A REVIEW OF NILE GREEN’S SUFISM: A GLOBAL HISTORY

          Nile Green’s Sufism: A Global History is a four-chapter survey of the history, influence, and spread of Sufism. The introduction gives the author’s arguments as to why another survey of the history of Sufism is needed. He points out that the prominent perspective of most of the histories of Sufism have relied on the Christian Intellectual Protestant view of “mysticism,” which emphasizes the antinomian and anti-political character of the tradition (2). The author convincingly argues that this perspective artificially limits and marginalizes Sufism and pushes the Sufis into the background of the political and economic history of Islam; that, in fact, the Sufis were, in many ways, the shapers and supporters of the Islamic establishment; that Sufism was a tradition of “powerful knowledge, practices and persons;” and that the tradition of Sufism was rooted in the wider Islamic model of authority (3 – 9).

            Chapters one and two cover the years from 850 to 1400 C.E. In these chapters the author admits to relying on previous scholarship and that his purpose in these chapters is to provide a historical foundation for the more difficult task of the development of Sufism after 1400. The author asserts that Sufism existed prior to the general use of the term “Sufi” as we understand it (16). He identifies one of the primary problems with the previous historical perspective as “vertical process,” which, he asserts, views the received past as “an irresistible agent.” He argues for a “horizontal process,” which understands the received past as a “set of cultural resources to be continued, adapted or abandoned at will.” This is to say that a full understanding of the “why” of the history and influence of the developing tradition of Sufism requires an understanding of both the past, which was drawn upon to provide legitimacy and authority, and the present, which provided resources for innovation and the securing of power (17).

Green traces the origins of Sufism to the same group of scholars who worked to raise the prominence of the “thousands of reports of the sayings and deeds of Muhammad known as the Hadith,” as well as Quranic scholars and popular preachers in eighth century Iraq (24 – 25). The author places the concept of wilaya or “friendship with God” at the core of the Islamic concept of sainthood, which repeatedly plays a central role in the Sufi tradition. He also emphasizes that the developing tradition had to compete with and eventually incorporated the pietistic asceticism and mysticism of such groups as the Karramiyya, the Malamatiyya, and the Hakimiyya of Khurasan and Central Asia (44 – 54).

            The author further connects the Shafi’i legal scholars to the evolving Sufi tradition. He points out that the majority of Sufis in Khurasan were also members of the Shafi’i school. He asserts that the intellectual efficiency and formality of the Shafi’i school contributed to the doctrinal and structural development of the Sufis in the region. This link also reasserts his proposition that the Sufis were part of the mainstream since the Shafi’i was part of the “urban legal and property-owning establishment (51).” The author spends some effort illustrating the influence of major Sufi thinkers such as Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, who continues to influence Islamic thinkers to this day and who supports the author’s assertion that Sufis were not anti-establishment individualists. Green then focuses on the rise of the Cult of Saints and the emergence of the Sufi brotherhoods, which he terms as “vernacularization of Sufi teaching.” According to the author, the Cult of Saints provided a bridge between the esoteric methods of the Sufis, which would have an inevitably limited audience, and the everyday life of the common Muslim. The Saints were venerated in architecture, art, ritual, and story, providing a narrative that would teach principles and practices of Sufism and transform Sufi teachers, past and present, into “Friends of God.” This contributed to the growing social status of Sufis. As Friends of God, they possessed the very powers of creation, and many miracles were attributed to them. These powers led to a number of Sufis rising to positions of authority as counselors and even viziers as well as increasing their influence in the countryside. According to the author, to the rural Muslim, Sufism was Islam. The Cult of Saints also helped to legitimate Sufism’s chain of authenticity, which was necessary both for the self-image of the Sufis and for their claim to authority. This chain connected the teachers of Sufism to the Saints of the past back to Muhammad. (71 – 102).

            The author illustrates the often ambiguous relationship between the Sufi brotherhoods and the State in chapter three. Sufi elites drew upon the integrity provided by their illustrious lineages and miraculous powers to establish themselves in positions of authority within the state or to establish states of their own. However, during the colonial era, many of these bastions of power and influence crumbled under the pressures of the European powers, and the Sufis found themselves on the forefront of colonial expansion. The author argues that the early modern period drove Sufism in two directions. The first direction saw the tradition co-opted by a series of people who selectively used the loyalty and authority of affiliation with the tradition to meet the demands of their situations. The second direction saw the consolidation of the disparate symbols into brotherhoods that provided a networking mechanism rather than a mechanism to reproduce tradition. These networking mechanisms throughout Central Asia served as “surrogate states” as the Islamic community grew up around the Sufis (124 – 167).

In Chapter four, the author follows the spread of Sufism through Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States where support of the networking mechanism of the Sufi brotherhoods served as a support for the evolution of the tradition in new directions. The author points to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a period that saw the rise of several pseudo-Sufi organizations which coopted the teachings and integrity of the Sufi tradition for personal fame and prestige. As the author moves into the middle years of the twentieth century, he points out that many scholars of the time believed that the intellectual pressures of modernity would spell the end of the Sufi tradition. For some branches of the tradition, in response to the changing religious marketplace, this evolution included a move away from identification with Islam. For others it meant a progressive vision of Sufism as an international Islamic movement. Green uses Fethullah Gulen and the Gulen Movement to illustrate this move as a new direction of integrity and authority for Sufism (187 – 227).

            Nile Green convincingly makes his point about the need for a horizontal perspective in understanding the topic. Through the geographical and cultural scope of the book, the author makes good on the claimed scope as a “global” history. There are several areas, however, where the author needed to provide more evidence for his argument. For example, his juxtaposition of Sufism and asceticism is too extreme to be a given. He needed to provide more evidence for this conclusion. Another example of a need for more information is the treatment of the Sufis role in the holy war against Russia in the nineteenth century. A third example is the relative lack of information on the relationship between Sufism and the anti-Sufi Wahhabism, which made such an international mark in the twenty-first century. Even with these complaints, Nile Green’s work proves to be a valuable resource for the non-specialist’s search for reliable information on Sufism as well as for the student looking for a good introduction to the subject. The book is well structured, well written, and enjoyable.