Western Sufism is sometimes dismissed as a relatively recent "new age" phenomenon, but in this book Mark Sedgwick argues that it has deep roots, both in the Muslim world and in the West. In fact, although the first significant Western Sufi organization was not established until 1915, the first Western discussion of Sufism was printed in 1480, and Western interest in Sufi thought goes back to the thirteenth century. Sedgwick starts with the earliest origins of Western Sufism in late antique Neoplatonism and early Arab philosophy, and traces later origins in repeated intercultural transfers from the Muslim world to the West, in the thought of the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, and in the intellectual and religious ferment of the nineteenth century. He then follows the development of organized Sufism in the West from 1915 until 1968, the year in which the first Western Sufi order based on purely Islamic models was founded. Western Sufism shows the influence of these origins, of thought both familiar and less familiar: Neoplatonic emanationism, perennialism, pantheism, universalism, and esotericism. Western Sufism is the product not of the new age but of Islam, the ancient world, and centuries of Western religious and intellectual history. Using sources from antiquity to the internet, Sedgwick demonstrates that the phenomenon of Western Sufism draws on centuries of intercultural transfers and is part of a long-established relationship between Western thought and Islam.

Auteur

Mark Sedgwick is the head of the Islamic Cultures and Societies Research Unit at Aarhus University in Denmark. As a historian, his work centers on the transfer of religions and traditions in the late pre-modern and modern periods.

Contenu

Introduction **Part I | Premodern Intercultural Transfers 1. Neoplatonism and Emanationism Plotinus: The Key Emanation Explained Neoplatonism Spreads 2. Islamic Emanationism Arab Neoplatonism The First Sufis Sufi Classics 3. Jewish and Christian Emanationism Jewish Neoplatonism Jewish Sufism Latin Emanationism Conclusion to Part I Part II | Imagining Sufism, 1480- 1899 4. Dervishes Angels and Deviants The View from France Sufism as Mystical Theology 5. Deism and Pantheism The prisca theologia in the Renaissance Universalism: Guillaume Postel and the Jesuits Deism Demonstrated by Arab and Turk Pantheism and Anti-Exotericism 6. Universalist Sufism Sufism as Esoteric Pantheism Perennialism and Universalism in India The Dabistan and After 7. Dervishes Epicurean and Fanatical Dervishes in Drama, Painting, and Verse The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám Fighting Dervishes Conclusion to Part II Part III | The Establishment of Sufism in the West, 1910- 1933 8. Transcendentalism, Theosophy, and Sufism Transcendentalism and the Missouri Platonists The Theosophical Society and Carl- Henrik Bjerregaard Ivan Aguéli, the Western Sufi 9. Toward the One: Inayat Khan and the Sufi Movement Inayat Khan Visits America The Sufi Message is Spread The Continuation of the Sufi Movement 10. Tradition and Consciousness René Guénon and the Traditionalists George Gurdjieff and Consciousness The Early Years of John G. Bennett Conclusion to Part III Part IV | The Development of Sufism in the New Age 11. Polarization Toward Islam Reorientation with Meher Baba The Travels of John G. Bennett The Maryamiyya and the Oglala Sioux 12. Idries Shah and Sufi Psychology Shah and the Gurdjieff Tradition Shah's Sufism Followers and Opponents 13. Sufism Meets the New Age Traditionalism and the New Age The Sufi Movement Conserved Sufi Sam in San Francisco Vilayat and the Sufi Order International Fazal and Mystical Warfare 14. Islamic Sufism Ian Dallas and the Darqawiyya Ibn Arabi and Beshara The Murabitun and Sufi Jihad John G. Bennett at Sherborne Conclusion to Part IV 15. Conclusion Selected Bibliography Index