Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism

by Alexander Knysh

A pathbreaking history of Sufism, from the earliest centuries of Islam to the present

After centuries as the most important ascetic-mystical strand of Islam, Sufism saw a sharp decline in the twentieth century, only to experience a stunning revival in recent decades. In this comprehensive new history of Sufism from the earliest centuries of Islam to today, Alexander Knysh, a leading expert on the subject, reveals the tradition in all its richness.

Knysh explores how Sufism has been viewed by both insiders and outsiders since its inception. He examines the key aspects of Sufism, from definitions and discourses to leadership, institutions, and practices. He devotes special attention to Sufi approaches to the Qur’an, drawing parallels with similar uses of scripture in Judaism and Christianity. He traces how Sufism grew from a set of simple moral-ethical precepts into a sophisticated tradition with professional Sufi masters ( shaykhs ) who became powerful players in Muslim public life but whose authority was challenged by those advocating the equality of all Muslims before God. Knysh also examines the roots of the ongoing conflict between the Sufis and their fundamentalist critics, the Salafis―a major fact of Muslim life today.

Based on a wealth of primary and secondary sources, Sufism is an indispensable account of a vital aspect of Islam.

Genres: Islam, Religion, History, Mysticism

408 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Trained as an Arabist and historian of the Islamic Middle East in the former Soviet Union, Alexander Knysh combines expertise in Arabic literature (both pre-modern and modern) with the knowledge of the history, religions, and cultures of the Middle East. He has been teaching and conducting research in all these fields of academic endeavor over the past twenty-five years. In 1994, he joined the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan as an Assistant Professor. In 1998, he was promoted to the rank of Professor of Islamic Studies. From 1998 until 2004, he served as chair of the department. In 1997-1998, he held the Sharjah Chair of Islamic Studies at the Department of Arabic and Middle East Studies, University of Exeter, UK. Although this was a permanent academic appointment, he chose to return to Michigan after one year in England.

He moved to the U.S. from Russia (at that time, the Soviet Union) in 1991. While there he held the post of a researcher at the Department of Near Eastern Studies, the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Leningrad/St. Petersburg. Before he took up my current academic position at Michigan, he was awarded two research fellowships - one by the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (1991-1992) and the other by the Rockefeller foundation at Washington University, St Louis (1992-1993). During his fellowship years he was working, among other projects, on a study of the long theological polemic over the legacy of the great Arab-Muslim mystical thinker Ibn [al-]'Arabi (1165-1240). This study, which was published by the SUNY Press in 1998, provided a detailed analysis of the fierce scholarly debates around Ibn 'Arabi's mystical and metaphysical ideas-debates that have had wide-ranging impact upon Islamic theology and mysticism. Two years later, in 2000, his second book in English, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History, was published by the E.J. Brill Publishers in Leiden. Unlike his study of Ibn 'Arabi's controversial legacy, this monograph was designed to serve as an accessible introduction to the historical evolution of Sufi movements in different areas of the Muslim world.

More recently, he has been working on several other academic projects, including a book-size study of the cult of saints and pilgrimage centers in Yemen and a study of the changing representations of Islam and the Muslims in Russian academic and popular discourses and mass media following the collapse of the former Soviet Union. His latest project, "Islam and Empire in the Northern Caucasus," explores the history and ideological underpinnings of Muslim resistance to the Russian conquest and subsequent domination of the North Caucasus in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Simultaneously, he continues to pursue his longstanding interest in the history of Sufi movement and thought in Islam. His annotated translation and study of al-Qushayri's manual on Sufism - a major monument of Sufi literature from the eleventh century C.E. which is still being studied by Sufis today - has been published by the Garnet Press, UK.

He currently serves as the Section Editor for Sufism on the Editorial Board of the third edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the most authoritative reference in the field of Islamic Studies. Additionally, he has strong interest in and commitment to Qur'anic studies. He has written five major articles for the Encyclopedia of the Qur'an (E.J. Brill, Leiden) and contributed a chapter on Qur'anic influences on Islamic literature(s) and culture(s) to the recently published Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an. In addition to his specialty, he takes serious interest in European and Russian history and culture and keeps abreast of recent methodological advances in the fields of literary and textual criticism, religious studies, cultural anthropology and methods of historical research.

