Living Sufism in North America

This is a God-sent book, particularly for Muslims in North America, given its focus on the teaching of Sufism in the current United States. In his search to establish an American context, the author even enlists Ralph Waldo Emerson (p. 2). He points out that Sufism with its beguiling diversity is on the front line of the struggle for the soul of Islam (p. 1) and has its bases in New York also. In the process, he sets off Islamic Sufism from quasi-Islamic and nonIslamic orders, including San Francisco’s ‘New Age’ hippies. To understand the background of Sufism’s diversity and multiplicity, one must focus on the role of the shaykhs, as those of the Mevlevi Order and the Halveti-Jerrahi and Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi orders, both based in New York State (pp. 3 f., 8), some of them are also found in upstate N.Y. in restored Shaker villages....