Varieties of American Sufism

Varieties of American Sufism

Author: Elliott Bazzano

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2020-08-01

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1438477929

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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.


Sufism in America

Sufism in America

Author: Julianne Hazen

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781498533867

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This book sheds light on the living tradition of mystical Islam by focusing on the Alami Tariqa in Waterport, New York. It explores how this order has acculturated to the American setting, why individuals are drawn to the tariqa, and what it means to pursue spiritual goals in a modern, Western society.


Living Sufism in North America

Living Sufism in North America

Author: William Rory Dickson

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2015-09-14

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 143845757X

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Offers an overview of Sufism in North America. 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. “Living Sufism in North America is the first book of its kind to bridge the gap between Sufi studies and the study of North American contemporary religious movements. As such, it is a comprehensive, pioneering work of potential interest to a wide array of scholars in the field of contemporary religion.” — Patrick Laude, author of Pathways to an Inner Islam: Massignon, Corbin, Guenon, and Schuon


Sufism for Non-Sufis?

Sufism for Non-Sufis?

Author: Sherman A. Jackson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-05-01

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 0199873682

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Sherman Jackson offers a translation and analysis of Ibn 'Ata' Allah al-Sakandari's Taj al-'Arus, a work on spiritual education steeped in the classical Sufi tradition, yet directed to those who have no affiliation with Sufism in any institutionalized form. Written in classical aphoristic style, the text is a treasure trove of spiritual wisdom and self-refinement, free of all of the usual barriers between Sufism and the common believer.


Living from the Heart

Living from the Heart

Author: Chuck Davis

Publisher:

Published: 2020-03-19

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780692743409

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Living from the Heart: Universalist Sufism in America offers a glimpse into the mystical path of Sufism as expressed in the universalist Sufi teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927) by contemporary Sufi teachers in America. A companion to the documentary of the same name, the book contextualizes Sufism as a spiritual path of the heart, addressing the distinction between Islamic and Universalist Sufism, and introduces readers to Sufi teachings on Love, Beauty, Music, God, and the Sufi practices of Zikr (remembrance) and Ziyaret (pilgrimage). Following Sufi teacher, Netanel Miles-Yépez, pirof the Inayati-Maimuni Order of Sufis, to Sufi pilgrimage sites across the country, the book also includes interview material with a variety of contemporary universalist Sufi teachers, including Murshida Taj Inayat, Pir Shabda Kahn, Pir Zia Inayat-Khan, Jennifer Alia Wittman, Deepa Gulrukh Patel, and Satya Inayat Khan.


Sufism

Sufism

Author: Mark J. Sedgwick

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 101

ISBN-13: 9774248236

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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.


Varieties of American Sufism

Varieties of American Sufism

Author: Elliott Bazzano

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9781438477909

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Acknowledgments -- Introduction / Marcia Hermansen -- The Message in Our Time: Changing Faces and Identities of the Inayati Order in America / Geneviève Mercier-Dalphond -- The Golden Sufi Center: A Non-Islamic Branch of the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya / William Rory Dickson -- The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship: Diverse Identities and Negotiated Spaces / Merin Shobhana Xavier -- A Shadhiliyya Sufi Order in America: Traditional Islam Meets American Hippies / Elliott Bazzano -- The Mevlevi Order of America / Simon Sorgenfrei -- From the Balkans to America: The Alami Tariqa in Upstate New York / Julianne Hazen -- 'There is an 'I' deeper than me': The Ansari Qadiri Rifa'i Tariqa and Transcendence in America / Melinda Krokus -- When the Divine Flood Reached New York: The Tijani Sufi Order among Black American Muslims in New York City / Rasul Miller -- Contributors -- Index.


Sufism in Europe and North America

Sufism in Europe and North America

Author: David Westerlund

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-07-31

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 1134342063

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This book focuses mainly on issues of inculturation or contextualization of Sufism in the West.


Historical Dictionary of Sufism

Historical Dictionary of Sufism

Author: John Renard

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2015-11-19

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 0810879743

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The most broadly accepted explanation of Sufism is the etymological derivation of the term from the Arabic for “wool,” ṣūf, associating practitioners with a preference for poor, rough clothing. This explanation clearly identifies Sufism with ascetical practice and the importance of manifesting spiritual poverty through material poverty. In fact, some of the earliest “Western” descriptions of individuals now widely associated with the larger phenomenon of Sufism identified them with the Arabic term faqīr, mendicant, or its most common Persian equivalent, darwīsh. Sufism, as presented here embraces a host of features including the ritual, institutional, psychological, hermeneutical, artistic, literary, ethical, and epistemological. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Sufism contains a chronology, an introduction, a glossary, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1,000 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, major historical figures and movements, practices, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Sufism.


Before Sufism

Before Sufism

Author: Christopher Melchert

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-06-08

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 3110617714

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Christopher Melchert proposes to historicize Islamic renunciant piety (zuhd). As the conquest period wound down in the early eighth century c.e., renunciants set out to maintain the contempt of worldly comfort and loyalty to a greater cause that had characterized the community of Muslims in the seventh century. Instead of reckless endangerment on the battlefield, they cultivated intense fear of the Last Judgement to come. They spent nights weeping, reciting the Qur’an, and performing supererogatory ritual prayers. They stressed other-worldliness to the extent of minimizing good works in this world. Then the decline of tribute from the conquered peoples and conversion to Islam made it increasingly unfeasible for most Muslims to keep up any such régime. Professional differentiation also provoked increasing criticism of austerity. Finally, in the later ninth century, a form of Sufism emerged that would accommodate those willing and able to spend most of their time on religious devotions, those willing and able to spend their time on other religious pursuits such as law and hadith, and those unwilling or unable to do either.