History of Sufism
Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam in which Muslims seek divine love and truth through direct personal experience of God.
[1] This mystic tradition within Islam developed in several stages of growth, emerging first in the form of early asceticism, based on the teachings of Hasan al-Basri, before entering the second stage of more classical mysticism of divine love, as promoted by al-Ghazali and Attar of Nishapur, and finally emerging in the institutionalised form of today's network of fraternal Sufi orders, based on Sufis such as Rumi and Yunus Emre.
[2][1] At its core, however, Sufism remains an individual mystic experience, and a Sufi can be characterized as one who seeks the annihilation of the ego in God.
According to Ibn Khaldun Sufism was already practised by the Sahaba, but with the spread of material tendencies, the term Sufi was just applied to those who emphasize the spiritual practice of Islam.
[4] Abu Bakr Muhammad Zakaria states in his book "Hindusiyat wa Tasur" that Kamel Amiel al-Shaibi and Abdullah Waris Bin Ishaq in separate texts say that the first person to use the word Sufi was Abu Hashem al-Kufi (2nd century AH), and Ibn Taymiyya said in his Majmual Fatwa that Basra was a center of Sufism at that time.
[6] Karamustafa also cites Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya, Shaqiq al-Balkhi, Al-Darani, Dhul-Nun al-Misri, Yahya ibn Mu'adh al-Razi, and Bayazid Bastami as some of the pioneering figures in the introspective trends that would lead to what would later be called Sufism.
[8] Towards the end of the 1st millennium CE, a number of manuals began to be written summarizing the doctrines of Sufism and describing some typical Sufi practices.
[10] Two of al Ghazali's finest treatises, the "Revival of Religious Sciences" and the "Alchemy of Happiness," depicted Sufism as the complete fulfilment of Islamic Law.
[24] A group of Sufi masters who defended the works of theosophists such as Ghazali and al-Qushayri began emerging in the late eleventh and early- to mid-twelfth centuries.
The one exception to that trend was Ibn Abbad al-Rundi (1332-1390), a member of the Shadhiliyya order who was born in Ronda and whose scholarship brought together mystical and juridical paths.
[37] Under Turko-Mongolian rulership, Sufi authors and teachings such as those of Ahmad Yasawi, Abu al-Najib Suhrawardi, Rumi and Sultan Walad, a leading interpreter of the ibn Arabi, flourished throughout the Islamic world.
[36](p21-22) Between the 13th and 16th centuries CE, Sufism produced a flourishing intellectual culture throughout the Islamic world, a "Golden Age" whose physical artifacts are still present.
Recent academic work on these topics has focused on the role of Sufism in creating and propagating the culture of the Ottoman world, including a study of the various branches of the Naqshbandi[41] and Khalwati orders,[42] and in resisting European imperialism in North Africa and South Asia.
[45] The Sufi shine at Ajmer in Rajasthan and Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi, Ashraf Jahangir Semnani in Kichaucha Shariff belong to this order.
The Suharawardi order was started by Abu al-Najib Suhrawardi, a Persian Sufi born in Sohrevard near Zanjan in Iran, and brought to India by Baha-ud-din Zakariya of Multan.
The Khalwati order was founded by Umar al-Khalwati, an Azerbaijani Sufi known for undertaking long solitary retreats in the wilderness of Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran.
[48] Current Sufi orders include Ba 'Alawiyya, Chishti, Khalwati, Naqshbandi, Nimatullahi, Oveyssi, Qadria Noshahia, Qadiria Boutshishia, Qadiriyyah, Qalandariyya, Sarwari Qadiri, Shadhliyya, Tijaniyyah, and Suhrawardiyya.
Sufism suffered setbacks in North Africa during the colonial period; the life of the Algerian Sufi master Emir Abd al-Qadir is instructive in this regard.
[51] Notable as well are the lives of Amadou Bamba and Hajj Umar Tall in sub-Saharan Africa, and Sheikh Mansur Ushurma and Imam Shamil in the Caucasus region.
In the 20th century some more modernist Muslims have called Sufism a superstitious religion that holds back Islamic achievement in the fields of science and technology.
Other noteworthy Sufi teachers who were active in the West include Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Inayat Khan, Nazim Al-Haqqani, Javad Nurbakhsh, Bulent Rauf, Irina Tweedie, Idries Shah and Muzaffer Ozak.
Currently active Sufi academics and publishers include Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Nuh Ha Mim Keller, Abdullah Nooruddeen Durkee, Abdal Hakim Murad, Syed Waheed Ashraf and the Franco-Moroccan Faouzi Skali.
