The Cambridge Companion To Sufism
The Cambridge Companion to Sufism (Cambridge Companions to Religion)
by Lloyd Ridgeon (Editor)
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Sufism, the mystical or aesthetic doctrine in Islam, has occupied a very specific place in the Islamic tradition, with its own history, literature and devotional practices. Its development began in the seventh century, almost immediately after the early conquests, and spread throughout the Islamic world. The Cambridge Companion to Sufism traces its evolution from the formative period to the present, addressing specific themes along the way within the context of the times. In section discussing the early period, the devotional practices of the earliest Sufis are considered. The section on the medieval period, when Sufism was at its height, examines Sufi doctrines, different forms of mysticism and the antinomian expressions of Sufism. The section on the modern period explains the controversies that surrounded Sufism, the changes that took place in the colonial period and how Sufism transformed into a transnational movement in the twentieth century. This inimitable volume sheds light on a multifaceted and alternative aspect of Islamic history and religion.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"… this volume offers a beautiful doorway to Sufism."
J. Hammer, Choice
'The volume’s contributors distinguish themselves by their expertise. The uniformity of transcription and citation should also be applauded, given how difficult such uniformity is to achieve in an anthology. As mentioned, the volume addresses itself to an academic readership. Of help to the academic reader are comprehensive footnotes, mostly referring to an abundance of secondary works, and the further references at the end of the articles, except chapters 5 and 12. Also helpful are an index of names of individuals, a list of technical terms and names of groups, and a register of English terms and place names. Thus the volume may be absolutely recommended to anyone with a basic knowledge of Sufism who wants to delve more deeply into particular issues.' Angelika Brodersen, Die Welt des Islams
Book Description
This book traces the evolution of Sufism from the formative period to the present.
About the Author
Lloyd Ridgeon is Reader in Islamic Studies at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. His previous publications include Javanmardi: A Sufi Code of Honour (2011) and Morals and Mysticism in Persian Sufism (2010).
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Publisher : Cambridge University Press (December 8, 2014)
Language : English
Paperback : 240 pages
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Customer reviews
3.8 out of 5 stars
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Top review from the United States
Lee Collins
1.0 out of 5 stars Unscholarly whitewash
Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2015
I bought this book because I had read a lot of conflicting views on Sufism and I wanted to get to the bottom of it all. Unfortunately, “The Cambridge Companion to Sufism” was a big disappointment.
Sufism is described as a religious or God-centred way of life whose ultimate goal is an experience of communion with the divine. The main problem with it is that its true origins and intentions are shrouded in mystery much of which is deliberate. Part 1 of the book, “The Early Period”, seemed promising enough. The first essay tries to unravel the origins of Sufism going back to the early days of Islam. The author mentions the many similarities between this tradition within Islam and Christian versions of it. Could this imply Sufi dependence on pre-Islamic traditions?
This possibility is supported by what the author refers to as the “puzzle” of Christian asceticism being taken up by Islamic currents at an early stage while it took centuries for Islam to develop anything that would parallel Christian mysticism, i.e., the practices leading to the experience of communion with the divine that Islamic Sufism claims to be its ultimate goal. Unfortunately, neither this author (Christopher Melchert) nor those of the following chapters devote much time to this line of inquiry.
The book ignores the findings of Margaret Smith in “The Way of the Mystics: The Early Christian Mystics and the Rise of the Sufis” (http://www.amazon.com/way-mystics-early-Christian-Sufis/dp/B001Q27838/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1448371218&sr=1-1&keywords=margaret+smith%2C+way+of+the+mystics)
which have shown that Islamic Sufism has its roots in Christian traditions that had come into being through a fusion of Christianity and Neoplatonism in the early centuries of the current era. These traditions had spread throughout the Middle East and beyond by the time of prophet Mohammad and Smith shows how they were gradually adopted by the Muslims who came into contact with them.
Smith’s findings show how Arab Muslims first imitated Christian monks and hermits by adopting a life of renunciation, seclusion and asceticism and only later took to other practices such as prayer and contemplation leading to mysticism proper. These findings explain the “puzzle” mentioned above and might contribute a lot to solving the problem of Sufi origins. While Christian philosophy and mysticism arose naturally in the Classical world where these traditions were at home, Islamic philosophy and mysticism were not a natural growth within Islam.
The evidence shows that Sufism belonged to the wisdom traditions of the Hellenistic world which went back to the time of the Ancient Greek philosophers who were known as "sophoi", wise ones. Some Muslim scholars, e.g., al-Biruni believed that the Arabic word “Sufi” comes from Greek “Sophia”, wisdom, and Vilayat Khan, a modern teacher of Sufism, said that Sufism originated in the Ancient Greek Mystery traditions. Such views seem much more credible than those trying to trace Sufism to the Koran. In any case, it is hard to see how the teachings of Sufis like Suhrawardi could be based on mainstream Islam. It was precisely due to its non-Islamic origins that Sufism was often rejected and suppressed in countries dominated by Islam.
The attitude of official Islam to Sufism meant that the latter could only have survived in two basic forms: an authentic one existing largely underground and available only to selected initiates (Christianity itself often subsisted in this form in Muslim-occupied areas) and an Islamicized one that was “Sufism” only in name and was used by official Islam for proselytizing purposes. Sufi “orders” often used Sufism to lend a veneer of cultural and spiritual respectability to Islam and to facilitate the latter’s advance among developed non-Muslim populations, e.g., in Persia and India. See Moinuddin Chisti, Badi-ud-Din Shah-i-Madar, etc. Especially after the collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate in the 13th century Sufism played a key role in the spread of Islam (Rafic Zakaria, "The Struggle Within Islam", 1988).
