt. Despite the academic weaknesses of Kasravi’s works he had a profound effect on the next generation of thinkers. Sufi Castigator is stimulating and meticulously researched book and includes two lengthy translations of Kasravi’s works, Sufism and What does Hafez Say? and will appeal to scholars of middle eastern studies.