Reviews

[Justin Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Curse you, Princeton University Press marketing department! Knysh has written a history of Sufism; unfortunately, it is not this book, which is quite consciously a history of discourse about Sufism. As that sentence suggests, it's a real slog, and would have benefited by not being forced into an unnatural, monographic form. This is a series of potentially interesting essays, none of which are given the time they need to breathe. For experts only, I would guess, and I am no expert.

[Mills College Library]

297.4 K749 2017

[Alex Kartelias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a misleading title because this book is really about the history of the ways in which insiders and outsiders have viewed different aspects of Sufism- not specifically a chronological history, but thematic. This is mostly a book written from a self-conscious, historians perspective. But having said that, there are great discussions on issues that are central to Sufi thought and practice, with a great commentary on the naqshbandhi-haqqani tariqa. Overall the author is pretty objective and does a good job showing different perspectives.

[A. B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

JANUARY 2026:

A sophisticated account of Sufism. An academic look at the tradition(s) that fall under the label – the important thinkers, their philosophical roots, discourses, practices, communities, institutions, leaders – as well as the political contestations between them and rival traditions (especially Salafism). I include a summary below.

In the Introduction, the author introduces the theoretical background to his ensuing discussion, noting that he will explore the major components of the religious tradition -- discourses, practices, communities, institutions, and leaders. He will strive to be objective and impartial. He defines Sufism as the ascetic-mystical tradition of Islam, noting that Weber distinguished an original worldly ascetic religion from devotional emotionalism.

Chapter 1 explores how and why Sufism came to be. Sufism is both grounded in the Q'uran and the Hadith, passages of which can be seen to celebrate life in the world and passages of which can be seen to celebrate living in the world but not being of it. It also derived from significant Mediterranean, Christian, and Jewish influence, notwithstanding the Sufis' explicit disavowal of the same. Hodgson put forth the thesis that religions seek to expand their emotional base in order to expand their members as per the diversity of human temperaments. Krymskii noted, on Marxist-materialist lines that Sufism arose in response to the depredations of the rulers among the downtrodden. Radtke opines that the tradition developed as a way for the spiritual elite to distinguish themselves from the vast new number of believers. Weber opined that individuals possessed special charisma, spiritual geniuses if you will, who engaged in exchange with their lay constituencies. A composite answer of these various views is probably possible. Crone argued that culture oriented around imaginative play is central to human existence and human beings cannot live without it. We should also not be too critical of the Orientalist venture to study the East in theoretical terms, because an insider's perspective is frequently just as biased as an outsider's.

Chapter 2 explores the definition(s) of Sufism. Many Shi'i clerics reserve high gnostic wisdom ('Irfan) to be true, and folk Sufism/tasawwuf to be false. Sufi Studies is primarily text-based and field studies are rare. Many Western observers have a rather romantic vision of Sufism. The doctrine of Walaya (spiritual authority) distinguishes Sunnis (for whom it is merit-based), fron Shi'is (for whom it is a matter of aristocratic Alid privilege). The cult of saints and tombs is seen as a violation of Tawhid and rationalist paradigms by both some Western observers and internal Muslim critics like the Salafis and Wahhabis. Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Khaldun are such critics. Ibn Khaldun tried to purify the self-training aspect of Sufism from metaphysics and occultry. There are also close links between Sufism and occult sciences which is today summarily rejected due to rationalist paradigms.

The author provides some constants of Sufism as a working definition and guide to the tradition. They are concerned with the esoteric, allied to the Muslim masses, follow certain meditative techniques and bodily regimes, have a paradigm of stages progress which stations and psychological states, spiritual brotherhoods (tariqa), lodges (khanqah), a teacher (murshid, pir) with a respectable pedigree (silsila), a student (murid). The Sufi masters are God's friends (awliya') and dispensers of beneficial blessing (baraka).

