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Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism
Sufism is Islamâ s main mystical tradition. There are Sufi orders in almost all Muslim countries around the world, but not all Sufis accept the same beliefs and practices.
Mystical Islam offers an introduction that encompasses the full history and richness of the Sufi spiritual tradition over fourteen centuries of Islam. This accessible work covers the origins of Sufism and early influences, particularly from Christianity; the rise of the great Sufi organizations; the thought of Sufismâ s main theorist and systemizer, Ibn Arabi; Rumi and the Whirling Dervishes; relations with Shiâ ism in Iran; Sufism in the heyday of the great empires in Iran, India, and Turkey; and relations with Turkey and Egypt during the nineteenth century as well as Sufi practices in the twentieth century.
In a new afterword, the author reflects on recent scholarship and offers fresh perspectives on this fascinating tradition of belief and devotion.
Mystical Islam offers an introduction that encompasses the full history and richness of the Sufi spiritual tradition over fourteen centuries of Islam. This accessible work covers the origins of Sufism and early influences, particularly from Christianity; the rise of the great Sufi organizations; the thought of Sufismâ s main theorist and systemizer, Ibn Arabi; Rumi and the Whirling Dervishes; relations with Shiâ ism in Iran; Sufism in the heyday of the great empires in Iran, India, and Turkey; and relations with Turkey and Egypt during the nineteenth century as well as Sufi practices in the twentieth century.
In a new afterword, the author reflects on recent scholarship and offers fresh perspectives on this fascinating tradition of belief and devotion.
- GenresReligionNonfictionIslam
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 27, 2011
It's amazing how an author can say he's going to explain something and then dance around it so completely that the answer is never clear.
April 20, 2026
Review: Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism
As other commenters have noted, this book is not an ‘introduction’ to Sufism; if it is an introduction at all, then it is a dense one to the History of Sufism’s Thinkers through an academic review of dozens of leading mystics, poets, and others that helped to shape the practice over a thousand years. I appreciated the breadth of knowledge the author has; both his ability to demonstrate the nuances of evolving percepts and practices over time and across geography - with an eye on how changes in contemporary studies have shaped understandings of Sufism - and his refusal to define Sufism as a bounded or limited practice. However, this very breadth also limited clarity and comprehension: his arguments against or for certain interpretations more often superseded descriptions of those positions so that I was aware of what perspective the author supported without understanding the varying positions or debates. Still, I was able to glean some of the defining elements of Sufism, which I’ve attempted to cobble in my review below:
* Toward Defining or Specifying Sufism:
* “It does enjoin mortification of the flesh, and exalts the ideal of poverty, but it includes ordinary members of society in its ranks, with no distinction of clerical versus lay. It emphasizes the love of God, and teaches that God and the Sufis have a special relationship which goes back to a primordial Covenant: the Sufis are God’s friends, perpetually engaged in remembrance (dhikr) of him. Sufism also constitutes a Path (tariqa), which begins with repentance and leads through a number of ‘stations’ (maqamat), representing virtues such as absolute trust in God, to a higher series of ecstatic ’states’ (ahwal). These culminate in the ‘passing away’ (fana’) of the mystic (or perhaps just of his lower soul, or of his human attributes) and the subsequent ‘survival’ (baqa’) of his transformed personality (or perhaps just of his higher soul, or alternatively of his essence now adorned by the attributes of God). Sufism has other aspects, such as deliberate self-abasement in disreputable conduct and apparent libertine behavior, sometimes manifested in the contemplation of human beauty a a means to the contemplation of God himself. It has themes which would often be called Gnostic, that is to say relating to a higher form of knowledge, reserved for an elite, such as the ascent of the soul through the heavens and the liberation of a divine spark of light in man from amid the darkness of matter.” (3)
* “the very word sufi has usually been seen as reflecting a Christian influence, being derived from he Arabic word for wood (suf), which was the characteristic clothing material of eastern Christian monks, and which was taken over by the early mystics of Islam.” (15, 31)
* “not all dervishes [a poor man is the literal and original meanings of the words fakir and dervish] are Sufi. Moreover, the term ‘dervish’ indicates more the dimension of practice, while ‘sufi’ designates more that of theory: the dervish is a Sufi in action, and the Sufi is a dervish in the abstract” (19).
