Sufi Politics in the Contemporary West: The Role and Definition of Sufism in the Works of Javad Nurbakhsh (1926-2008)

Sufi ideas about altruism and universalism did not emerge in a vacuum. They were the result of specific local reactions to social and political pressures. Traditional Sufi groups are, in effect, extensions of regional movements centered around a charismatic mystic. However Sufi values are defined, Sufi psychological and spiritual morality evolved from a Qur̛anic base and adapted to the regions where the Sufi orders took root. Sufi organizational networks flourished within an increasingly politically fractured realm of Islam. They operated independently of each other, competed with one another for patronage, and regulated their own brand of Islamic morality. Much like the religio-political structure of the wider Muslim world in the era of the post-Rashidun, Sufism was similarly devoid of centralized agency. Beyond a handful of universal principles that broadly defined a Muslim way of life, everyday religiosity was subject to local peculiarities. All in all, there was nothing akin to an operational pluralistic or democratic ideal within the medieval Muslim world. Islam was the rule of the land, and the only religion worth considering, as far as Muslims and Sufis were concerned. In a Contemporary setting, however, the reinterpretation of the principles of Sufism in the context of religious pluralism and political democracy gives rise to interesting alternatives to political Islam. The Sufi publications of Javad Nurbakhsh during the 1990s are an excellent point of reference in this regard. Using this example, it will be argued that Sufism is not only defused, but that it is also, in the case of Nurbakhsh, active in the task of producing an alternative narrative in Islam.