Sufism – What Is It Exactly?

Abstract

Sufism is commonly called mysticism, the mysticism of Islam, but is it mysticism and what is its relation to Islam? Despite diverse expressions and modernist and reformist attempts to disassociate it from Islam, Sufism is the spirituality of Islam. Sometimes saint based, sometimes text based, it aims to bring the soul into relation with the sanctity of the other world, thus orienting it to divine truth. Sufism thus sees itself as the completion of Islam, its living embodiment, in contrast to legal formalism and theological scholasticism, but not in opposition to Muslim laws and doctrines. Its goal is sanctity, embodiment of the godly holiness described by the Qur'an. It is thus a path to saintliness not as perfection of human virtue but as extension of the prophecy of Islam, standing in an integral relation to the ethical and theological outlook of Islam, with which, this article argues, Sufism is finely interwoven.