Sufism

Sufism (Arabic: tasawwuf ) is the term used in English for Islamic mysticism, initially a movement of pious individuals and later of institutionalized mystical orders widely dispersed throughout the Muslim world.

The first teacher in the Sufi tradition came to the United States in 1912. This was Hazrat Inayat Khan of India, a Sufi in the Chishti lineage who married an American, although he eventually settled in Europe. His son, Pir Vilayat Khan, revived the movement in the 1960s under the name "Sufi Order in the West" or "Message in our Time." This Sufi movement, like a number of others to emerge in the United States, emphasized the spiritual element of the Islamic tradition and an essential truth at the core of all human religious experience. The formal requirements of the Islamic law and adherence to mainstream Islam were not required of followers. Some consider the early impact of such movements in the West to have arisen as part of an attraction to "Oriental wisdom" while their reflowering in the 1960s was due to the appeal of New Age spiritual eclecticism.

The United States has also been fertile ground for the Perennialist movement, a number of whose followers have strong links to Sufism. Academics such as Huston Smith and Seyyed Hossein Nasr have advocated the pursuit of a perennial truth and sympathetically presented Islamic teachings in the light of inner or mystical understandings. Frithjof Schuon (1998), a Swiss who ultimately settled in Bloomington, Indiana, was influential in disseminating a strand of this "Perennialist" or "traditionalist" understanding. At the same time he functioned as the head of a Sufi order known as the Miriamiyya, a branch of the Shadhili Order.

Another movement functioning in the United States that claims inspiration from the Naqshbandi Sufi Order is that of the followers of the late British writer Idries Shah (1997) and his brother Omar Ali Shah. Idries Shah was a prolific writer on esoteric themes and a popularizer of the Sufi teaching story epitomized by the wise fool character of Mulla Nasruddin. Idries Shah became a well-known and successful author and was influential in literary and psychological circles in both the United States and Europe. His successor in the United States is Stanford University psychologist Robert Ornstein. In the 1960s Ornstein, along with others such as Charles Tart, brought the ideas of attaining self-realization based on Eastern religious or Western esotericist approaches to consciousness into the foreground of third wave transpersonal psychology embraced by the counterculture movement of that time.

During the 1970s, changes in American immigration policy facilitated increased immigration from Asia and the Middle East. This brought Sufi groups more strongly affiliated with the practice of the Islamic religion and its law to America. Some of these groups, mainly based in large urban centers and serving a primarily immigrant constituency, continue to function much as they did in the original cultural context.

Other Sufi groups, which I have termed "hybrid" movements due to their appeal and adaptation to a broader American community, teach the practice of Islam as part of the spiritual training of Sufism. The most notable of these movements are the Naqshbandi Haqqani Order, the Helveti Jerrahi Order, and the Guru Baba Muwaihideen Fellowship.

The constituencies and the membership of these various American Sufi movements vary, since they represent diverse religious and social orientations. The Sufi Order in the West and the Idries Shah Movement have had a broader impact on mainstream American culture due to their publishing activities and outreach to other communities through transpersonal psychology, holistic health, and Sufi dancing. Members do not have to make radical lifestyle or social adjustments and tend to be white, middle-class spiritual seekers. Interest in these movements probably peaked in the mid-1970s. While the Sufi Order claims that ten thousand persons have taken an initiation with Pir Vilayat Khan, many more Americans have attended Sufi seminars or camps or have read their publications.

Perennialist or "traditionalist" Sufism along the lines of the writings of Schuon, Nasr, and Houston Smith has also reached a broad American cultural audience through media such as television interviews with Bill Moyers and publishing activities in both scholarly and popular contexts. The impact of these movements is primarily through ideas rather than due to participation in organized movements.

In the case of the hybrid or Islamic Sufi orders, impact on mainstream American culture is less significant, since the ideas propounded are more specific to Muslim concerns. The Naqshbandi Haqqani Order has twenty-two branches nationwide and a membership estimated at twelve thousand. It has become increasingly prominent in the immigrant Muslim community and has sponsored two "Islamic Unity Conferences," in Los Angeles (1996) and in Washington, D.C. (1998), each attended by several thousand U.S.-based and international delegates. Since Sufi interpretations of Islam—for example, the idea of charismatic leadership and the intercession of pious saints (auliya)—are not accepted by all Muslims, it should not be thought that such movements are supported by the entire American Muslim community. At the same time, many non-Sufi Muslims appreciate their success in drawing Americans to Islam.

Sufi practices involving prayer and meditation have required little adaptation to the American context. At the same time, the gender segregation in public and religious contexts practiced in many Muslim societies has been moderated among American participants. The traditional Sufi practice of pilgrimage to the tombs or shrines of departed Sufis has been transplanted to the American context, as the first generation of leadership, including Murshid Samuel Lewis (New Mexico), Guru Bawa (Pennsylvania), and Shah Magsoud (California), has been memorialized in American soil.

Sufism is practiced in both the Shi'i and Sunni branches of Islam, and a number of Shi'i Orders, including the Ni'matullahi and the Oveyssi-Shahmaghsoudi, have followings in both the Iranian émigré and the American communities. Sufism has had a proportionately smaller impact among African-American Muslims, although some interest has been sparked by activities of the Tijaniyya, an Africa-based order, and by the Naqshbandi Haqqani Order, which probably has the most diverse following among the Sufi orders in the United States.

See alsoBaba Muwaihideen; Islam; Mysticism; New Age Spirituality.

Bibliography

Hermansen, Marcia K. "In the Garden of American Sufi Movements: Hybrids and Perennials." In NewTrends and Developments in the World of Islam, edited by Peter B. Clarke. 1997.

Jervis, James. "The Sufi Order in the West and Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan." In New Trends and Developments in the World of Islam, edited by Peter B. Clarke. 1997.

Webb, Gisela. "Sufism in America." In America's Alternative Religions, edited by Timothy Miller and Harold Coward. 1995.

Webb, Gisela. "Tradition and Innovation in Contemporary American Islamic Spirituality: The Bawa Muhaiyadeen Fellowship." In Muslim Communitiesin North America, edited by Yvonne Y. Haddad and Jane I. Smith. 1994.

Marcia K. Hermansen