Contributed articles.

Sufism is often described as ‘the mystical branch of Islam’. Giving some more attention to this underexposed spiritual side, it is often proposed, could help us to ease certain contemporary societal tensions. One finger then points toward the rigorous religious aggression of fundamentalism as ‘the problem’, while another points toward the soft beauty of mysticism as ‘the solution’. Yet, no matter how well-intended the contemporary focus on Sufism might often be, in the end, it repeatedly portrays a lack of comprehension when it comes to Islamic mysticism. The typical descriptions are full of mistakes, and the conclusions they lead to need much nuance. Those misunderstandings do not simply stem from innocent ignorance. They are misunderstandings with more profound origins and implications. They’re closely tied to enormous blind spots in the contemporary view of religion and deeply entwined with pressing political issues. In fact, the way we deal with mysticism in general and with Sufism in particular actually kindles many contemporary conflicts. This book thus seeks to add the necessary nuances, correct the misunderstandings and unveil the contemporary ‘politics of mysticism’. It seeks to clarify how the growing interest in what is called ‘Sufism’ is connected to both the contemporary demonization of Islam and the modern destruction of profound spirituality in the East as well as the West.

The Sufis were heirs to a tradition of Islamic mysticism, and they have generally been viewed as standing more or less apart from the social order. Professor Eaton contends to the contrary that the Sufis were an integral part of their society, and that an understanding of their interaction with it is essential to an understanding of the Sufis themselves. In investigating the Sufis of Bijapur in South India, (he author identifies three fundamental questions. What was the relationship, he asks, between the Sufis and Bijapur's 'ulama, the upholders of Islamic orthodoxy? Second, how did the Sufis relate to the Bijapur court? Finally, how did they interact with the non-Muslim population surrounding them, and how did they translate highly developed mystical traditions into terms meaningful to that population? In answering these questions, the author advances our knowledge of an important but little-studied city-state in medieval India. Originally published in 1978. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The first teacher to bring Islamic mysticism to the West presents music’s divine nature and its connection to our daily lives in this poetic classic of Sufi literature. Music, according to Sufi teaching, is really a small expression of the overwhelming and perfect harmony of the whole universe—and that is the secret of its amazing power to move us. The Indian Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927), the first teacher to bring the Islamic mystical tradition to the West, was an accomplished musician himself. His lucid exposition of music's divine nature has become a modern classic, beloved not only by those interested in Sufism but by musicians of all kinds.

Hazrat Inayat Khan was an Indian Sufi mystic who came to the West in 1910. His teachings, The Sufi Message, emphasize the divinity of the soul and the experience of unity of being and unity of religious ideals. The teachings show how Sufism can harmonize eastern and western culture. The process of such harmonization is fairly complex and raises very fundamental questions about eastern values in western society, of Sufism in the West. The book examines the forty-year period after the passing away of Hazrat Inayat Khan in 1927, during which his brothers Maheboob Khan (1887-1948), Mohammed Ali Khan (1881-1958) and Musharaff Kahn (1895-1967) followed Hazrat Inayat Khan as leaders of his organization, the Sufi Movement. It studies how they maintained and spread the teachings and how each one of them influenced the organization, and its adherents, in their own way according to their own personality, education and mystical realization. At the same time, the book offers perspectives on leadership succession and issues pertaining to tensions between eastern and western culture and history, social discontinuity, e.g., the problem of hierarchy versus democracy, and the relationship between mysticism and psycho-spiritual development.

Based on a critical study of a large number of contemporary Persian texts, court chronicles, epistolary collections, and biographies of sufi mystics, The Mughals and the Sufis examines the complexities in the relationship between Mughal political culture and the two dominant strains of Islam's Sufi traditions in South Asia: one centered around orthodoxy, the other focusing on a more accommodating and mystical spirituality. Muzaffar Alam analyses the interplay of these elements, their negotiation and struggle for resolution via conflict and coordination, and their longer-term outcomes as the empire followed its own political and cultural trajectory as it shifted from the more liberal outlook of Emperor Akbar "The Great" (r. 1556–1605) to the more rigid attitudes of his great-grandson, Aurangzeb 'Alamgir (r. 1658–1701). Alam brings to light many new and underutilized sources relevant to the religious and cultural history of the Mughals and reinterprets well-known sources from a new perspective to provide one of the most detailed and nuanced portraits of Indian Islam under the Mughal Empire available today.