Western Sufism is sometimes dismissed as a relatively recent "new age" phenomenon, but in this book, Mark Sedgwick argues that it actually has very deep roots, both in the Muslim world and in the West. In fact, although the first significant Western Sufi organization was not established until 1915, the first Western discussion of Sufism was printed in 1480, and Western interest in some of the ideas that are central to Sufi thought goes back to the thirteenth century. Sedgwick starts with the earliest origins of Western Sufism in late antique Neoplatonism and early Arab philosophy, and traces later origins in repeated intercultural transfers from the Muslim world to the West, in the thought of the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, and in the intellectual and religious ferment of the nineteenth century. He then follows the development of organized Sufism in the West from 1915 until 1968, the year in which the first Western Sufi order based not on the heritage of the European Middle Ages, Renaissance and Enlightenment, but rather on purely Islamic models, was founded. Later developments in this and other orders are also covered.
Western Sufism shows the influence of these origins, of thought both familiar and less familiar: Neoplatonic emanationism, perennialism, pantheism, universalism, and esotericism. Western Sufism, then, is the product not of the new age but of Islam, the ancient world, and centuries of Western religious and intellectual history. Drawing on sources from antiquity to the internet, Mark Sedgwick demonstrates that the phenomenon of Western Sufism not only draws on centuries of intercultural transfers, but is also part of a long-established relationship between Western thought and Islam that can be productive, not confrontational.
Industry Reviews
"No more comprehensive a study of the phenomenon of Sufism outside of Muslim-majority countries has been undertaken prior to Sedgwick's" -- Hunter C. Bandy, Religious Studies Review
"Western Sufism stands on its own as a model intellectual history of a significant stream of global spirituality. It is a major contribution to our understanding of the inevitable distortions, compromises, revisions, and entrepreneurism that accompany any attempt at transnational transmission of spiritual traditions from one culture to another."--Phillip Charles Lucas, Nova Religio
"[E]rudite and informative."--Alexander Knysh, American Historical Review
"Topics seemingly familiar to the non-specialistDLSufism as antinomian, pacifist, distinct from or older than IslamDLare critically examined in an extensive and diachronic presentation with appreciated nuance and accountability for variation and contradiction: herein lies Sedgwick's great achievement. Instructors may find chapters from these sections appropriate for undergraduates as well, since they pithily and engagingly illustrate the reception of 'Sufism'
in epochs and milieus otherwise unexpected."--Reading Religion
"The list of intellectuals who have sneered at twentieth-century Western Sufis as peddling some form of 'neo-Sufism' or 'New Age syncretism' is long and depressing. In his new book, Mark Sedgwick impressively corrects this consensus by giving us the long arc. He traces the Christian and Jewish engagement with Sufism back to the fifteenth-century Renaissance, and then traces the mystical lingua franca of these transcultural transmissions even further back,
through Arab and Scholastic philosophy and, finally, to the towering figure of Plotinus. Throughout it all, Sedgwick demonstrates an intellectual and spiritual generosity that is rare among scholars of this
erudition and accomplishment. The implications are significant and far-reaching for any number of intellectual projects, from the histories of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism to the re-visioning of comparativism for a new generation." --Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion
"This is the book on Sufism that I always wanted to read, but that I just couldn't find because Mark Sedgwick had not yet written it. Is Sufism Islamic or universal? Is it a historical phenomenon or a product of the imagination? Does it come from the East or the West? Is it one thing or many things? As it turns out, the answer to all these questions is 'both' - and yet there is something that holds it all together: the Platonic dream of reunion with the One
True Reality that is hidden and yet made visible by the veil of appearances." --Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents, University of Amsterdam
"This work is both provocative and thought-provoking. Not only is it the first serious study of Sufism in the West but it also provides an argument for both Sufism and Islam as 'Western' spiritual traditions through the shared heritage of Neoplatonism. Besides providing important new material for scholars and students of Sufism, this book is also useful for both graduate and undergraduate courses on Sufism, Orientalism, Esotericism, and Religious Studies and
Islamic Studies in general." --Vincent J. Cornell, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies, Emory University
