Contemporary Sufism

There are two aspects of Sufism, one is called "practical Sufism" and the other [is] "philosophical Sufism." One deals with the actual practice, while the other deals with the 'way' and how it is practiced. By way of analogy, it has been said that the "philosopher" looks at "water," and describes its properties, whereas the "Sufi," on the other hand, drinks it to quench his thirst.

Sufism was brought to the West within the last two hundred years by several western scholars, who were generally Christian missionaries. This gave a rather biased view of Sufism, which is now being corrected. Contemporary western scholars, now study Sufism within the framework of Islamic theology and tradition and are therefore able to present it as "the mystical dimension of Islam." Some of the contemporary authors and scholars are FRITHJOF SCHUON, TITUS BURCKHARDT, MARTIN LINGS, S.H. NASR, and ANNEMARIE SCHIMMEL.

As previously mentioned, a "schism" exists today within the Islamic world. A certain section of Muslims believe that Sufi practices are too radical,[and are] a departure from the fundamental teachings and practices of Islam. This is debatable and I do not propose to go into it here.

There are also two schools of thought within the Sufi community. One believes that Sufism is firmly entrenched in Islamic thought and tradition, and cannot be uprooted from Islam. The other school believes that the Sufi message is a "universal message," and therefore transcend any one religion. However, an overwhelming majority of practising Sufis belong to the first group. They maintain that the so-called "Sufism" of the second group is a mere misnomer and that it should really be designated as "mysticism" mainly because the word 'Sufi' has an essential Islamic connotation. It is obviously for this reason that genuine Sufism is correctly referred to as Islamic mysticism. In other words, one must distinguish between genuine-Sufis and pseudo-Sufis who appear to have mushroomed in the very fertile land of California and other places such as Europe and even Asia.