Despite the intense activity of brotherhoods in Central, South and South East Asia during the nineteenth century, the weight of scholarship, and perhaps physical evidence, upholds the claim that the nineteenth century was indeed Muslim Africa’s Sufi century. The twentieth century, however, produced a series of new developments that moved beyond Africa and its many Sufi brotherhoods. While O’Fahey’s apt provocation offers a thumb nail summary of Sufism in the nineteenth century, it invites a retort for the twentieth century: 'To the extent that the nineteenth century was Muslim Africa’s Sufi century, then the twentieth century became Muslim Asia’s quasi Sufi century.’
19 Two sources for the role of brotherhoods in nineteenth century Indonesia are Denys Lombard, 'Les tarekat en Insulinde’, in Popovic and Veinstein (eds.), Les ordres mystiques dans I’Islam, pp. 139 63; and Martin van Bruineseen, 'Les orders dans l’espace: L’Asie du Sud Est’, in Alexandre Popovic et Gilles Veinstein (eds.), Les voies d’Allah: Les ordres mystiques dans I’Islam des origins a aujourd’hui (Paris, 1996), pp. 274 84.
In brief, what characterised the twentieth century was the presence and influence of Sufi orders, despite the absence of governmental support for Sufism and also the appearance of groups that often opposed Sufism while adopting Sufi principles. The twentieth century filtered the experience of the brotherhoods, often diluting the Sufi project of interiorisation and transcen dence while at the same time repackaging some of the instrumental features that accounted for the brotherhoods’ success.
Arguably, it was five major events that defined Islam in the public square of global politics during the past century: the Young Turk revolt of 1908, the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, the Muslim Brotherhood of IHasan al Banna, launched in 1928, the Iranian revolution of 1978 9 and the al Qa'ida bombings of the 1990s. Yet none of these five events, or the forces they unleashed, involved Sufism. Instead, they projected the opposite of Sufism, either an avuncular secularism as with Young Turks and communists, or a tide of Salafi/'Alid nostalgia, with the Brethren, the terrorists and the mullahs direct ing their ire against morally tainted Western targets. Beneath the surface, and often outside the gaze of the media, much was happening, however, that suggested lingering Sufi influence. It either emanated from Asia or took place in Asia.
World History
