Sufi sm and ‘Popular’ Islam 143discussed, a system of moral guidance of new or junior members of the move-
ment by their seniors, and sohbet. Of the various wings that emerged within the
movement in the last quarter of the twentieth century, the one led by Fethullah
Gülen was most spectacularly successful, creating a vast media and education
empire, with high-quality schools in numerous countries, geared to the creation
of a pious and disciplined elite.^21
Renewed appreciation of Sufi sm among ‘modern’ Muslims
Whereas, in the early twentieth century, persons of modern (that is, Western-
style) education tended to be sceptical or dismissive of Sufi sm, associating it
primarily with irrational attitudes and superstitious practices, by the end of
the century Sufi sm, though not necessarily the Sufi orders, had found a new
appreciation among the educated. This was partly no doubt a response to
the Islamic resurgence and the prominence of increasingly militant groups
in many societies. Sufi sm offered a more irenic discourse, which was more
tolerant of non-conformism and more conducive to interfaith harmony, and
which was embraced by quite signifi cant sections of the modern middle classes
as a psychologically rewarding and intellectually more respectable alterna-
tive to Islamism. Infl uential modern thinkers such as Muhammad Iqbal and
Abdolkarim Soroush, who both took a highly negative view of ‘popular’ Sufi sm
and the blind obedience to Sufi shaykhs that is demanded of their followers in
many orders, were at the same time strongly, and consciously, infl uenced by the
metaphysical Sufi sm of such classical authors as Mawlana Rumi and Ibn Arabi.
In part because of them, classical Sufi authors regained respectability among the
Muslim intellectual elite.^22
Another factor that should not be discounted is the prestige Sufi sm and Sufi
literature have gained in the West. The revulsion felt by reform-minded intellec-
tuals at the loud and ecstatic rituals of some of the ‘popular’ Sufi orders had been
exacerbated by their awareness of Westerners watching these rituals as exotic
expressions of a backward religiosity.^23 But, conversely, the interest that Rumi,
Ibn Arabi and other great Sufi s have engendered among cultivated Westerners,
and the latter’s positive appreciation of Sufi music, dance and dhikr as techniques
for raising awareness, have helped to make Sufi sm more intellectually respect-
able among educated Muslims (Hermansen 1997; Haenni and Voix 2007).
Transnational Sufi sm
One of the most remarkable recent developments is the fl ourishing of Sufi sm
and the Sufi orders in the West. One useful social function of Sufi orders,
already in pre-modern times, was that they could provide support to travel-
lers of various kinds because of the wide geographical reach of their networks.