Milad Milani - Böcker

Sufism is generally perceived as being spiritually focused and about the development of the self. However, Sufi orders have been involved historically as important civic and political actors in the Muslim world, having participated extensively in inter-faith dialogue and political challenges to religious orthodoxy. This book presents a comprehensive overview of the Sufi political tradition, both historically and in its present form. It outlines how Sufi thought has developed, examines how Sufism has been presented both by scholars and by Sufis themselves, and considers Sufis’ active political roles. It argues that Sufis – frequently well educated, well travelled and imaginative – have been well placed to engage with other faiths and absorb their ideas into Islam; but that they have also been, because they understand other faiths, well placed to understand the distinctiveness of Islam, and thereby act as the guardians of Islam’s core ideas and values.

This book explores how Sufis approach their faith as Muslims, upholding an Islamic worldview, but going about making sense of their religion through the world in which they exist, often in unexpected ways. Using a phenomenological approach, the book examines Sufism as lived experience within the Muslim lifeworld, focusing on the Muslim experience of Islamic history. It draws on selected case studies ranging from classic Sufism to Sufism in the contemporary era mainly taken from biographical and hagiographical data, manuscript texts, and treatises. In this way, it provides a revisionist approach to theories and methods on Sufism, and, more broadly, the category of mysticism.

Sufism formed one of the cultures of resistance which has existed in the social fabric of Persia since antiquity. Such resistance continues to manifest itself today with many looking to Sufism as a model of cooperation between East and West, between traditional and modern. 'Sufism in the Secret History of Persia' explores the place of Sufi mysticism in Iran's intellectual and spiritual consciousness through traditional and contemporary Sufi thinkers and writers. Sufism in the Secret History of Persia examines the current of spirituality which extends from the old Iranian worship of Mithra to modern Islam. This current always contains elements of gnosis and inner knowing, but has often provided impetus for socio-political resistance. The study describes how these persisting pre-Islamic cultural and socio-religious elements have secretly challenged Muslim orthodoxies and continue to shape the nature and orientation of contemporary Sufism.

This book explores how Sufis approach their faith as Muslims, upholding an Islamic worldview, but going about making sense of their religion through the world in which they exist, often in unexpected ways. Using a phenomenological approach, the book examines Sufism as lived experience within the Muslim lifeworld, focusing on the Muslim experience of Islamic history. It draws on selected case studies ranging from classic Sufism to Sufism in the contemporary era mainly taken from biographical and hagiographical data, manuscript texts, and treatises. In this way, it provides a revisionist approach to theories and methods on Sufism, and, more broadly, the category of mysticism.

Sufism is generally perceived as being spiritually focused and about the development of the self. However, Sufi orders have been involved historically as important civic and political actors in the Muslim world, having participated extensively in inter-faith dialogue and political challenges to religious orthodoxy. This book presents a comprehensive overview of the Sufi political tradition, both historically and in its present form. It outlines how Sufi thought has developed, examines how Sufism has been presented both by scholars and by Sufis themselves, and considers Sufis’ active political roles. It argues that Sufis – frequently well educated, well travelled and imaginative – have been well placed to engage with other faiths and absorb their ideas into Islam; but that they have also been, because they understand other faiths, well placed to understand the distinctiveness of Islam, and thereby act as the guardians of Islam’s core ideas and values.

Revealing how Heidegger’s philosophy and the religious beliefs of Islam are fundamentally incompatible, this book challenges previous assumptions about Heidegger’s relationship to Islam. This book takes the view that they in fact stand apart. A compelling and innovative comparison, this book explores how the two have been mistakenly woven together through the imaginations of certain scholars and how others continue to utilise Heidegger in that vein. Exploring this, the book delivers an original study of Islam using Heidegger’s philosophy. Starting from the premise that Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology establishes an important point of reference for thinking about society and politics as well as religion. Following this approach, this book analyses the thought of pivotal Muslim figures in relation to Heidegger’s position to assess not whether they were “proto-Heideggerian” or “pseudo-Heideggerian” but rather to what extent these thinkers understood the problematics of religion, politics, and society as a hermeneutical problem. A critical point of discussion for our age in light of the prominence of political Islam narrative, this book speaks to metaphysical blind spots of Islamic thought that have produced dangerous ideologies hostile to the West, which seem to reflect Heidegger’s philosophy but are not based on it in reality.

Heidegger, Ontology, and the Destiny of Islam: Thoughts and Reflections on the Nature of Islam in the World critiques Islam as a phenomenon set into motion from its beginning. It is a reflective work that addresses difficult questions about Islam through familiar historical concerns and grapples with the issues that arise in that process. Notably, it attests to making no substantive claims about Muslims and instead keeps to the course of analysis of the phenomenon that is Islam, which is taken as an assessable entity rather than a categorical construct. Understood largely in light of a history of observable realities, the ontological analysis of Islam reveals the general acquaintance with it to be imperfect. This suggests the reality of Islam is based on a primal truth that is only partially seen. The analysis then confronts two problems: firstly, that Islam is not what its historical “story,” as it were, proclaims and, secondly, that Islam is therefore not what is traditionally made out of the surviving historical narratives. It is not a question of “what” Islam is, but more critically, “how” Islam appears in the world.

Sufism formed one of the cultures of resistance which has existed in the social fabric of Persia since antiquity. Such resistance continues to manifest itself today with many looking to Sufism as a model of cooperation between East and West, between traditional and modern. 'Sufism in the Secret History of Persia' explores the place of Sufi mysticism in Iran's intellectual and spiritual consciousness through traditional and contemporary Sufi thinkers and writers. Sufism in the Secret History of Persia examines the current of spirituality which extends from the old Iranian worship of Mithra to modern Islam. This current always contains elements of gnosis and inner knowing, but has often provided impetus for socio-political resistance. The study describes how these persisting pre-Islamic cultural and socio-religious elements have secretly challenged Muslim orthodoxies and continue to shape the nature and orientation of contemporary Sufism.

The alternative conceptual framework to traditional analyses of secularisation and civility presented across this volume will be of interest to students and scholars across Islamic studies, religious studies, sociology and political science, civilisation studies, and cultural studies.