* A discussion of origins of beliefs and practices from Platonists, Eastern Christians, Shamans of Central Asia, Gnostics, Zoroastrianism, and Indian religions (15-24)
* The penitent courtesan and the sexually abstinent wife: Rabi’a of Basra in Iraq is the most famous woman of Islamic mysticism - converted after being a singing slave girl (similar to theme of converted prostitutes in early Eastern Christianity and Mary Magdalene) and Rabi’a from Syria who was married to a leading Sufi but celibate (29-30)
* The importance of Ibn Arabi and his system (82-85), Rumi (89-91), and Ibn Khaldun (104), Badr al-Din of Simavna (communistic property and equal level for Christians and Muslims) (108)
* Ibn Arabi’s practice in “examining one’s words and actions of the day evening, and seeing fi they merited repentance. This was the tradition father ancient Greek followers of Pythagoras. Ibn Arabi did, however, condemn the Sufi practice, widespread in his time, of ‘listening’ to poetry or music. He saw this as libertinism… also rejected gazing at beardless boys.” (182)
A review of beliefs, practices, and other elements of Sufism discussed across the book:
* Dhikr Allah: Christian influence/origin (16/17), description of the Salama’s sub-brotherhood ritual (158)
* Deliberately incurring blame: Christian influence/origin (17),
* The Sufi Path: Origins with Isaac of Nineveh’s three phases: (1) repentance - performed with the body, fasting, alms-giving, vigils, (2) purification - performed with the lower soul, love, humility, and other virtues (2), (3) perfection - gifts bestowed by God, delight, exultation and love (17-18).
* Ma’rifa (gnosis) of God and the stations (maqamat) and states (ahwal)
* Passing Away and Survival (41, 45)
* “Here - one might think inevitably - there were differing views about what is made to ‘pass away’” the lower soul, man’s attributes, or man’s entire individual personality? So too it is not clear what survives: God alone, man with God’s attributes, or man as an original idea in the mind of God?” (49)
* Veneration of Beauty: Turks of Central Asia Shamanistic or Gnostic origins (21),
* “The lover who ‘passes away’ has no carnal soul left. Daylami develops the theme of the witness (shahid) in love: the friends of God, by loving one another, bear witness to the reality of love, as do animals and the works of the Divine Artist, which manifest universal Beauty. The lovers of God reach either unitive fusion (ittihad, condemned later) with him or the ‘station’ of experiencing God’s Uniqueness (tawhid), which means reaching him, so that the seems both to be and not be in and through everything.” (57)
* Dancing: Possible Central Asian shamanism origin (21),
* The flight of the soul: Possible Shamanistic flight of the Shaman and Gnostic ascent of the soul origin (22-23)
* Youngmanliness: Iranian influence (23),
* Friends of God: Qur’anic origin (25), Tustari (39), Seal of the friends of God and different types of friends - Tirmidhi (43, 142), “friendship means… a finely balanced understanding of mutual obligations: the ‘friend of God’ (wali Allah) is both his client, in the Roman sense of a dependent, and also the patron, in the Roman sense of a protector, of lesser men, possessing and channeling freedom of access to the highest source of power” (16); “They say that God’s friends are mirrors in which others see their own faults reflected"
* Battle between the lower or carnal soul and the spirit, with the heart in the middle: Qur’anic influence (25),
* Disciples instructed by the spirits of physically absent or dead masters: Uways in South Arabia said to have communicated with Muhammad by telepathy (28)
* Shath: ecstatic utterance in which the mystic gives voice to his most intimate experience (35)
* Triad of Certainty: the knowledge of certainty; the quintessence of certainty which belongs to the eyewitness, and the ‘truth of certainty’ (haqq al-yaqin) in actual experience (38)
* The Lodge: developed by Kazaruni c. 1000) as a network of disciplines whose main purpose was presented as serving the poor. His sucessors as leaders of the network had the titles ‘deputy’ (khalifa) and preacher (khatib).