Chapter 3 explores the discourse side of Islam. The Q'uran and Hadith function as a source of mystical inspiration, with various commentaries on the same. The commentaries privilege allergorical over literal meaning in a hierarchy that privileged the sensibility to revelation of different levels of people. Divinely inspired cognition (kashf) is central, not just intellect ('aql). Knysh explores the beginnings of textual exegesis in thinkers like al-Maybudi and al-Ghazali. The Q'uran becomes the soundboard for mystical experiences, a touchstone for judging their validity. Ibn Arabi (Al-Shaykh Al-Akbar) becomes the foremost proponent of Sufi thought and its largest influence. He believes that divinity is in everything, is in all beings. To quote: 'The world is but letters written and inscribed in the unfurled parchment of existence; writing on it is eternal and never ceases' (quoted on p. 88). He even reinterprets the story of the Golden Calf and Moses in pro-idolatrous tones! Al-Qunawi was his foremost disciple. The human being, in his writing becomes the isthmus (barzakh) between spiritual and empirical worlds of existence. Al-Qashani made the tradition more accessible. He has a doctrine of the universe as God's perpetual self-imagining. There is a certain internationalism to Islam and thus, to these doctrines.

Al-Din Kubra founded a school that is consonant with ibn Arabi, but with a distinctive spritual lineage. There was a Shi'i-Sufi synthesis in Amoli and Mulla Sadra. In modern times, the Naqshbandi-Haqqani tradition has been founded by Shaykh Muhammad Nazim in 1973. He believes in an old-school form of Sufism that does not take the democratisation of the Scripture to be central; and preserves the doctrine of spiritual authority.

The Sufis are criticised by various liberal modernisers, Salafis, and Wahabbis, in a way analogous to how Protestantism criticised the trappings of worship in Catholicism. They also criticise the free interpretations of scripture of the Sufis.

Chapter 4 explores the impact of Hellenic thought on the ascetic-mystical strain in Islam, especially Neo-Platonism and traditions like Hermetism associated with it; just like these traditions influenced Christian mysticism. There was fusion and diffusion of Hellenic ideas, especially by Plotinus, Proclus, and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, across the Sufi traditions.

Chapter 5 discusses Practices, Ethos, Communities, and Leaders. Sufi adab is seen as the foundation of practice. This included adopting poverty to show the annihilation of the ego (nafs), various virtues, and customs like wearing rough garments, living in lodges, and dancing. Sufis tended to allegorise external practices and view them esoterically. For instance, ibn Arabi's speculations became the preserve of a spiritual elite while Sufi adab was more commonly followed in ordinary life. Core to the cohesion of Sufi communities is the shaykh/pir-murid bond. This has changed over the years. Earlier, the shaykh used to be a compassionate teacher, later on they became more authoritarian. The decline creed, that Islam declined after the time of the Prophet and his companions, applies to Sufism too, as conceptualised by insiders. Ibn Khaldun, as an objective non-Sufi observer often recorded such sociological observations. New shaykhs' success depended often on their personal charisma.

The Salafis were influenced by European critiques of world-rejection and the this-worldiness involved in the Protestant ethic. Al Ghazali, Ibn Khaldun, and Ibn Ajiba all emphasise the same message of living and acting in the world. The latter maintains the thesis of living with equanimity in both the crowd and solitude. Many Sufis do not consider themselves to be part of Islam, but an exclusive spiritual community above the ordinary people. They were and are rather exclusivist. Note that insiders' and outsiders' account of Sufism are rather congruent, showing problems with the Orientalism-bashing common in academia today.

Chapter 6 explores the Sufi-Salafi conflict through two case studies: Daghestan in the Caucasus, and Hadrawmawt in Southern Yemen. As Sufism is the dominant structure of power and authority, Salafism is frequently a youth revolt against it. It is seen by some, especially the secular-educated, as a more straightforward, rational creed. The Sufis appeal to authenticity to local tradition, the Salafis appeal to authenticity to the age of the Prophet and his companions. Salafi-Wahhabi teachings often lead to militarism. Either tradition has various sub-creeds which can be funded by local state authorities or Gulf money.

