Global Sufism: Boundaries, Structures, and Politics

Francesco Piraino and Mark Sedgwick (eds.)

Hardback

9781787381346

An indispensable reader on the many manifestations of Sufi thought, practice and belief.

This book brings together the work of fourteen leading experts to explore systematically the key themes of Sufism’s new global presence, from Yemen to Senegal via Chicago and Sweden.

The contributors look at the global spread and stance of such major actors as the Ba ‘Alawiyya, the ‘Afropolitan’ Tijaniyya, and the Gülen Movement. They map global Sufi culture, from Rumi to rap, and ask how global Sufism accommodates different and contradictory gender practices. They examine the contested and shifting relationship between the Islamic and the universal: is Sufism the timeless and universal essence of all religions, the key to tolerance and co-existence between Muslims and non-Muslims? Or is it the purely Islamic heart of traditional and authentic practice and belief?

Finally, the book turns to politics. States and political actors in the West and in the Muslim world are using the mantle and language of Sufism to promote their objectives, while Sufis are building alliances with them against common enemies. This raises the difficult question of whether Sufis are defending Islam against extremism, supporting despotism against democracy, or perhaps doing both.

Contents

Part I: Boundaries

1. Global Rumi - Robert Irwin

2. The Islamisation of Western Sufism after the Early New Age - Mark Sedgwick

3. Afropolitan Sufism: The Contemporary Tijaniyya in Global Contexts - Zachary Wright

4. Who is the Infidel? Religious boundaries and social change in the Shadhiliyya Darqawiyya ‘Alawiyya - Francesco Piraino

5. Eu-rap-ia: Rap, Sufism and the Arab Qasida in Europe - Andrea Brigaglia

Part II: Structures

6. Contemporary Mawlids in Chicago - Justine Howe

7. Disordering and Reordering Sufism: North American Sufi Teachers and the Tariqa Model - William Rory Dickson and Merin Shobhana Xavier

8. In the Path of the Ancestors: The Ba’Alawi Order and the Struggle for Shaping the Future of Islam - Besnik Sinani

Part III: Politics

9. The Making of Sufism: The Gulen Movement and its Effort to Create a New Image - Florian Volm

10. Sounding Sufi: Sufi-oriented messages on Swedish Publich Service Radio - Simon Stjernholm

11. Algerian ‘Traditional’ Islam and Political Sufism - Thomas Joassin

12. Neo-traditionalist Sufis and Arab Politics: A Preliminary Mapping of the Transnational Networks of Counter-revolutionary Scholars after the Arab Revolutions - Usaama al-Azami