Sufism: The Essentials

by Mark J. Sedgwick

Overview

For more than a millennium, Sufism has been the core of the spiritual experience of countless Muslims. As the chief mystical tradition of Islam, it has helped to shape the history of Islamic societies. Although it is the Sufi face of Islam that has often appealed to Westerners, Sufis and Sufism remain mysterious to many in the West, and are still widely misunderstood. In this new, redesigned paperback edition of this bestselling book, a scholar with long experience of Sufism in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Europe succinctly presents the essentials of Sufism and shows how Sufis live and worship, and why. As well as what Sufism is and where it comes from, the book discusses Sufi orders not only in the Islamic world but also in the West. The political, social, and economic significance of Sufism is outlined, and the question of how and why Sufism has become one of the more controversial aspects of contemporary Islamic religious life is addressed. This book assumes no prior knowledge of the subject. It is a penetrating and concise introduction for everyone interested in Islam and Islamic societies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617972652
Publisher:	American University in Cairo Press, The
Publication date:	09/01/2003
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	132
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Mark Sedgwick took his doctorate from the University of Bergen, Norway, in Islamic history. He has been teaching at the American University in Cairo, working on and with Sufis, for more than ten years.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	1
1	What is Sufism and where does it come from?	5
	The origins of Sufism	5
	Sufism as a practical program	9
	Orthodoxy, exotericism, and esotericism	11
	The first shaykh	14
	Two great Sufi theorists	18
2	How to be a Sufi	23
	Sufism and social class	23
	Sufism and gender	25
	The shaykh as exemplar	29
	Range of participation	31
	Essential practices	34
	The majdhub	48
3	The orders	51
	The archetypal Friend of God	51
	The role of Sufism in the spread of Islam	55
	The organization of an order	56
	Some of the great orders and their shaykhs	62
	Sufism in the West today	71
4	Friends, warriors, and merchants	79
	Sufism and jihad	79
	Sufism and commerce	84
	Sufism and sociability	87
5	Whose orthodoxy?	89
	From Ibn Taymiya to the Wahhabis	90
	Sufi 'renewers' of Islam	96
	The impact of modernity	99
	Sufism in partial eclipse	108
	Some of the Hikam of Ibn Ata Allah	111
	Glossary	115
	Bibliography	121