Sufism

A comprehensive hisotrical overview of the formative period of Sufism - the spiritual element of Islam - from the ninth to the twelfth century CE.

Ahmet Karamustafa's Sufism: The Formative Period is an absorbing and persuasive presentation of the development of Sufism, based on a thorough mastery of the original sources and epitomizing the discoveries of modern scholarship. Students of Sufism and religious studies will welcome this important contribution to Islamic studies.

Ahmet Karamustafa's Sufism: The Formative Period is an absorbing and persuasive presentation of the development of Sufism, based on a thorough mastery of the original sources and epitomizing the discoveries of modern scholarship. Students of Sufism and religious studies will welcome this important contribution to Islamic studies.

Leaving behind the more speculative approaches to Sufism and Islam of an earlier generation, and based on a comprehensive review of the most recent results of international scholarship in the field, including the author’s own original research work, this book provides a highly informative and objective historical overview of the main mystical movements that contributed significantly to the shaping of medieval Muslim society. Elegantly written, it is a must for all those concerned.

Concisely and efficiently, Ahmet Karamustafa presents us with a survey of the early development of Sufism that is at once analytic and informative, and fully attentive to social and intellectual as well as purely religious concerns. It supersedes all previous overviews of the formative period of Sufi thought and institutions.

Ahmet T. Karamustafa is the Professor & Chair of the Department of History at the University of Maryland, College Park. Karamustafa works on the history of medieval and early modern Sufism and Islamic piety in general. He is the author of God’s Unruly Friends (University of Utah Press, 1994) and Sufism: The Formative Period(Edinburgh University Press, 2007).