Sufism in an Age of Transition

Sufism in an Age of Transition PDF Author: Erik Ohlander
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047432142
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Although the early thirteenth century was a critical period in the development of Sufism, it has received little scholarly attention. Based on heretofore unexplored sources, this book examines a pivotal figure from this period: the scholar, mystic, statesman, and eponym of one of the earliest ṭarīqa lineages, ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī. In situating Suhrawardī’s life work in its social, political, and religious contexts, this book suggests that his universalizing Sufi system was not only enmeshed within a broader economy of Muslim religious learning, but also furnished social spaces which allowed for novel modes of participation in Sufi religiosity. In doing so, this book provides a framework for understanding the increasingly ubiquitous presence of intentional Sufi communities and institutions throughout the late-medieval Islamic world.

Sufism in an Age of Transition

Sufism in an Age of Transition PDF Author: Erik Ohlander
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047432142
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 382

Get Book Here

Book Description
Although the early thirteenth century was a critical period in the development of Sufism, it has received little scholarly attention. Based on heretofore unexplored sources, this book examines a pivotal figure from this period: the scholar, mystic, statesman, and eponym of one of the earliest ṭarīqa lineages, ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī. In situating Suhrawardī’s life work in its social, political, and religious contexts, this book suggests that his universalizing Sufi system was not only enmeshed within a broader economy of Muslim religious learning, but also furnished social spaces which allowed for novel modes of participation in Sufi religiosity. In doing so, this book provides a framework for understanding the increasingly ubiquitous presence of intentional Sufi communities and institutions throughout the late-medieval Islamic world.

Routledge Handbook on Sufism

Routledge Handbook on Sufism PDF Author: Lloyd Ridgeon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351706470
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 779

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Book Description
This is a chronological history of the Sufi tradition, divided in to three sections, early, middle and modern periods. The book comprises 35 independent chapters with easily identifiable themes and/or geographical threads, all written by recognised experts in the field. The volume outlines the origins and early developments of Sufism by assessing the formative thinkers and practitioners and investigating specific pietistic themes. The middle period contains an examination of the emergence of the Sufi Orders and illustrates the diversity of the tradition. This middle period also analyses the fate of Sufism during the time of the Gunpowder Empires. Finally, the end period includes representative surveys of Sufism in several countries, both in the West and in traditional "Islamic" regions. This comprehensive and up-to-date collection of studies provides a guide to the Sufi tradition. The Handbook is a valuable resource for students and researchers with an interest in religion, Islamic Studies and Middle Eastern Studies.

The Cambridge Companion to Sufism

The Cambridge Companion to Sufism PDF Author: Lloyd Ridgeon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107018307
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
This book traces the evolution of Sufism from the formative period to the present.

Sufi Institutions

Sufi Institutions PDF Author: Alexandre Papas
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004392602
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
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

Popularisation of Sufism in Ayyubid and Mamluk Egypt, 1173-1325

Popularisation of Sufism in Ayyubid and Mamluk Egypt, 1173-1325 PDF Author: Nathan Hofer
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748694226
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
This book is the first systematic investigation of how and why Sufism became extraordinarily popular across Egypt in the 12th - 14th centuries.

Sufism in Ottoman Damascus

Sufism in Ottoman Damascus PDF Author: Nikola Pantić
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 100096261X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Sufism in Ottoman Damascus analyzes thaumaturgical beliefs and practices prevalent among Muslims in eighteenth-century Ottoman Syria. The study focuses on historical beliefs in baraka, which religious authorities often interpreted as Allah's grace, and the alleged Sufi-ulamaic role in distributing it to Ottoman subjects. This book highlights considerable overlaps between Sufis and ʿulamāʾ with state appointments in early modern Province of Damascus, arguing for the possibility of sociologically defining a Muslim priestly sodality, a group of religious authorities and wonder-workers responsible for Sunni orthodoxy in the Ottoman Empire. The Sufi-ʿulamāʾ were integral to Ottoman networks of the holy, networks of grace that comprised of hallowed individuals, places, and natural objects. Sufism in Ottoman Damascus sheds new light on the appropriate scholarly approach to historical studies of Sufism in the Ottoman Empire, revising its position in official early modern versions of Ottoman Sunnism. This book further re-approaches early modern Sunni beliefs in wonders and wonder-working, as well as the relationship between religion, thaumaturgy, and magic in Ottoman Sunni Islam, historical themes comparable to other religions and other parts of the world.

