Western Sufism
From the Abbasids to the New Age
Mark Sedgwick
Reviews and Awards
"No more comprehensive a study of the phenomenon of Sufism outside of Muslim-majority countries has been undertaken prior to Sedgwick's" -- Hunter C. Bandy, Religious Studies Review
"Western Sufism stands on its own as a model intellectual history of a significant stream of global spirituality. It is a major contribution to our understanding of the inevitable distortions, compromises, revisions, and entrepreneurism that accompany any attempt at transnational transmission of spiritual traditions from one culture to another."--Phillip Charles Lucas, Nova Religio
"[E]rudite and informative."--Alexander Knysh, American Historical Review
"Topics seemingly familiar to the non-specialist—Sufism as antinomian, pacifist, distinct from or older than Islam—are critically examined in an extensive and diachronic presentation with appreciated nuance and accountability for variation and contradiction: herein lies Sedgwick's great achievement. Instructors may find chapters from these sections appropriate for undergraduates as well, since they pithily and engagingly illustrate the reception of 'Sufism' in epochs and milieus otherwise unexpected."--Reading Religion
"The list of intellectuals who have sneered at twentieth-century Western Sufis as peddling some form of 'neo-Sufism' or 'New Age syncretism' is long and depressing. In his new book, Mark Sedgwick impressively corrects this consensus by giving us the long arc. He traces the Christian and Jewish engagement with Sufism back to the fifteenth-century Renaissance, and then traces the mystical lingua franca of these transcultural transmissions even further back, through Arab and Scholastic philosophy and, finally, to the towering figure of Plotinus. Throughout it all, Sedgwick demonstrates an intellectual and spiritual generosity that is rare among scholars of this erudition and accomplishment. The implications are significant and far-reaching for any number of intellectual projects, from the histories of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism to the re-visioning of comparativism for a new generation." --Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion
"This is the book on Sufism that I always wanted to read, but that I just couldn't find because Mark Sedgwick had not yet written it. Is Sufism Islamic or universal? Is it a historical phenomenon or a product of the imagination? Does it come from the East or the West? Is it one thing or many things? As it turns out, the answer to all these questions is 'both' - and yet there is something that holds it all together: the Platonic dream of reunion with the One True Reality that is hidden and yet made visible by the veil of appearances." --Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents, University of Amsterdam
"This work is both provocative and thought-provoking. Not only is it the first serious study of Sufism in the West but it also provides an argument for both Sufism and Islam as 'Western' spiritual traditions through the shared heritage of Neoplatonism. Besides providing important new material for scholars and students of Sufism, this book is also useful for both graduate and undergraduate courses on Sufism, Orientalism, Esotericism, and Religious Studies and Islamic Studies in general." --Vincent J. Cornell, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies, Emory University