Entangled Late Soviet Sufism

The paper by Oleg Yarosh, “Entangled Sufism in the Late-Soviet esoteric milieu,” presented at the ENSIE meeting in Copenhagen on 25 June 2023, is now available as "Entangled Late Soviet Sufism" on the Research Blog of the German-Russian Research Project on New Age in Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia, at https://newageru.hypotheses.org/9971. 

The abstract reads:

The complex esoteric milieu in Soviet society, although centered around influential figures and groups in major cities of the European part of the USSR, was not homogenous. Less noticeable peripheral areas in the eastern parts of the Soviet Union also contributed to the esoteric milieu, often introducing unique teachings and practices. The dynamic interplay between these central and peripheral regions informed a multifaceted esoteric underground that developed despite the still oppressive late Soviet political climate. My focus lies on the Sufi current within this milieu, which evolved from the reciprocal entanglement process between center-periphery dynamics, encompassing Western esoteric currents, parascience, and popular Sufism in the Muslim-majority regions of the USSR.

Call for Papers: Sufi Teachings in the Postsecular West.

International Workshop at Aarhus University, 27-28 October 2022, organized by Ricarda Stegmann and Mark Sedgwick. 

Sufism attracts Muslims and non-Muslims throughout the West. This workshop is dedicated to the question of the teachings of Sufis in the 21st century in the West: What are the central contents of Sufi teachings in 21st century Europe and North America? To what extent are these conceptions an expression of global-historical entanglements? In how far do these Sufi teachings provide an answer to major individual and social questions of our time and to what extent are these responses products of and responses to the specific constellations of European and American contexts in the 21st century, which are often characterised as post-secular, neoliberal, etc.? 

 For further details, see https://icsru.au.dk/sufiteachings.

Sufism and Gender in Contemporary Societies

The Center for Comparative Studies of Civilisations and Spiritualities at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice has issued a Call for Papers for a conference on Sufism and Gender in Contemporary Societies.

This conference aims to explore these themes of gender and sexuality within contemporary and historical Sufi traditions. Keeping in mind the call to decolonize knowledge production and epistemologies that subvert binaries of “resistance versus subordination” in Muslim women’s life-worlds, we aim to take an expansive discussion of the complex processes of the agentive formation of gendered Sufi subjectivities.

Conference to be held in Venice on 3 December 2021. Abstracts by 1 June 2021. See https://www.cini.it/en/events/sufism-and-gender-in-contemporary-societies

ENSIE2

The program for ENSIE2 is now online at http://ensie.site/2020conference.html. 

The conference will be 3-5 December, on Zoom. It examines Islam and esotericism, from Sufism and dreams to sorcery and magic, in al-Andalus, the historical and contemporary Middle East, Africa, and the West. Register before December 1 at https://doodle.com/poll/ahvdmz9airifz933.

Sorgenfrei on Sufism and Islamic Esotericism

A new article, “Hidden or Forbidden, Elected or Rejected: Sufism as ‘Islamic Esotericism’?,” has been published by Simon Sorgenfrei in Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations (29:2, 2018, pp. 145-165). Sorgenfrei asks two major questions. He first investigates to what extent Sufism can be identified with “Islamic Esotericism,” and argues that this identification is problematic. Why, then, he asks, is a problematic identification so widespread?

Sorgenfrei starts by discussing alternative conceptions of esotericism, focusing on the work of Wouter J. Hanegraaff and Kocku von Stuckrad. He argues that it is easier to apply von Stuckrad’s typological conception in the case of Islam than to apply Hanegraaff’s historical conception. Yet Sufism does not really fit von Stuckrad’s typology: it has not generally been secret, and has only occasionally been in any sense rejected knowledge. Although “claims to access to higher knowledge” are indeed the basis of a Sufi shaykh’s authority, there is much that Sufi tariqas do that is in no way esoteric.

That Sufism is, despite this, understood as esotericism can be explained in terms of the Western construction of the concept of “Sufism.” Sorgenfrei traces this from the early work of William Jones and John Malcolm through William James and the Traditionalists (whose take on Sufism he finds echoed in John L. Esposito’s Islam: The Straight Path), and Eranos. He also suggests that the rejection of Sufism by nineteenth-century Islamic reformists may have fed into this process.

Sorgenfrei’s article is timely. I think he is right about the Western construction of Sufism, and his arguments are confirmed by my own work in my recent Western Sufism. He is also absolutely right that Sufism has not generally been secret or rejected, and therefore does not fit that particular topological definition of esotericism. It may, however, still fit other definitions, as I intend to argue in a forthcoming article.

Mark Sedgwick