Neo-Sufism

A Pragmatic Study of Sufism in Shafak's Novel ''The Forty Rules of Love''

“…In the 9th century, this term is also found in Islam when the Greek texts are transformed into Arabic. Therefore, the influence of the Arabic Mysticism is reflected strongly in Muslims and Jewish cultures (Sedgwick, 2012).…”

Between Islam and the New Age: The Jerrahi Order and categorical ambiguity in the study of Sufism in North America

“…Hermansen, for example, considers “hybrid” Sufi orders in the West to be those that have an Islamic “core,” with “individual members and even sub‐branches” maintaining “eclectic or New Age beliefs and practices” (2020: xxii). Other scholars such as Mark Sedgwick have characterized the development of Sufism in the modern Western context as “Neo‐Sufism” (2012, p. 198). In his contribution “Neo‐Sufism” for The Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements (2012), Sedgwick frames Sufism in the West using the “neo” prefix, explaining that, although “Neo‐Sufism” was a term initially applied to a wave of new Sufi orders in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia in the eighteenth century:

The term is now increasingly used … to describe various forms of Sufism found in the West since the nineteenth century.

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“…Although local, North American cultural influences on Sufi groups are notable, scholars do not agree upon the significance of said influences when categorizing Sufi groups. For example, in Sedgwick's analysis of the Haqqani branch of the Naqshbandi Sufi order, he frames the Haqqaniyya as a “classical sub‐order rather than a neo‐Sufi new religious movement,” while in contrast Alexander Knysh considers this very same order to be a “New Age” one (Sedgwick, 2012, p. 209; Knysh, 2017, pp. 109–120).…”

“…4 4 In his chapter Sedgwick develops four categories of neo‐Sufism. The first is “Theist neo‐Sufism” which he aligns with the European Orientalist encounter with Sufism, including that of William Jones (d. 1794) and John Malcolm (d. 1833), who published works on Sufism which framed it as a perennial, pre‐Islamic tradition (2012, pp. 200–201).…”

“…200–201). His second category, “romantic neo‐Sufism”, is located within the European Romantic movement, while “Theosophical neo‐Sufism” is associated with the Theosophical Society in New York, which focused on non‐Christian esoteric traditions (2012, pp. 200–203).…”