Sufism

What is Sufism?

Sufism (taṣawwuf in Arabic) is the mystical and contemplative current within Islam. It is not a separate sect but an inner dimension running through Sunni and Shia practice alike. Sufis are organised into orders called ṭarīqas, each tracing its lineage through chains of teachers back to the Prophet.

Sufism vs adjacent concepts

Sufism is not the same as mainstream Islamic practice. Mainstream Islam centres on the sharīʿa, the outer law governing communal life. Sufism centres on the ṭarīqa, the inner path of transformation. The two streams have usually run together in the same teachers. Most great Sufis were also rigorous jurists. Al-Ghazālī, the eleventh-century theologian whose work shaped orthodox Sunni thought for centuries, was one of them.

Sufism is also distinct from mysticism§ in general. Mysticism is the comparative category that gathers contemplative currents across traditions. Sufism is the specific Islamic instance. It has its own canon, vocabulary and lineages.

Sufi dhikr shares mechanics with Hindu bhakti practice and the Christian Jesus Prayer, but it is not interchangeable with them. The phrase repeated is a name of Allah. The lineage is Islamic. The doctrinal frame is the unity of God expressed in the shahāda.

Dhikr and the practice of remembrance

The central Sufi practice is dhikr, the repeated invocation of one of the names of God. It is performed sometimes silently, sometimes aloud, sometimes with movement and breath. The mechanism resembles mantra practice in Hindu yoga§ and the Jesus Prayer in Eastern Orthodox Christianity§. A single phrase is repeated until the mind, then the body, then the felt sense of self are saturated with it. The fruit, in classical Sufi description, is fanāʾ, the annihilation of the self in God. Fanāʾ is followed by baqāʾ, abiding in God.

Fanāʾ is the Sufi vocabulary's closest match to what non-duality§ calls the dissolution of the separate self. Buddhism§ calls the same recognition anattā. The vocabularies differ. The territory mapped is recognisably the same.

The poets

Sufism produced the largest body of mystical poetry in any tradition. Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (1207–1273) is the bestselling poet in the United States today, read mostly in Coleman Barks's loose translations. His Masnavi runs to twenty-five thousand couplets. Hafiz of Shiraz (c. 1320–1389) and Farīd al-Dīn ʿAttar (c. 1145–1221, author of The Conference of the Birds) are the other two whose work has crossed reliably into English. Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240) is more philosopher than poet. He is the source of the doctrine of waḥdat al-wujūd, the unity of being, which is essentially advaita§ in Arabic.

Why it isn't yet in the index

The contemplative literatures of Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity are well-represented in English-language audio and video. Sufi material in English is more scattered. It tends to be academic, and rarely in the lecture-and-podcast format the rest of the index gathers. This is a gap. Recommendations welcome.