Exploring Islamic Mysticism

What is Sufi Islam? For many Sufis it concerns the search for a personal, experiential knowledge of and encounter with God. To that end, Sufis may be scrupulously observant of behavioral, ethical, ritual, and legal guidelines in their quest. For others, such practices are merely external formalities that obscure the essence of the divine behind a veil of prescriptive norms. For these Sufis, immediate knowledge of God is best sought outside of the structures of religious orthodoxy. But Sufis are not only otherworldly oriented mystics. On the contrary, Sufis are and have been rulers, politicians, warriors, and business leaders as well as poets, pilgrims, recluses, and social critics. Sufis and their collectives exist and have existed in every part of the world where there are Muslims, in bodies marked as male, female, and neither, and in every social strata. This course will explore many key elements of Sufi Islam, including history, teachings, practice, places, and people. While it is impossible to encompass the diversity of Sufism in a single course, each unit of the course will have a central theme situated in a geographic and temporal location in order to introduce students to as wide a range of Sufi times, places, and communities as possible.