Sufism

Sufism, a mystical tradition within Islam based on a direct and personal communion between the divine and the human, spread from its seventh-century Arabian origins as far as Persia (Iran), Turkey, India, and Africa by the 12th century, gaining influence in North and West Africa by the 15th and 16th centuries.

The term Sufism comes from the Arabic word suf, meaning wool, and refers to the woolen garments worn by the Muslim mystics. Sufism, with its emphasis on the individual over the communal experience in the practice of Islam, challenged the political, social, and educational institutions that had developed in Islam beginning in the seventh century. Practitioners trace the origins of Sufism to the Prophet Muhammad, taking inspiration from his divine teachings as revealed in the Qur’an. Most Sufists were nomadic, traveling in search of masters who could teach them in the way to spiritual freedom. Although these masters typically were nomadic themselves, by the 13th century Sufism became increasingly institutionalized through the process of establishing schools (ta’ifa) based on the method (tariqa) of a particular master (shaykh), often connected to frontier posts or hotels (ribat). Sufism played an essential role in Islamizing Asia and North Africa in the 11th century through the political and religious activity of its adherents, a process documented in the chronicles of the Islamic historians Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Battuta. One of the most famous Sufis was Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyya, an eighth-century female shaykh. Sufism, due to its mystical traditions, allowed women to gain some modicum of power.

By the 13th century Sufism had become a profession, and by the end of that century a new form of power became associated with individual shaykhs upon their death. In this tradition a shaykh was assumed to have been gifted with spirit, or to hold the power of baraka, a gift that was passed on to his or her followers after death. This shift in Sufism from an urban, intellectual movement, as it had become by the 13th century, to a rural, mystical tradition appealed to a more general population, further aiding in the spread of Islam in West Africa. The European experience with Sufi orders began in the 14th century through the work of the Catalonian mystic and scholar Ramon Lull. Much of what was known of Sufism in Europe before this time was learned through translations of Persian classical poetry and occasional travelers’ accounts of the “Whirling Dervishes,” Sufists known for their ecstatic trance dances.

Sufi orders played an important role in the Maghreb (North Africa) when they resisted Europeans’ attempts, particularly those of the Portuguese, to gain a foothold in the region. These orders, associated with the ribat, came to be collectively known as marabouts, who waged holy war, or jihad, against the invading Europeans. The Marabout movement spread south to west Africa, incorporating local traditions with Islamic tenets, and became an essential means through which Islam was introduced to the area.

Further reading: Mervyn Hiskett, The Development of Islam in West Africa (London: Longman, 1984); R. G. Jenkins, “The Evolution of Religious Brotherhoods in North and Northwest Africa, 1523-1900,” in John Ralph Willis, ed., Studies in West African Islamic History: The Cultivators of Islam (London: Frank Cass, 1979), 40-77; Annemarie Schim-mel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975); J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford, U. K.: Clarendon Press, 1971).

—Lisa M. Brady