Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Texas, Dec., 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

E.J. Jurji's Thesis (Ph. D.)--Princeton University, 1936.

In 1925, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, at the beginning of the Republican Era of Turkey, passed a series of decrees that prohibited the production and maintenance of Sufi lodges in Turkey and the practices of Sufi şeyhs and dervishes. This legal act was part of Atatürk’s social reforms that were designed to convert the newly found Republic of Turkey into a secular, modern state. Atatürk believed that Sufi dervish lodges should be closed immediately in order to transform the long-existing religious Ottoman culture into a rapidly evolving intellectual culture educated through Western scientific knowledge. This project examines how, despite legal restrictions prohibiting Sufi lodge production, devotees continue to create space for their devotional living in present-day Turkey. Through extensive field research in Sufi communities, this project investigates how Sufi religious practices are maintained, adapted, mobilized, and empowered through embodied acts of Sufi followers. Using Dwight Conquergood’s concept of “dialogic” performance, I analyze the ritual and everyday life experience of Sufi devotees in a variety of temporary and permanent sacred spaces through my coperformative witnessing. I argue in this study that the multifaceted urban Sufi devotional living in contemporary Turkey may be discerned most vividly by analysis of production of Sufi sacred spaces, the performance of Sufi rituals, and embodiment of Sufi beliefs and values in everyday life in a variety of urban commercial sites such as museums and cultural centers and private houses and apartment buildings converted to Sufi lodges. With their embodied acts, devotees revive, reformulate, expand, and mobilize Sufism as a way of living that is a synthesis of secular and religious values of the Turkish state.

No description available.

Risālat al-duktūrah - Maʻhad al-Adāb al-Sharqīyah, 1967. / Includes bibliographical references.

The fundamental question I have tried to answer in this thesis is how the Ni‘matullāhī ‎masters were successful in reviving Ni‘matullāhī Sufism in Shi‘ite Persia during the ‎early nineteenth century. This study investigates the revival of the Ni‘matullāhī Sufi ‎order in Persia after the death of the last Indian Ni‘matullāhī master, Riḍā ‘Alī Shāh (d. ‎‎1214/1799) in the Deccan. Meticulous attention is given to the role of Ḥusayn ‘Alī ‎Shāh (d. 1234/1818), Majdhūb ‘Alī Shāh (d. 1239/1823) and Mast ‘Alī Shāh (d. ‎‎1253/1837), who were the masters (quṭbs) of the Ni‘matullāhī order after Riḍā ‘Alī ‎Shāh. The Ni‘matullāhī Sufi order flourished as a Persian Sufi order in 8th/14th century. ‎During the Safavid era most of the Sufi orders in Persia became inactive or ‎systematically suppressed. With the advent of the Safavids, the Ni‘matullāhī order ‎moved to Hyderabad in India, and gradually became less important in the mystical ‎milieu of Persia. After the fall of the Safavids, the revival movement of the Ni‘matullāhī ‎order began with the arrival of the enthusiastic Indian Sufi master Ma‘ṣūm ‘Alī Shāh ‎during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Later Persian masters of the ‎Ni‘matullāhī order in the beginning of the early nineteenth century solidified the ‎order’s place in the mystical and theological milieu of Persia.‎ Ma‘ṣūm ‘Alī Shāh and his disciples soon spread their mystical and ecstatic beliefs all ‎over Persia. They succeeded in converting a large mass of Persians to Sufi teachings ‎despite the opposition and persecution they faced from Shi‘ite clerics, who were ‎politically and socially the most influential class in Persia. The clerics were able to turn ‎the political powers against the Sufis to a certain extent, such that Āqā Muḥammad ‘Alī ‎Bihbihānī, principal champion of this oppression, largely succeeded in his persecution ‎of Ma‘ṣūm ‘Alī Shāh and his disciples. The question of the Ni‘matullāhī Sufis’ survival ‎in Persia after Maṣūm ‘Alī Shāh is evaluated here by using the biographies and ‎writings of later masters and modern scholars. ‎ The conclusion is reached that Ḥusayn ‘Alī Shāh, Majdhūb ‘Alī Shāh and Mast ‘Alī ‎Shāh were able to consolidate the social and theological role of the Ni‘matullāhī order ‎by reinterpreting and articulating classical Sufi teachings in the light of Persian Shi‎‘ite ‎mystical theology.‎

Revolutionary currents with transformative ideals were part of the Sufi religious identity during the late medieval Islamic period. This dissertation tries to make sense of this phenomenon by focusing on the historical evolution of the Bayrami-Malāmi Sufi order within the Ottoman Empire. The scope of the study extends from the beginnings of the order during the ninth/ fifteenth century until its partial demise by the end of the eleventh/seventeenth century. The Bayrami-Malāmiyya was essentially marked by a reaction towards the established Sufi rituals of the time: its adherents refused to wear Sufi clothes, take part in gatherings of remembrance of God, or rely upon imperial endowments for their livelihood. I suggest in this study that Bayrami-Malāmis carried some of the distinguishing signs of religiosity belonging to the anarchic period between the Mongol attacks and the rise of the powerful Islamic Empires. During that time, many local forms of Sufism, which were tied to charismatic and independent communities that were quite prevalent and powerful in their own domains, had emerged. These communities often held a particular vision regarding the saint, whose persona came to be defined in terms exceeding that of a spiritual master, often taking the form of a community elder or a universal savior. Taking their inspiration from this period, Bayrami-Malāmis reconstructed their teachings and affiliations as the social and political conditions shifted in Anatolia. While several pīrs were executed for being heretics and making messianic claims in the sixteenth century, the Order was able to put together a more prudent vision based on the writings of Ibn Arabi (d. 638/1240) during the seventeenth century. After this, it became a secretive order that attracted the upper classes in the imperial city of Istanbul, and extended its influence to imminent poets, bureaucrats, and political figures. This study is essentially concerned with the dynamics of this evolution. It also tries to conceptualize how the teachings of the Order were rooted in the persona of the saint, who was regarded in divine terms and seen as the culmination point of creation. This worldview had the potential to lead to apocalyptic urges that did not harbor the immediate end of the world, but yearned for the beginning of a new era in which people would understand and experience divinity in its true monistic fashion.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 291-301).

No description available.

This thesis is concerned with the Shadhiliyya Sufi Order as it is found in Tunis. The work discusses the development of the Order and the role of its central institution (the zawiya) in a modern setting. The largest part deals with the ritual prayer of the Order--in particular the ahzab (s.hizb). In dealing with both the ritual/experiential context, and the literary content and form of the prayers, the intention is to bring to light the significance of the ahzab, and to begin to accord them their proper place in the study of Sufism. / Research is based on historical sources, manuals and prayer books of the Shadhiliyya, and the personal observations of the author. A translation of the Arabic "Hizb al-Kabir" is given in the appendix.