Sufism and Society: Arrangements of the Mystical in the Muslim World, 1200-1800.

AuthorKars, aydogan
PositionBook review

Sufism and Society: Arrangements of the Mystical in the Muslim World, 1200-1800. Edited by JOHN J. CURRY and ERIK S. OHLANDER. Routledge Sufi Series, vol. 12. London: ROUTLEDGE, 2012. Pp. xiv + 281. $125.

Sufism and Society consists of a collection of papers by ten scholars, with an introduction and two papers by the editors themselves. The chapters in the book present elaborate and diverse case studies of Sufism from Middle Eastern, Turkic, Persian, and South Asian Islamic lands, and cover six centuries, from the fall of Baghdad to the colonial period at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Apposite case studies are explored to challenge the grand narratives and pre-established generalizations about Sufism and its roles in society. The book depicts the vivid practices and doctrines of Sufis within an intricate nexus of other social and political elements. The examples in the book make clear that these relations are so complex that even recognizing or defining the Sufi element within the larger social picture can be extremely difficult. This difficulty is manifested in the case studies, and an attempt to resolve it is made by analyzing the cases within their larger gestalt while avoiding the familiar meta-narratives. In addition, the methodological richness of the chapters in the book is a thought ful response to the diversity of the themes and depth of the field. The authors enlist methodological insights from other disciplines, especially anthropology, sociology, and philosophy, to respond to the difficulty of studying such an elusive but saturated phenomenon tangled within the web of social relations. The authors explicitly reflect on the theorization of Sufism in their chapters; and their case studies of Sufism also embody concrete applications of alternative methodological frames to approach a saturated phenomenon. The application of diverse theoretical tools from various disciplines to the study of Sufism is, philosophically, the most exciting facet of the book.

Covering such a vast time span and geography, the editors effectively tackle the difficulty of contextualizing the papers by thematizing them. The chapters are "organized into four key areas of inquiry according to the specific thematic thrust of each in relation to the whole" (p. 4); the four rubrics are "historiography," "landscapes," "praxis," and "negotiations." These rubrics are neither exclusive nor exhaustive, but overlap like the manifold facets of the phenomenon under consideration. The case studies present alternative and interdisciplinary possibilities for studying Sufism, and provide us with alternative points of view informed by other fields of research enriching the traditional historical approaches.

The first three...

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