Embattled Saints: My Year with the Sufis of Afghanistan

by Kenneth P. Lizzio

Winner of the 2015 Benjamin Franklin Silver Award!

In the West, Islam has replaced Communism as the new bugbear, while Sufism, Islam's mystical dimension, is often dismissed as the delusions of an irrational and backward people. Ken Lizzio corrects such misperceptions in this firsthand account of the year he spent in 1991 living with the head of the Naqshbandis, Afghanistan's largest Sufi order. He presents the order in all its dimensions--social, economic, political, and spiritual--at a pivotal moment in history. He also gives a rare glimpse of everyday life in an Afghan Sufi school and of how the school has coped with the upheavals in its country.

Poignantly, the Naqshbandi way of life faces threats to its very existence. One threat lies in the creeping secularization of Islamic society, another in the dismissal of Sufism by various fundamentalist Islamic sects claiming the franchise on truth. But historically, Lizzio points out, Sufism has always been Islam's wellspring for spiritual revival. And because Sufis deal in matters that transcend time and cultures, they help outsiders understand not only the true nature of Islam, but the deeper meaning of all religions. The sound of that meaning echoes throughout this eloquent and fascinating memoir.

Genres: Islam

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 29, 2014

Reviews

[Dilorom · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the last few days my soul has been traveling in Bara Valley with Sufis while I am in a crowd DC metro station and trains. I liked this book because it explains daily chores in khanaqahs,it describes states and stages of dzikr. When I read "Eat, pray and Love" I really wanted to read similar explanatory book to Sufism and this book helped me to understand how things work in Sufi khanaqahs. I have read academic books on Sufism before and this book added to my understanding with its sweet taste of personal story.

[J Rush · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading this book in three days and found it fascinating. Most books on the subject are about basic rituals or doctrine and don't give a sense for how Sufis actually live and teach. Lizzio writes about this Sufi order from the inside and his account raises many things that are not to be found in books on Sufism, especially how physically wild mystical life is in Islam. His personal experiences of living in the tribal area, while not mystical, were equally fascinating.

Recommend highly.

[Natta Kuiski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite amounting to basically nothing more than an aside in this book, Lizzio's explanation of islah and tajdid piqued my interest and has sent me down a rabbithole of trying to understand the subtle distinctions between the two. So far, I'm not convinced there really is one, at least not in a practical sense.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what I expected and that’s good. Starts out as a brief history of sufis as mystics … a refresher course. Fairly quickly lands in an Afghanistan occupied by Russians and the British and the US. A very real portrait of an endangered religion.