* Listening to poetry: “At first poetry is ‘attacking’ that is to say it makes a violent onrush: someone hears a voice or a line and is brought into movement. Then, the line is ‘related’ to God, one’s elder, or some spiritual concept. The joy obtained in listening to poetry comes in three parts: first, lights come down from the world of divine sovereignty (malakut) to the spirit, then ‘states’ come down from the world of divine compulsion to the heart; finally, effects such as weeping, movement and agitation come from his visible world to the parts of the body.” Nizam al Din (99)
* The Perfect Man
* Sufism and the Arts (173)
* The 40 substitutes (179)
* Incubation: “sleeping in a holy place to obtain advice from a god in a dream” (182)
* The ritual of beating a person or persons with a stick, in a context of confession and absolution (neither being Islamic) or if initiation. In the initiation ceremony in Iraq, the three blows of the stick are linked to God, Muhammad and ‘Ali - the triad of the Bektashi Sufis whom we have encountered in Turkey and the Balkans.” (184)
Other interesting tidbits:
* Prayer beads moving from Buddhism through Islam to the Christian Rosary
* The Hamadsha’s activities in Morocco include intervention of female spirit called ‘Ayisha Qandisha - qedesha or relies prostitute. “the ancient cult of the goddess Astarte… elements of dancing, head slashing, effeminate dress and homosexuality are all characteristic of ancient Syrian goddess worship” (157)
* Historical patterns of collaboration and cooperation with temporal powers (93, 152-168)
* Hurufi movement (102)
As other commenters have noted, this book is not an ‘introduction’ to Sufism; if it is an introduction at all, then it is a dense one to the History of Sufism’s Thinkers through an academic review of dozens of leading mystics, poets, and others that helped to shape the practice over a thousand years. I appreciated the breadth of knowledge the author has; both his ability to demonstrate the nuances of evolving percepts and practices over time and across geography - with an eye on how changes in contemporary studies have shaped understandings of Sufism - and his refusal to define Sufism as a bounded or limited practice. However, this very breadth also limited clarity and comprehension: his arguments against or for certain interpretations more often superseded descriptions of those positions so that I was aware of what perspective the author supported without understanding the varying positions or debates. Still, I was able to glean some of the defining elements of Sufism, which I’ve attempted to cobble in my review below:
* Toward Defining or Specifying Sufism:
* “It does enjoin mortification of the flesh, and exalts the ideal of poverty, but it includes ordinary members of society in its ranks, with no distinction of clerical versus lay. It emphasizes the love of God, and teaches that God and the Sufis have a special relationship which goes back to a primordial Covenant: the Sufis are God’s friends, perpetually engaged in remembrance (dhikr) of him. Sufism also constitutes a Path (tariqa), which begins with repentance and leads through a number of ‘stations’ (maqamat), representing virtues such as absolute trust in God, to a higher series of ecstatic ’states’ (ahwal). These culminate in the ‘passing away’ (fana’) of the mystic (or perhaps just of his lower soul, or of his human attributes) and the subsequent ‘survival’ (baqa’) of his transformed personality (or perhaps just of his higher soul, or alternatively of his essence now adorned by the attributes of God). Sufism has other aspects, such as deliberate self-abasement in disreputable conduct and apparent libertine behavior, sometimes manifested in the contemplation of human beauty a a means to the contemplation of God himself. It has themes which would often be called Gnostic, that is to say relating to a higher form of knowledge, reserved for an elite, such as the ascent of the soul through the heavens and the liberation of a divine spark of light in man from amid the darkness of matter.” (3)
* “the very word sufi has usually been seen as reflecting a Christian influence, being derived from he Arabic word for wood (suf), which was the characteristic clothing material of eastern Christian monks, and which was taken over by the early mystics of Islam.” (15, 31)
* “not all dervishes [a poor man is the literal and original meanings of the words fakir and dervish] are Sufi. Moreover, the term ‘dervish’ indicates more the dimension of practice, while ‘sufi’ designates more that of theory: the dervish is a Sufi in action, and the Sufi is a dervish in the abstract” (19).
* A discussion of origins of beliefs and practices from Platonists, Eastern Christians, Shamans of Central Asia, Gnostics, Zoroastrianism, and Indian religions (15-24)
* The penitent courtesan and the sexually abstinent wife: Rabi’a of Basra in Iraq is the most famous woman of Islamic mysticism - converted after being a singing slave girl (similar to theme of converted prostitutes in early Eastern Christianity and Mary Magdalene) and Rabi’a from Syria who was married to a leading Sufi but celibate (29-30)
* The importance of Ibn Arabi and his system (82-85), Rumi (89-91), and Ibn Khaldun (104), Badr al-Din of Simavna (communistic property and equal level for Christians and Muslims) (108)
* Ibn Arabi’s practice in “examining one’s words and actions of the day evening, and seeing fi they merited repentance. This was the tradition father ancient Greek followers of Pythagoras. Ibn Arabi did, however, condemn the Sufi practice, widespread in his time, of ‘listening’ to poetry or music. He saw this as libertinism… also rejected gazing at beardless boys.” (182)
A review of beliefs, practices, and other elements of Sufism discussed across the book:
* Dhikr Allah: Christian influence/origin (16/17), description of the Salama’s sub-brotherhood ritual (158)
* Deliberately incurring blame: Christian influence/origin (17),
* The Sufi Path: Origins with Isaac of Nineveh’s three phases: (1) repentance - performed with the body, fasting, alms-giving, vigils, (2) purification - performed with the lower soul, love, humility, and other virtues (2), (3) perfection - gifts bestowed by God, delight, exultation and love (17-18).