Varieties of American Sufism

Varieties of American Sufism PDF Author: Elliott Bazzano
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438477929
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
From Rumi poetry and Sufi dancing or whirling, to expressions of Africanicity and the forging of transnational bonds to remote locations in Senegal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey, Varieties of American Sufism immerses the reader in diverse expressions of contemporary Sufi religiosity in the United States. It spans more than a century of political, cultural, and embodied relationships with Islam and Muslims. American encounters with mystical Islam were initiated by a romantic quest for Oriental wisdom, flourished in the embrace of Eastern teachings during the countercultural era of New Age religion, were concretized due to late twentieth-century possibilities of travel and immigration to and from Muslim societies, and are now diffused through an explosion of cyber religion in an age of globalization. This collection of in-depth, participant-observation-based studies challenges expectations of uniformity and continuity while provoking stimulating reflection on a range of issues relevant to contemporary Islamic Studies, American religions, multireligious belonging, and new religious movements.

Companionship and Virtue in Classical Sufism

Companionship and Virtue in Classical Sufism PDF Author: Jason Welle
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0755652290
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Al-Sulami (d. 412/1021) was an influential classical Sufi master whose works espoused companionship as a way for believers to experience God's guidance and cultivate religious virtues. This book provides a historical reconstruction of Sufi companionship in Khurasan in the period, arguing that al-Sulami's concept of suhba (companionship) envisioned the transformation of society as whole, not just the master-disciple relationship. Bringing debates in contemporary virtue ethics to bear on al-Sulami's spiritual method, the book offers an original analysis of the latter's thought that will be of interest to scholars of early Islam and classical Sufism as well as moral theologians interested in virtue ethics, character and friendship.

Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt

Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt PDF Author: Elisha Russ-Fishbane
Publisher:
ISBN: 019872876X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt addresses the extraordinary rise and inner life of the Egyptian pietist movement in the first half of the thirteenth century. The creative engagement with the dominant Islamic culture was always present, even when unspoken. Elisha Russ-Fishbane calls attention to the Sufi subtext of Jewish pietiem, while striving not to reduce its spiritual synthesis and religious renewal to a set of political calculations. Ultimately, no single term or concept can fully address the creative expression of pietism that so animated Jewish society and that left its mark in numerous manuscripts and fragments from medieval Egypt. Russ-Fishbane offers a nuanced examination of the pietist sources on their own terms, drawing as far as possible upon their own definitions and perceptions. Jewish society in thirteenth-century Egypt reflects the dynamic reexamination by a venerable community of its foundational texts and traditions, even of its very identity and institutions, viewed and reviewed in the full light of its Islamic environment. The historical legacy of this religious synthesis belongs at once to the realm of Jewish culture, in all its diversity and dynamism, as well as to the broader spiritual orbit of Islamicate civilization.

The Muslim Difference

The Muslim Difference PDF Author: Youshaa Patel
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300248962
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
A sweeping history of Muslim identity from its origins in late antiquity to the present How did Muslims across time and place define the line between themselves and their neighbors? Youshaa Patel explores why the Prophet Muhammad first advised his followers to emulate Christians and Jews, but then allegedly reversed course, urging them to "be different!" He details how subsequent generations of Muslim scholars canonized the Prophet's admonition into an influential doctrine against imitation that enjoined ordinary believers to embody and display their religious difference in public life. Tracing this Islamic discourse from its origins in Arabia to Mamluk and Ottoman Damascus, colonial Egypt, and beyond, this sweeping intellectual and social history offers a panoramic view of Muslim identity, revealing unexpected intersections between religion and other markers of difference across ethnicity, gender, and status. Patel illustrates that contemporary debates in the West over visible expressions of Islam, from headscarves and beards to minarets and mosques, are just the latest iterations in a long history of how small differences have defined Muslim interreligious encounters.