While Sufis living under Muslim occupation had obvious good reason to claim an Islamic origin, those living in non-Muslim countries had no such reason. Simply put, this means that Sufis teaching in non-Muslim (Western) countries who claim links to Islam, Mohammad and the Koran cannot be authentic and must have a hidden agenda which is to convert their followers to Islam by stealth.
Part 3 of the book, “Sufism in the Modern Age”, is no better. Page 266 says that “some Western Sufis converted to an orthodox form of Islam, while others maintained interest only in its esoteric aspect, thereby reproducing the early Orientalist divide between Sufism and Islam”. In the author’s view accepting Sufism while rejecting Islam is “Orientalist” (i.e., artificial, unjustified and undesirable or “racist” and “criminal”). There is no in-depth critical assessment of modern sponsors of Sufism and of what admittedly has become a self-promoting Sufi industry dominated by commercial and other materialistic concerns. Promoters of Sufism in the West are only briefly and uncritically reviewed and dubious characters like Idries Shah (who have long been exposed as fraudsters) get away scot-free.
There is a strange silence on Sufism’s links to missionary, militant or terroristic Islam (groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat-e Islami, Hizb ut-Tahrir) that is inconsistent with the high standards of scholarship readers might expect from a book bearing the name of an institution like Cambridge and the authors obviously follow a prescribed pattern of unscholarly, politically correct writing.
Itzchak Weismann of the Jewish-Arab Center at the University of Haifa rebukes Western societies for looking on Muslim immigrant communities as “nothing but an outgrowth of the Islamic Other” and Pnina Werbner, a far-left social anthropologist at Keele University, concludes by focusing on Sufi “transnationalism”, “multiculturalism”, “inclusiveness” and the “redistributive economy” of Sufi cults involving voluntary labour and monetary donations.
“The Cambridge Companion to Sufism” comes very close to rebranding Sufism as the academia-approved religion of the future: communism with an Islamo-mystical twist. I am reminded of newspaper reports on British universities receiving large sums from repressive Islamic regimes in exchange for promoting a whitewashed image of all things Islamic among a progressively ignorant and gullible public. With universities like that, no wonder our education system has gone to the dogs.
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4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries
Mr B
3.0 out of 5 stars Cambridge companion to Sufism
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 19, 2014
Verified Purchase
When I ordered this it was not scheduled for publication until January 2015, and I it was ordered on the expectation that it would be of the same standard as my Companion to Plato, and Companion to Plotinus. I have not looked back to see if a publishers 'brief' was evident, but in this case it seems to be 'to bring it up to date;' something which would be difficult in itself because of the variety of perceptions as to what Sufis are and what Sufism accordingly, is. The essays are in three sections: the early period; the medieaval period; and, not surprisingly, the modern period (my paraphrasing). What I found in the first four essays was a dominance of references. The minute I see Brill, as the publisher of one source of information, I think forget it, even one of Professor Lewisohn's books was £68. I accept that academics will have the onus to write for other academics, but there is a large untapped body of the interested, which Schimmel and Chittick seem to have sussed out a long time ago.Indries Shah and Coleman Berks certainly, I would put in a totaly different kind of category. I am fully aware of the pressure on young academics to show they have done their reading, but I do feel that the whole of this practice - which starts at undergraduate level, needs to be readdressed. Both Hadot and Bloom have made the same point that students are encouraged to replicate the thoughts of their professors, at university level. So we have claims for originality, which means little is we are to accept that 'there is nothing new under the sun', or the culture of producing obscurity, and this applies as much modern philosophy as it does to something described alternatively as esoteric or theurgic. One of the appeals, it seems to me, of modern Islamic evangelicalism, is that it offers a discipline which is easier to take on board because it is imposed from the 'outside'. I remember reading a report of a talk by Helmut Kalminski - who I have a lot of respect for, being asked the question: 'Does one have to become Muslim to become a Sufi?' And the question was hedged.Reading the last two chapters, which while very interesting, seemed to be a natural development from Helminski's non-answer, to no. As a medievalist at heart, I was saddened. I ran a workshop on Rumi for a year, and stopped because I was personally getting more interested in what Rumi was teaching through his poetry, than the poetry itself; but the students were more interested in the poetry. I met some American-Iranians in the summer, but who only said, 'know a lot about our culture,' and that was it; not why I was interested; replicating the same perspective. Surely the whole point of what Gurdjieff and the Study Society were seeking, was not something as an orientalised Keats or Wordsworth, but something fundamental, and very practical. I am also not impressed by those who take the feminist approach, and simply regurgitate the same style as their male counterpoints. There are an awful lot of names mentioned or referred to in this Companion, and unfortunately some of it reads like an informed Wickopidea entry. I would rather read about those from Bistami and Junaid to Rumi and San'ai, and what they taught, than some so-called claimed modern Sufi. Rumi said: 'Words stop at the abyss.' , but then, I do not know what brief the editor was given.
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4 people found this helpful
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Natta Kuiski
Mar 19, 2020Natta Kuiski rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: sufism
A collection of chapters written by different contributors -- all Western-trained academics, as far as I can tell -- about different aspects of Sufism. It is split into three sections:
the earliest days, the medieval period, and modern Sufism.
I especially enjoyed the chapters by Christopher Melchert ("Origins and Early Sufism"), Ahmet Karamustafa ("Antinomian Sufis"), Beverly Mack ("Nana Asma'u: Nineteenth-Century West African Sufi") and Knut Vikør ("Sufism and Colonialism"). Mack's and Vikør's chapters particularly grabbed my attention; I've really got to follow this up by reading more about Nana Asma'u specifically and West African Islam generally. (less)
