Mystical Strategies: Sufism in the 21st Century

Abstract

Like other traditional Islamic forms of religious and social expression, Sufism is becoming increasingly challenged by the forces of modernism and by the Islamicist movements. Yet, because of its tolerant view of other religious disciplines, there is great potential for Sufism to have a positive impact on the social evolution of Muslim and non-Muslim societies in the 21st century. This paper will investigate how Sufism can come to terms with this new social environment and its entourage of modernist and Islamicist logics. It involves an overview of Sufism’s past to give some insight as to how it can respond to the 21st century.