* Ma’rifa (gnosis) of God and the stations (maqamat) and states (ahwal)
* Passing Away and Survival (41, 45)
* “Here - one might think inevitably - there were differing views about what is made to ‘pass away’” the lower soul, man’s attributes, or man’s entire individual personality? So too it is not clear what survives: God alone, man with God’s attributes, or man as an original idea in the mind of God?” (49)
* Veneration of Beauty: Turks of Central Asia Shamanistic or Gnostic origins (21),
* “The lover who ‘passes away’ has no carnal soul left. Daylami develops the theme of the witness (shahid) in love: the friends of God, by loving one another, bear witness to the reality of love, as do animals and the works of the Divine Artist, which manifest universal Beauty. The lovers of God reach either unitive fusion (ittihad, condemned later) with him or the ‘station’ of experiencing God’s Uniqueness (tawhid), which means reaching him, so that the seems both to be and not be in and through everything.” (57)
* Dancing: Possible Central Asian shamanism origin (21),
* The flight of the soul: Possible Shamanistic flight of the Shaman and Gnostic ascent of the soul origin (22-23)
* Youngmanliness: Iranian influence (23),
* Friends of God: Qur’anic origin (25), Tustari (39), Seal of the friends of God and different types of friends - Tirmidhi (43, 142), “friendship means… a finely balanced understanding of mutual obligations: the ‘friend of God’ (wali Allah) is both his client, in the Roman sense of a dependent, and also the patron, in the Roman sense of a protector, of lesser men, possessing and channeling freedom of access to the highest source of power” (16); “They say that God’s friends are mirrors in which others see their own faults reflected"
* Battle between the lower or carnal soul and the spirit, with the heart in the middle: Qur’anic influence (25),
* Disciples instructed by the spirits of physically absent or dead masters: Uways in South Arabia said to have communicated with Muhammad by telepathy (28)
* Shath: ecstatic utterance in which the mystic gives voice to his most intimate experience (35)
* Triad of Certainty: the knowledge of certainty; the quintessence of certainty which belongs to the eyewitness, and the ‘truth of certainty’ (haqq al-yaqin) in actual experience (38)
* The Lodge: developed by Kazaruni c. 1000) as a network of disciplines whose main purpose was presented as serving the poor. His sucessors as leaders of the network had the titles ‘deputy’ (khalifa) and preacher (khatib).
* Listening to poetry: “At first poetry is ‘attacking’ that is to say it makes a violent onrush: someone hears a voice or a line and is brought into movement. Then, the line is ‘related’ to God, one’s elder, or some spiritual concept. The joy obtained in listening to poetry comes in three parts: first, lights come down from the world of divine sovereignty (malakut) to the spirit, then ‘states’ come down from the world of divine compulsion to the heart; finally, effects such as weeping, movement and agitation come from his visible world to the parts of the body.” Nizam al Din (99)
* The Perfect Man
* Sufism and the Arts (173)
* The 40 substitutes (179)
* Incubation: “sleeping in a holy place to obtain advice from a god in a dream” (182)
* The ritual of beating a person or persons with a stick, in a context of confession and absolution (neither being Islamic) or if initiation. In the initiation ceremony in Iraq, the three blows of the stick are linked to God, Muhammad and ‘Ali - the triad of the Bektashi Sufis whom we have encountered in Turkey and the Balkans.” (184)
Other interesting tidbits:
* Prayer beads moving from Buddhism through Islam to the Christian Rosary
* The Hamadsha’s activities in Morocco include intervention of female spirit called ‘Ayisha Qandisha - qedesha or relies prostitute. “the ancient cult of the goddess Astarte… elements of dancing, head slashing, effeminate dress and homosexuality are all characteristic of ancient Syrian goddess worship” (157)
* Historical patterns of collaboration and cooperation with temporal powers (93, 152-168)
* Hurufi movement (102)
Read
March 27, 2011Very confusing
March 1, 2021
Kate's world is tossed upsidedown after the death of her mother. Overhearing her brother's nefarious plot for her future, she takes matters into her own hands and goes into hiding. Having grown up in poverty and never having met her disowned aunt Franny, Kate has no idea what to expect when she arrives at the large Sussex home of her mother's estranged sister. She suddenly finds herself in a world quite different from her own - yet that is the least of her worries.
