Contemplating Sufism: Dialogue and Tradition Across Southeast Asia

Khairudin Aljunied
Paperback, 202 pages
9781394270453

Contemplating Sufism employs a unique “contemplative histories” methodology to uncover how and why Sufis employed creative mediums to embed and sustain their importance in the region for many centuries. Recognizing Sufism as a dialogical tradition, Khairudin Aljunied reveals the emotional, institutional, and political forces that continue to influence Sufi thought and practices.

Providing an accessible and coherent synthesis of the latest scholarship in the field, this innovative study integrates data from around the world, vignettes and anecdotes of Southeast Asian Sufism, and the author’s ethnographic observations and personal experiences. Lively and engaging chapters contain vivid descriptions and rich analyses of the texts, ideas, people, practices, and institutions that aided in the development of Sufism—and transformed Southeast Asia’s ideological, cultural, political, and social landscapes.

Illustrating the inventiveness and energy of the Sufis, Contemplating Sufism: Dialogue and Tradition across Southeast Asia is an excellent textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses on Sufism and a valuable resource for academics, scholars, and general readers with an interest in the mystical dimension of Islam in the non-Arab world.