In the Conclusion, the author wraps us by noting that Sufism has a surprising degree of continuity across time. We need the perspectives of both insiders and outsiders to truly understand the phenomenon. Academic humility is necessary for outside observers, and for insiders, what is necessary is the willingness to look beyond and realise the normative nature of the beliefs they take for granted.

MARCH 2022:
A comprehensive, detailed overview of Sufism. Not an adulatory or spiritual read, but an objective academic treatment of the history and nature of Sufism across the ages. Do not expect lofty spiritual discussion or theorizing in this book, but a refreshingly grounded, 'secular', third-person view of the subject matter. The author discusses internal and external discourses on Sufism, how they influenced each other and concretized the creed. A lot of the book is thus devoted to these meta-theoretical concerns.

Chapter 1 explores various theories as to how and why Sufism originated. Chapter 2 explores the various names of Sufism and differing conceptions of its legitimacy and importance across space and time. Sufi studies in the West are primarily text-based, due to the proliferation of translations by Orientalists. Various features like the Awliya, occult superstitions like astrology and numerology and their relation to Sufism are explored. The chapter concludes with a description of the fundamental defining features of Sufism (p. 60-61).

Chapter 3 describes the discourse and tradition of the Sufis, building up of the Quran and the Hadith. Exegesis occupies an important part, just like the other Abrahamic religions. The mystics claim special knowledge (batin) of the scriptures, often interpreting the stories esoterically for ethical purposes. These exegetical glosses are shocking, for example, where Ibn Arabi defends idolatry as part of his pantheistic notion of God, by reinterpreting Moses' condemnation of Aaron's worship of a golden calf in favour of Aaron! (p.92) From page 70, a succession of Sufi thinkers and their thoughts are explored, including Al-Ghazali (p.77-81) and Ibn Arabi (p.87-93). The Quran and the cosmos are both held to be books of God, and a unitive conception of God that is ALL (almost Spinozistic) is the norm. How humans fit into the cosmos, divinely inspired 'Kashf' knowledge as opposed to Aql (mere intellect) are praised. There should be a balance between the Shariat and the Haqiqa. The inner struggle attains prominence. Ibn Arabi was, like Plato and Thomas Aquinas, the progenitor of a worldwide Sufi exegetical tradition. Al-Hallaj and Rumi are conspicuous in their absence from this section, however. The modern Sufi movements of the Rabbani tariqat are also described.

Chapter 4 compares Sufism to its common Mediterranean heritage, with the ferment of Hellenism (Al Hikma Al-Yunaniyya), similarities to and intersections with the Christian monastic and mystic tradition and Neoplatonism (especially Pseudo-Dionysius and Neoplotinus). Chapter 5 explores the praxis of the community, with the emphasis on good ethics (Adab), Widespread allegorization, institutionalized leadership with unquestioned authority, which spread education among the masses, the Shakyh-Murid dyad. The Shaykhs tend to command unchallenged authority over the murids. Ibn Khaldun and Al-Ghazali's rationalist critique of the Sufis is also discussed (p. 154, p.171). They mainly criticize the world-rejecting tendency prevalent. The tendency to chart a decline in spiritual Sufi ideals as it gets more institutionalized and autocratic is also explored.