With the vile Farnsworth on her trail, Kate must decide just who to trust and how much of her truth to tell. Yet she soon learns that half-truths can be just as dangerous as secrets.
I really liked that the secondary characters, including Alice and Stephen, had their own strong storyline, rather than just existing as supporting characters that occasionally appear on the sidelines. The deeper interactions of so many characters helped make the story more well-rounded. They even call each other out for their faults, often echoing the reader's own opinions.
Kate is fiercely independent, which I love to see in these novels. She is tired of people having a say in her future and wants to control her own life. Even when danger strikes, she resists playing the damsel in destress, preferring to fight her own battles.
I did find that Ashleigh's initial protectiveness towards Kate didn't quite fit. He asserts himself into her life and future plans early on and feels that he has the right - responsibility, even - to protect Kate, when he really has no claim on her whatsoever. They're pretty much strangers at this point and for all he knows she's living safely and comfortably under her aunt's roof.
That criticism aside, I enjoyed the novel and the relationships and interactions between all of the different characters. I also appreciated the evidence of the author's research and historical knowledge, as well as her very detailed descriptions of buildings and decor. It really makes you feel as though you've been transported through time into the room along with the characters.
With the vile Farnsworth on her trail, Kate must decide just who to trust and how much of her truth to tell. Yet she soon learns that half-truths can be just as dangerous as secrets.
I really liked that the secondary characters, including Alice and Stephen, had their own strong storyline, rather than just existing as supporting characters that occasionally appear on the sidelines. The deeper interactions of so many characters helped make the story more well-rounded. They even call each other out for their faults, often echoing the reader's own opinions.
Kate is fiercely independent, which I love to see in these novels. She is tired of people having a say in her future and wants to control her own life. Even when danger strikes, she resists playing the damsel in destress, preferring to fight her own battles.
I did find that Ashleigh's initial protectiveness towards Kate didn't quite fit. He asserts himself into her life and future plans early on and feels that he has the right - responsibility, even - to protect Kate, when he really has no claim on her whatsoever. They're pretty much strangers at this point and for all he knows she's living safely and comfortably under her aunt's roof.
That criticism aside, I enjoyed the novel and the relationships and interactions between all of the different characters. I also appreciated the evidence of the author's research and historical knowledge, as well as her very detailed descriptions of buildings and decor. It really makes you feel as though you've been transported through time into the room along with the characters.
February 10, 2021
Kate Russel is a proud young lady and her mother taught her proper manners. However, she never had a proper debutante come-out or been to fancy balls, but her father left her mother and her in dire straits. Kate was astounded when her brother asked her to come to London to live with him. For once she felt as though she was going to be seen and maybe go to a dinner party or a ball. That is not what her brother was bringing her to London to do at all. He was going to sell her to the worst man. She was being sold like a horse at an auction. Let the highest bidder be the winner except there was only one bidder and diseased old man.
Kate snuck away to her mothers sister and here she met the man of her dreams. The Duke of Ashleigh was a dreamboat! There was one problem he was looking for a wife with a better pedigree. Poor Kate was asked to be his mistress and she came undone.
This is a lighthearted read that the author depicts in a wonderfully humorous storyline. There are a couple areas that could be more cohesive, however overall I would still recommend this book.
I received a free advanced copy from NetGalley and these are my willingly given thoughts and opinions.
Kate snuck away to her mothers sister and here she met the man of her dreams. The Duke of Ashleigh was a dreamboat! There was one problem he was looking for a wife with a better pedigree. Poor Kate was asked to be his mistress and she came undone.
This is a lighthearted read that the author depicts in a wonderfully humorous storyline. There are a couple areas that could be more cohesive, however overall I would still recommend this book.
I received a free advanced copy from NetGalley and these are my willingly given thoughts and opinions.
