Westerners. The International Association of Sufism, a non-
profit organization founded by Nahid Angha and Ali Kianfar
in 1983, attempts not only to promote Sufism but to foster
dialogue among the various organizations and orders of Su-
fism and to undertake pan-t:ar ̄ıqah activities.
Of equal significance is the renewed interest upon the
part of educated urbanites in the Middle East in Sufism as
a tolerant and inner-directed expression of Islamic spirituali-
ty, in contrast to fundamentalist or Islamist formulations of
religion. For example, there was a significant surge of interest
in the teachings of Ru ̄m ̄ı and the practices of the Mevlevis
throughout the 1980s and 1990s among young people in
Iran, who saw him as representative of an expansive and tol-
erant understanding of Islam. The Turkish Ministry of Cul-
ture also promotes Ru ̄m ̄ı and the Mevlevis as representatives
of the great cultural and spiritual heritage of that country.
The historical importance of the t:ar ̄ıqahs is profound.
After the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols in 1258, they
helped maintain communication and intellectual inter-
change across the Arabic-, Turkish-, and Persian-speaking re-
gions. They had a stabilizing role in critical periods of change
and political uncertainty, and as new political centers of
power became established, notably the Mughal and Otto-
man Empires, they either associated themselves with the rul-
ing classes or became a significant element in the social fabric
of the new polity. Far from being rivals to the Eulama ̄D, the
founders of the t:ar ̄ıqahs and their successors, the great S:u ̄f ̄ı
shaykhs were masters of the law, and their spiritual exercises
were a further dimension of their competence in fiqh, not
a substitute for it. In India in particular their contribution
to a creative acceptance of Islam and faithful observance of
the norms of Islamic law—the Naqshband ̄ı-inspired reform
movement in seventeenth-century Delhi is a notable exam-
ple—is enormous.
The new centers of political authority both recognized
them as the standard-bearers and exemplars of the norms of
religious behavior and provided them with ample opportuni-
ties to gain wealth, power, and influence. Given such accep-
tance, they added a richness and color, a vitality, and an emo-
tional intensity to every stratum of religious and social life.
Their cultural significance as promoters of literature and
music and their role in Islamizing the vernaculars of many
regions of the Muslim world have likewise been enormous.
SEE ALSO Attention; Bist:a ̄m ̄ı, Abu ̄ Yaz ̄ıd al-; Dance;
Darw ̄ısh; Dhikr, Ghaza ̄l ̄ı, Abu ̄ H:a ̄mid al-; Ibn al-EArab ̄ı;
Ibn EAt:a ̄ Alla ̄h; Islam, articles on Islam in Central Asia,
Islam in South Asia, Islam in the Caucasus and the Middle
Volga; Islamic Law, article on Shar ̄ıEah; Islamic Religious
Year; Khusraw, Am ̄ır; Madhhab; Madrasah; Mosque; Mysti-
cism; Niz:a ̄m al-D ̄ın Awl ̄ıya ̄; Retreat; Ru ̄m ̄ı, Jala ̄l al-D ̄ın;
Sama ̄E; Sufism; S:uh:bah; Sunnah; Wala ̄yah; Waqf.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
General Works
Literature in English, German, French, Arabic, and Turkish on
the t:ar ̄ıqah orders and Islamic sainthood is extensive and is
causing a significant reevaluation of views. The selective bib-
liography focuses on works in English. Spencer Trim-
ingham’s The Sufi Orders in Islam (New York, 1971; reprint
1998), though now somewhat dated, remains the standard
handbook on the subject. Readable scholarly overviews of the
history and practices of the t:ar ̄ıqahs are in some general
works on Sufism, including Carl Ernst’s The Shambhala
Guide to Sufism (Boston, 1997) and William Chittick’s Intro-
duction to Sufism (Oxford, 2000). Alexander Knysh’s Islamic
Mysticism: A Short History (Leiden, 2000), conceived as a ref-
erence work, provides a detailed history of the theory and
praxis of Sufism, including the orders, systematically pres-
ented. John Voll, “Sufism: Sufi Orders,” in The Oxford Ency-
clopedia of the Modern Islamic World, edited by John L. Espo-
sito (Oxford, 1995), provides an excellent précis and is
especially good on the role of the t:ar ̄ıqahs in resistance to co-
lonialism. Specialist bibliographies are in the articles on the
individual brotherhoods and their founding figures in Ehsan
Yarshater, ed., Encyclopaedia Iranica (New York, 2001–),
and H. A. R. Gibb et al., The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2d ed.
(Leiden, 1960–). The articles “T:ar ̄ıqa” and “Tas:awwuf” in
the latter are especially important and comprehensive. Alan
Godlas’s online article “Sufism—Sufis—Sufi Orders: Su-
fism’s Many Paths,” available from http://www.arches.uga.edu/
~godlas/Sufism.html, contains extensive scholarly informa-
tion about the t:ar ̄ıqah organizations, complete with links to
S:u ̄f ̄ı teachers, orders, and subbranches on the web.
Sources
Abu ̄ al-Naj ̄ıb al-Suhraward ̄ı’s A ̄da ̄b al-mur ̄ıd ̄ın is available in the
abridged translation of Menahem Milson as A Sufi Rule for
Novices (Cambridge, Mass., 1975). See also H. Wilberforce
Clarke, trans., The EAwarif uDl-maEarif by Shahab-uDd-Din b.
Muhammad Suhrawardi (New York, 1973).
Special Studies
Abbas, Shemeem. The Female Voice in Sufi Ritual: Devotional
Practices of Pakistan and India. Austin, Tex., 2002.
Abun-Nasr, Jamil. The Tijaniyya: A Sufi Order in the Modern
World. Oxford, U.K., 1965.
Baldick, Julian. Imaginary Muslims: The Uwaysi Sufis of Central
Asia. New York, 1993. A précis and analysis of a history of
the Uwaysi tradition written circa 1600.
Bashir, Shahzad. Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions: The
Nu ̄rbakhsh ̄ıya between Medieval and Modern Islam. Colum-
bia, S.C., 2003.
Bennigsen, Alexandre, and S. Enders Wimbush. Mystics and Com-
missars. London, 1985. Excellent coverage of the S:u ̄f ̄ı broth-
erhoods of the Caucusus and Central Asia, including their
development after the 1917 revolution.
Bos, Matthijs van den. Mystic Regimes: Sufism and the State in Iran,
from the Late Qajar Era to the Islamic Republic. Leiden, 2002.
An anthropological approach to the NiEmatulla ̄h ̄ı brother-
hood, focusing on the twentieth-century relations of the
competing S:af ̄ı-EAl ̄ısha ̄h ̄ı and Sult:a ̄n-EAl ̄ısha ̄h ̄ı branches
and their connection to the Iranian state.
Buehler, Arthur. Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian Naqshbandi-
yya and the Rise of the Mediating Sufi Shaykh. Columbia,
S.C., 1998. Traces the history of the Naqshbandis, the im-
pact of colonialism and modernity, and the changing con-
struction of spiritual authority of Naqshbandi shaykhs in
South Asia.T:AR ̄IQAH 9013