Western Sufism: From the Abbasids to the New Age

Western Sufism is a regional variant on Sufism, as are Indonesian Sufism or African Sufism. It is sometimes dismissed as “New Age” and seen as a very modern phenomenon, but this book argues that, in fact, it has very deep roots, in the West and beyond. The first significant Western Sufi organization was not established until 1915, but the first Western discussion of Sufism was printed in 1480. This book traces the immediate origins of Western Sufism in early modern Europe, and its earliest origins in late antique Neoplatonism, and in early Arab and Persian Sufism. It follows the establishment of Western Sufism between 1910 and 1933 and then its development up to 1968, the year of the foundation of the first Western Sufi tariqa (order) which did not reflect early modern Europe. The book argues that Western Sufism from 1910 to 1968 was distinguished primarily by emanationism, perennialism, universalism, and anti-exotericism (a form of esotericism). Emanationism was a product of late antiquity, passed through Arab and Scholastic philosophy. Perennialism was a product of early Christianity, passed through the Renaissance. Universalism and anti-exotericism both originated in the early Enlightenment. Western Sufism, then, is a product not of the New Age but of Islam, of the ancient world, and of centuries of Western religious and intellectual history.