July 27, 2018
This book is not for beginners. It relies on a thorough understanding of a lot of philosophical and religious ‘-isms’ that frankly makes it a tough read. Calling it ‘An introduction’ is misleading and probably attracting the wrong audience.
I approached it enthusiastically, and although it is a good, dense, well rounded academic work, it’s is very dry and not very accessible.
I approached it enthusiastically, and although it is a good, dense, well rounded academic work, it’s is very dry and not very accessible.
May 8, 2015
I just reread my underlining and notes in this excellent, but somewhat dry, scholarly book. I first read it before going to live in Indonesia. It was not very helpful in the context of Indonesia, but I found much of it to be fascinating.
It covers the entire history of Sufism, from its mysterious origins up to the present, and it does so mostly through short descriptions of the beliefs and contributions of individuals, in chronological order. This meant I did not get a very tidy and coherent understanding of Sufism, but that's all right. I did get a broad and vague sense of many aspects of Sufism, including beliefs and practices (which are not uniform across time and location). Repeatedly I was reminded of elements of Buddhism, which might seem odd.
I'll explain just briefly by saying I've read a fair number of scholarly works about Buddhism, including accounts of how certain schools or "sects" (not really the right word) came to be, as well as political influences of particular branches in China and Japan. I'm very familiar with advanced beliefs and practices, historical controversies, etc. So while I was reading Baldick's book about Sufism, I could not help but make comparisons. (Much of my understanding of religion, in general, comes from my study of Buddhism.) This does not mean Sufism is actually similar to Buddhism -- except in the respect that all religions are similar.
Baldick does mention Buddhism several times, but mostly he carefully differentiates Sufi practices (particularly the role of lodges) from early Christian practices (such as monastic communities). He also takes care to note when a particular Sufi scholar or master was at odds with, or aligned with, either Shi'a or Sunni beliefs. Overall I found this text very satisfying, and I felt a great deal of admiration for Baldick's depth of knowledge and careful research.
I certainly had much more appreciation of the emotions expressed in Rumi's verse after I had finished this book.
(The edition I read is paperback, published in 1989 by New York University Press, 208 pages. On the copyright page, it says: "Manufactured in Great Britain.")
It covers the entire history of Sufism, from its mysterious origins up to the present, and it does so mostly through short descriptions of the beliefs and contributions of individuals, in chronological order. This meant I did not get a very tidy and coherent understanding of Sufism, but that's all right. I did get a broad and vague sense of many aspects of Sufism, including beliefs and practices (which are not uniform across time and location). Repeatedly I was reminded of elements of Buddhism, which might seem odd.
I'll explain just briefly by saying I've read a fair number of scholarly works about Buddhism, including accounts of how certain schools or "sects" (not really the right word) came to be, as well as political influences of particular branches in China and Japan. I'm very familiar with advanced beliefs and practices, historical controversies, etc. So while I was reading Baldick's book about Sufism, I could not help but make comparisons. (Much of my understanding of religion, in general, comes from my study of Buddhism.) This does not mean Sufism is actually similar to Buddhism -- except in the respect that all religions are similar.
Baldick does mention Buddhism several times, but mostly he carefully differentiates Sufi practices (particularly the role of lodges) from early Christian practices (such as monastic communities). He also takes care to note when a particular Sufi scholar or master was at odds with, or aligned with, either Shi'a or Sunni beliefs. Overall I found this text very satisfying, and I felt a great deal of admiration for Baldick's depth of knowledge and careful research.
I certainly had much more appreciation of the emotions expressed in Rumi's verse after I had finished this book.
(The edition I read is paperback, published in 1989 by New York University Press, 208 pages. On the copyright page, it says: "Manufactured in Great Britain.")
December 20, 2016
I read this book to get an introduction to Sufism - what Sufism is, what Sufis believe in, how they practice their religion, etc. However, the title of the book was misleading. It probably should have been called the History of Sufism as it provides a historical account of the development and evolution of Sufism through the biographies of different thinkers and different states that influenced Sufism. Even when the author talks about certain Sufi concepts, he does not explain what these concepts mean and seems to assume that the author is already aware - another reason why I think the book is mistitled. The author does not present original research, and the book is basically a large literature review - a very critical and condescending review at that. Overall, the book was a disappointment; I didn't enjoy reading the book nor do I have any memorable takeaways from the book.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews