Sufism East and West: Mystical Islam and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Modern World

In Sufism East and West, the contributors investigate the redirection and dynamics of Sufism in the modern era, specifically from the perspective of global cross-cultural exchange. Edited by Jamal Malik and Saeed Zarrabi-Zadeh, the book explores the role of mystical Islam in the complex interchange and fluidity in the resonance spaces of ＂East＂ and ＂West.＂
The volume challenges the enduring Orientalist binary coding of East-versus-West and argues instead for a more mutual process of cultural plaiting and shared tradition. By highlighting amendments, adaptations and expansions of Sufi semantics during the last centuries, it also questions the persistent perception of Sufism in its post-classical epoch as a corrupt imitation of the legacy of the great Sufis of the past.

Jamal Malik, Ph.D. (1989), University of Heidelberg, is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Erfurt. He has published widely on Islamic education, religious pluralism, Sufism, and the mobilization of religion, including Islam in South Asia (Brill 2008 and Orient Blackswan 2012). Saeed Zarrabi-Zadeh, Ph.D. (2013), University of Erfurt, is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at that university. He has published on Sufism, comparative mysticism, religion and modernity, and Persian literature, including Practical Mysticism in Islam and Christianity (Routledge, 2016).