Sufis and Anti-Sufis: The Defence, Rethinking and Rejection of Sufism in the Modern World

203 Pages·1998·4.72 MB·English

by  Elizabeth Sirriyeh

Sufis and Anti-Sufis
CURZON SUFI SERIES
Series editor: Ian Richard Netton
Professor of Arabic and
Middle Eastern Studies,
University of Leeds
The Curzon Sufi Series attempts to provide short introductions to a variety of
facets of the subject, which are accessible both to the general reader and the
student and scholar in the field. Each book will be either a synthesis of
existing knowledge or a distinct contribution to, and extension of, knowledge
of the particular topic. The two major underlying principles of the Series are
sound scholarship and readability.
BEYOND FAITH AND INFIDELITY
The Sufi Poetry and Teachings of Mahmud Shabistari
Leonard Lewisohn
AL-HALLAJ
Herbert W Mason
RUZBIHAN BAQLI
Mysticism and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism
Carl W Ernst
ABDULLAH ANSARI OF HERAT
An Early Sufi Master
A.G. Ravan Farhadi
THE CONCEPT OF SAINTHOOD IN EARLY ISLAMIC MYSTICISM
Bernd Radtke and John O'Kane
SUHRAWARDI AND THE SCHOOL OF ILLUMINATION
Mehdi Amin Razavi
PERSIAN SUFI POETRY
An Introduction to the Mystical Use of Classical Persian Poems
]. T. P de Bruijn
AZIZ NASAFI
Lloyd Ridgeon
Sufis and Anti-Sufis
The Defence, Rethinking and Rejection
of Sufism in the Modern World
Elizabeth Sirriyeh
~l Routledge
!;i ~ Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First Published in 1999
by Curzon Press
Published 2013 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, axon OX14 4RN
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 1999 Elizabeth Sirriyeh
Typeset in Horley Old Style by LaserScript Ltd, Mitcham
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 13: 978-0-700-71060-7 (pbk)
For my mother, Grace
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Preface lX
Abbreviations Xlll
1 Sufis and Their Critics Before the Impact of Europe 1
The Mood of Decline 2
Sufi Reformers: Shah Waif Allah and A~mad b. Idrfs 4
The Spirit of Mass Reform Within the Tarfqas 11
Rejection of the Tarfqas: the Arabian Wahhabfs 22
2 The Challenge of European Anti-Sufism 27
The Lesser Jihad 29
The Greater Jihad and Worldly Constraints 43
3 Traditional Sufism or a Religion of Progress? 54
Sufism and European Thought in the Nineteenth Century 54
Early Islamic Modernism and Sufism 59
Sufi Orders and the Ottoman Version of Pan-Islamic
Regeneration 74
4 The Sufism and Anti-Sufism of the Salafis 86
Mu~ammad cAbduh (1849-1905), Sufi and Anti-Sufi 86
Mu~ammad Rashfd Ri4a, Anti-Sufi (1865-1935) 98
The Salafiyya in the Arab Lands 102
5 Strengthening the Soul of the Nation 112
Ziya Gokalp (1876-1924) 112
Mu~ammad Iqbal (1876?-1938) 124
Vll
SUFIS AND ANTI-SUFIS
6 Contemporary Sufism and Anti-Sufism 140
Sufi Tarfqas, 1950s-1960s: Decline and Continuity 140
The Tarfqas and the Contemporary Islamic Revival 145
State Anti-Sufism 153
Radical Rethinking of the Way 161
Conclusion: Many Ways Towards the One 173
Bibliography 176
Index 183
Vlll
Preface
Opposition to Sufism is not essentially a modern phenomenon. It has
been evidenced through much of Islamic history, reaching a notorious
early culmination in the brutal torture and execution of al-I:Iallaj,
ecstatic martyr of divine love, in 922 C.E. However, some of the
harshest criticism has traditionally come from within the ranks of the
Sufis, as witnessed in the famous comment recorded by Rozbihan
BaqlI (d. 1209): 'I looked into Hell, and I saw that most of its
inhabitants were those donning a patched frock and carrying a food-
bowl. ,1 The most distinguished of medieval critics, Ibn Taymiyya
(d. 1328), who mayor may not have been a Sufi himself, provided an
important source of authority for many later reformers, whether Sufi
leaders intent on ensuring their followers' conformity with the Holy
Law or resolute rejecters of Sufism. 2
Yet while these currents of dissatisfaction with Sufism had long
been present in the umma, they were to grow substantially from the
middle of the eighteenth century, giving rise to a greater variety of
self-questioning among Muslims as well as attacks from outside the
Islamic world. This book attempts to explore some of the ways in
which Sufism has been challenged over the last two centuries by the
forces of anti-Sufism, understood at times as opposition to Sufism in
all its aspects, at times as criticism of certain Sufi beliefs and practices
regarded as unacceptable innovations with no authentic basis in
Qur'an and Sunna and no laudable purpose.
Many studies of Islam in the modern period have been concerned
with the attempts of Muslim 'modernists', and more recently
'fundamentalists', to come to terms with Western modernity and, in
the process, traditional Sufis have often appeared to be sidelined or
placed in a separate compartment. It is often remarked how many of
the so-called modernists or fundamentalists were at some time in their
lives Sufis or at least had Sufi contacts in their upbringing. This is
hardly surprising in view of the fact that the Sufi tarfqas so permeated
IX