Seeing with the Heart : the Mysticism of an Islamic Sufi Lineage from India in the West

In 1976, the Indian Sufi shaykh Azad Rasool (1921-2006) began spreading the mystical teachings of his lineage to the Euro-American sphere. His two living successors, Hamid Hasan (b. 1961) of the School of Sufi Teaching and Ahmed Abdur Rashid (b. 1942) of the Circle Group, continue this line today, each in his own way. This study seeks to analyze the mysticism of this hitherto largely unstudied lineage and how its teachings have been introduced to the West, considering also the relationship of such mysticism to Islamic belief and practice as well as to social or political activism. Using a qualitative interpretivisitic research design, analysis of a broad range of textual sources is interwoven with ethnographic field data collected primarily in Germany and the US from 2015 to 2020. It is argued that this lineage expanded into two main markets in the West: those interested in non-traditional forms of spirituality as well as Muslims of various diasporic backgrounds, and that under Rasool, this transfer involved some changes in presentation to new audiences, but while retaining a mostly unmodified program of disciplined meditative practice. He additionally upheld its Islamicity, while also allowing non-Muslims to begin the practices, along with its quietist focus on Sufi practice over socio-political activism. Hasan has continued in much the same direction as Rasool and the shaykhs immediately preceding him, particularly their orientation toward practices. In contrast, Rasool’s American heir, Abdur Rashid, while also preserving much from his 19th- and 20th-century Indian predecessors, has also drawn upon broader Sufi and Islamic tradition to take this mysticism in some new-old directions, especially a restored and reformulated emphasis on the application of its asserted results through active positive societal engagement. In contrast to how other studies of Eastern traditions being transferred to Western settings have primarily seen change and declared the emergence of “New Religious Movements,” this study, through its emphasis on examining mysticism, also reveals remarkable continuity with both the immediate and distant past.

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