Islam in Africa is deeply connected with Sufism, and the history of Islam is in a significant way a history of Sufism. Yet even within this continent, the practice and role of Sufism varies across the regions. This interdisciplinary volume brings together histories and experiences of Sufism in various parts of Africa, offering case studies on several countries that include Morocco, Algeria, Senegal, Egypt, Sudan, Mali, and Nigeria. It uses a variety of methodologies ranging from the hermeneutical, through historiographic to ethnographic, in a comprehensive examination of the politics and performance of Sufism in Africa. While the politics of Sufism pertains largely to historical and textual analysis to highlight paradigms of sanctity in different geographical areas in Africa, the aspect of performance adopts a decidedly ethnographic approach, combining history, history of art and discourse analysis. Together, analysis of these two aspects reveals the many faces of Sufism that have remained hitherto hidden. Furthering understanding of the African Islamic religious scene, as well as contributing to the study of Sufism worldwide, this volume is of key interest to students and scholars of Middle Eastern, African and Islamic studies.

The origin of Sufism -- Self criticism; Reflection; Privacy and seclusion; Heart; Hope or expectation; Asceticism. People follow the Sufi path when they sense that Islam has a deeper dimension. The resulting self-purification leads to this inner dimension of Islamic rituals, a deeper understanding of the Divine acts, and a greater knowledge and love of Him. After this, God draws the novice to Himself. With the help of a spiritual guide, the novice begins the life-long journey back to God. This continual process of spiritual development along a path of the innate human poverty, helplessness, and powerlessness before God is undertaken in the knowledge that everything comes from God. Each novice does what is necessary to grow spiritually, and God bestows the appropriate blessings and stations. "The highest aim of creation and its most sublime result is belief in God. The most exalted rank of humanity is knowledge of God. The most radiant happiness and sweetest bounty for jinn and humanity is love of God contained within the knowledge of God; the purest joy for the human spirit and the purest delight for the human heart is spiritual ecstasy contained within the love of God. Indeed, all true happiness, pure joy, sweet bounties, and unclouded pleasure are contained within the knowledge and love of God." And Sufism is the school where people can realise the highest aim of creation.

This comprehensive study explores sufism as a form of self-purification, offering a deeper understanding of the sacred acts and a greater knowledge and love of the divine. The first volume of the series presents such sufi concepts as repentance, reflection, self-criticism, asceticism, piety, abstinence, self-supervision, and sincerity.

In this book, William Rory Dickson explores Sufism as a developing tradition in North America, one that exists in diverse and beguiling forms. Sufism's broad-minded traditions of philosophy, poetry, and spiritual practice infused Islamic civilization for centuries and drew the attention of interested Westerners. By the early twentieth century, Sufism was being practiced in North America. Today's North American Sufism can appear either explicitly Islamic or seemingly devoid of Islamic religiosity. Dickson provides indispensable background on Sufism's relation to Islamic orthodoxy and to Western esoteric traditions, and its historical development in North America. The book goes on to chart the directions that North American Sufism is currently taking, directions largely chosen by Sufi leaders. The views of ten North American Sufi leaders are explored in depth and their perspectives on Islam, authority, gender, and tradition are put in conversation with one another. A more detailed picture of North American Sufism emerges, challenging previous scholarly classifications of Sufi groups, and highlighting Sufism's fluidity, diversity, and dynamism.

In this book, a series of interviews offers an accessible, revealing, human and intellectual biography of leading Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr is one of the preeminent philosophers writing today. Sure to be a key resource for decades to come, In Search of the Sacred: A Conversation with Seyyed Hossein Nasr on His Life and Thought illuminates Nasr's experiences and shares his insights on topics from religion and philosophy to science and the arts. Based on a series of interviews, the book combines traditional autobiography with an exploration of the intellectual and spiritual trajectories of the author's thought during key periods of his life. In doing so, it presents a fascinating panorama, not only of the life and ideas of one man, but also of major events ranging from intellectual life in Iran during the Pahlavi period and the Iranian Revolution to some of the major religious and intellectual debates between Islam and modernism. Nasr writes that his "whole life has been a quest for the sacred." This work connects that quest with some of the most important issues of the day in encounters between Islam and the West.

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.

The Islamic World is an outstanding guide to Islamic faith and culture in all its geographical and historical diversity. Written by a distinguished international team of scholars, it elucidates the history, philosophy and practice of one of the world's great religious traditions. Its grounding in contemporary scholarship makes it an ideal reference source for students and scholars alike. Edited by Andrew Rippin, a leading scholar of Islam, the volume covers the political, geographical, religious, intellectual, cultural and social worlds of Islam, and offers insight into all aspects of Muslim life including the Qur’an and law, philosophy, science and technology, art, literature, and film and much else. It explores the concept of an ‘Islamic’ world: what makes it distinctive and how uniform is that distinctiveness across Muslim geographical regions and through history?

Translations and analyses of three Persian Sufi texts, offering a perspective on Islam that is rarely met in modern works.

Sufism is known as the mystical dimension of Islam. Breathing Hearts explores this definition to find out what it means to ‘breathe well’ along the Sufi path in the context of anti-Muslim racism. It is the first book-length ethnographic account of Sufi practices and politics in Berlin and describes how Sufi practices are mobilized in healing secular and religious suffering. It tracks the Desire Lines of multi-ethnic immigrants of color, and white German interlocutors to show how Sufi practices complicate the post secular imagination of healing in Germany.

This volume of Princeton Readings in Religions brings together the work of more than thirty scholars of Islam and Muslim societies in South Asia to create a rich anthology of primary texts that contributes to a new appreciation of the lived religious and cultural experiences of the world's largest population of Muslims. The thirty-four selections--translated from Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Bengali, Tamil, Gujarati, Hindavi, Dakhani, and other languages--highlight a wide variety of genres, many rarely found in standard accounts of Islamic practice, from oral narratives to elite guidance manuals, from devotional songs to secular judicial decisions arbitrating Islamic law, and from political posters to a discussion among college women affiliated with an "Islamist" organization. Drawn from premodern texts, modern pamphlets, government and organizational archives, new media, and contemporary fieldwork, the selections reflect the rich diversity of Islamic belief and practice in South Asia. Each reading is introduced with a brief contextual note from its scholar-translator, and Barbara Metcalf introduces the whole volume with a substantial historical overview.