The Development of a Modern Western Sufism

Abstract

The recent enthusiasm for Jalaluddin Rumi’s poetry in North America and Europe has brought Sufism to the attention of many Westerners in a liberal and liberating way that contrasts sharply with post-9/11 stereotypes of the Islamic tradition from which it derives. That Sufism should stimulate receptivity to Islam is not a new phenomenon. Sufism’s encounter with the modern West over the last century continues a process in which it has historically been one of the main carriers of Islam into new cultures. Since Sufi masters teach that one may experience God directly, and not just through the Qur’an and sunna, their movements generate familiar tensions among Muslims who are concerned that orthodoxy not be eroded by heterodox innovations (bid`a). The encounter of Sufism with the West also creates new tensions as this ancient tradition grapples with twentieth and twenty-first century processes of modernization in religious and other organizations as well as changes in patterns of personal religiosity. [Extract from chapter introduction]

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