Chapter 6 discusses the politics of the Sufi-Salafi clash. In a nutshell, Sufism is an older ideology with wide outreach across the Islamic world. It is also bogged down in superstition and worship of awliya's tombs etc. It is widely held to be conservative and pre-modern due to its practices, organization and its use by regimes to cement their authority. Hence, it has come under the attack of Western-educated rationalist modernist Salafis, who have turned to violence. It is a question of a younger generation, buoyed up by oil money rebelling against the heritage of the past, and its tangible expression; Sufi organizations. The colonial exploitation which resulted in the weakness of the Islamic world is often blamed on the Sufis quietism. Those who became dissatisfied searched for alternatives: secularism failed due to various socio-economic factors. A liberal ethnic nationalism like Nasser's Egypt and Bangladesh was another alternative. However, Gulf-educated Salafi-Wahhabism gained the day due to its radical appeal to the youth and the disenfranchised and the promise of gains it held. This took the form of radical anti-Sufism. The author explores two case studies to derive his conclusions: (a) Daghestan and Chechnya, Russia (b) Hadrawmaut, Yemen. Thus, the author concludes that much of the strife across the Middle East today is due to local socio-political and economic factors, and not as is often chalked down pettily to, to any fault of Islam itself. The number of passages that advocate for pacifism in the Quran far outnumber the ones that call for violence. It is local factors, including the Russian ethnic tensions and Yemeni economic problems that are the root of the problem.

In conclusion, the book is a clear and good systematic overview of Sufism as viewed in its context. It is not however, in any way, an insider's spiritual treatment of the topic like Martin Lings or Charles Eaton. It is also not really a 'history' notwithstanding the title. It is more of an overview or an introduction to various aspects of the topic, in a series of disjointed essays.

[Joey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well done. Knysh is concerned in this volume not only with outlining a history of Sufism, but also with making academic arguments surrounding the study of mysticism. For instance, a full chapter early in the book takes aim at Orientalists who attack western scholars for arrogantly examining Islam from their biased, colonialist perspectives, while simultaneously criticizing western academics who insufficiently credit internal, "insider" perspectives on Sufism propogated by Muslims themselves. In this way, Knysh styles himself as a centrist in academic terms, discrediting both extreme Orientalist and anti-Orientalist views. I'm always a fan of finding the middle ground.

Knysh's survey of the chief contributors to Sufi thought over the centuries -- i.e. Ibn Arabi, Ghazali, etc. -- is not exhaustive, but perfectly representative and serviceable. Readers are treated not only to summaries of the thought and contributions of each Sufi master, but also a general synthesis that ties it all together in a more or less neat package, which is what one would expect of a broad survey on a topic.

I had mixed feelings about the final chapter, which traced modern Sufi developments via case studies of Daghestan and the Hadramawt region of Yemen. While the studies were interesting, I struggled to understand how they fit into the logical overall flow of the book. This made that part of the book feel almost like a standalone project, albeit an informative and well-written one.

[Hassan Zayour · Rating 5 out of 5]

I regard this book to be the epitome of scholar professionalism. Professor Knysh brilliantly managed to tackle such a profound, sensitive, and complex topic from a myriad of scopes in an objective manner. In the domain of Islamic studies, I have found objectivity to be the rarest factor present in what is supposed to be a somehow scientific realm. This is understandable, and it is almost impossible to totally abolish one's innate biases when discussing such topics. The author mentioned that in the second chapter he dedicated for defining Sufism. (This eventually turned out to be a failing endeavor. One can think of Sufism as a mirror that reflects one's background, spirituality, intellectual interests, beliefs, etc... It is rather difficult to alienate one's self from such factors, and individuality will inevitably manage to manifest itself somewhere).
Throughout the course of his book, the author comprehensively discussed Sufism's rise, metaphysical development, mystical epistemology, metaphorical exegesis, perception of the universe, different groups, institutions, and political activities in recent times. He demonstrated his comprehensive knowledge of the topic, combining it with respectable integrity and admirable research skills. The bibliography also served as a good reference for other useful resources.
I believe that this book serves as the ultimate model or template of how to approach a topic as profound and complex as the subject at hand.

[Sagheer Afzal · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not really a 'history' notwithstanding the title. It is more of an overview or an introduction to various aspects of the topic, in a series of disjointed essays. The author pads his work with lots of excerpts from other writers; a well-known sign that the author has run out of his own ideas.

[Shane Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an easy book to digest though the final chapter on Sufism versus Salafi's was very accessible.....