Sufi brotherhoods in Syria and Israel: A contemporary overview

History of Religions

Volumn 43, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 303-318

  Weismann, Itzchak ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA   (Israel)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61249609123     PISSN: 00182710     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/426738     Document Type: Review

References (59)

1. For a general discussion of the debate on Sufism in the twentieth century, see Carl W. Ernst, Sufism: An Essential Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of the Mystical Tradition of Islam (Boston: Shambhala, 1997), pp. 199-228;
2. Elisabeth Sirriyeh, Sufis and Anti-Sufis: The Defence, Rethinking and Rejection of Sufism in the Modern World (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999), chaps. 4-6.
3. Fred De Jong, "Les confréries mystiques musulmanes au Machreq arabe," in Les ordres mystiques dans l'Islam: Cheminements et situation actuelle, ed. Alexander Popovic and Gilles Veinstein (Paris: Editions de l'EHESS, 1986), p. 214.
4. Linda Schatkowski Schilcher, Families in Politics: Damascene Factions and Estates of the 18th and 19th Centuries (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1985), pp. 194-96;
5. Zaim Khenchelaoui and Thierry Zarcone, "La Famille Jilânî de Hama - Syrie" (Bayt al-Jilânî), Journal of the History of Sufism 1-2 (2000): 61-71.
6. On Fariz al-Kaylani, see Muhammad Muti' al-Hafiz and Nizar Abaza, Tarikh 'ulama' Dimashq fi al-qarn al-rabi' 'ashar al-hijri, 3 vols. (Damascus: Daral-fikr, 1986-91): 3:363-65.
7. Éric Geoffroy, "Sufism, réformisme et pouvoir en Syrie contemporaine," Égypte/Monde arabe 29 (1997): 17.
8. Hanna Batatu, Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 107-8.
9. On the Hilaliyya, see Julia Gonnella, Islamischer Heiligenverherung im urbanen Kontext am Beispiel von Aleppo (Syrien) (Berlin: Klaus Schwartz, 1995), 248-50, 261-63.
10. Similar reasons are given for the actual disappearance of the Khalwatiyya from its once thriving center of Tripoli; see Daphne Habibis, "Change and Continuity: A Sufi Order in Contemporary Lebanon," Social Analysis 31 (1992): 49-50.
11. Paolo Pinto, "Proof and Experience: The Construction of Religious Identity in the Sufi Zawiyas of Aleppo, Syria," a paper read at the sixteenth Middle East History and Theory conference, University of Chicago, May 11-12, 2001, pp. 3-8;
12. See, e.g., www.turath.org/Events/Dervishes.htm, for information on one such concert held at University of California, Los Angeles, in March 2001. See also the discussion in Ernst, pp. 191-94.
13. Frederick De Jong, "Les confréries mystiques," pp. 212-14;
14. Pierre-Jean Luizard, "Le Moyen-Orient arabe," in Les voies d'Allah, ed. Alexandre Popovic and Gilles Veinstein (Paris: Fayard, 1996), esp. pp. 361-62.
15. De Jong, "Les confréries mystiques," pp. 215-16; Gonnella, pp. 118-19, 263-68.
16. For Mahmud al-Shaqfa, see Johannes Reissner, Ideologie und politik der Muslimbrüder Syriens von den Wahlen 1947 bis zum Verbot unter Adīb aš-Šišaklī 1952 (Freiburg: Klaus Schwarz, 1980), pp. 427-28.
17. Butrus Abu-Manneh, "Sultan Abdulhamid II and Shaikh Abulhuda al-Sayyadi," Middle Eastern Studies 15 (1979): 131-53;
18. Batatu, Syria's Peasantry, pp. 107-8.
19. Éric Geoffroy, "L'empreinte de la sainteté," in Damas: Miroir brisé d'un Orient arabe, ed. Anne-Marie Bianquis (Paris: Editions Autrement, 1993), esp. pp. 166-69.
20. On the history of the brotherhood, see Josef Van Ess, "Libanesische Miszellen, 6: Die Yašrutcombining dot belowiya," Die Welt des Islams 16 (1975): 1-103;
21. Itzchak Weismann, Taste of Modernity: Sufism, Salafiyya, and Arabism in Late Ottoman Damascus (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 219-24, 252-55.
22. Weismann, Taste of Modernity, pp. 197-98.
23. De Jong, "Machreq arabe" (n. 10 above), p. 216.
24. Su'ad al-Hakim, Al-Mu'jam al-sufi: Al-hikmafi hudud al-kalima (Beirut: Dandara li'l-tiba'a wa'l-nashr, 1981).
25. Mark J. R. Sedgwick, "The Heirs of Ahmad Ibn Idris: The Spread and Normalization of a Sufi Order, 1799-1996" (Ph.D. diss., University of Bergen, 1998), pp. 235-47, 266-77.
26. See Martin Lings, A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century-Shaykh Ahmad al-'Alawi: His Spiritual Heritage and Legacy, 2d ed. (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1971);
27. Mark Sedgwick, "Traditional Sufism" Aries 22 (1999): 3-24.
28. Geoffroy, "Sufism, réformisme et pouvoir" (n. 5 above), pp. 17-18.
29. See Itzchak Weismann, "The Forgotten Shaykh: 'Isa al-Kurdi and the Transformation of the Naqshbandi-Khalidi Order in Twentieth Century Syria," Die Welt des Islams 43 (2003): 273-93,
30. and "Sa'id Hawwa: The Making of a Radical Muslim Thinker in Modern Syria," Middle Eastern Studies 29 (1993): 607-11.
31. On Nazim al-Qubrusi and his international activity, see Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, The Naqshbandi Sufi Way: History and Guidebook of the Saints of the Golden Chain (Chicago: Kazi Publications, 1995), pp. 375-408; Habibis (n. 7 above), pp. 44-78;
32. Annabelle Böttcher, "The Naqshbandiyya in the United States," the Naqshbandi-Haqqani Sufi Order of America, http://www. naqshbandi.net/haqqani/features/Naqshbandiyya-in-us.htm.
33. For biographical details, see Muhammad Habash, Al-Shaykh Amin Kuftaru fi dhikra khamsin 'am 'ala wafatihi (Damascus: Dar al-ma'rifa, 1989), and Al-Shaykh Ahmad Kuftaru wa-minhajuhu fi al-tajdid wal-islah (Damascus: Dar al-nur, 1996).
34. My description of the Kuftariyya and its workings is mainly based on the following sources: Annabelle Böttcher, Syrische Religionspolitik unter Asad (Freiburg, 1998), pp. 147-223;
35. Leif Stenberg, "Naqshbandiyya in Damascus: Strategies to Establish and Strengthen the Order in a Changing Society," in Naqshbandis in Western and Central Asia, ed. Elisabeth Özdalga (Istanbul: Swedish Research Institute, 1999), pp. 101-16;
36. See also Annabelle Böttcher, "L'élite féminine kurde de la Kaftariyya: Une confrérie Naqshbandi Damascène," in Islam des Kurdes, ed. Martin van Bruinessen (Paris: ERISM, 1998), pp. 125-39.
37. See Abu al-Hasan 'Ali al-Hasani al-Nadwi, Rabbaniyya la rahbaniyya, 4th ed. (Beirut: Mu'assasat al-risala, 1986).
38. On his acquaintance with Kuftaro see idem, Mudhakkirat sa'ih fi al-sharq al-'arabi, 2d ed. (Beirut: Mu'assasat al-risala, 1975), pp. 224-25, 236-38.
39. For an exposition of this doctrine in the context of the anti-Salafi debate, see Muhammad al-Shaykhani, Al-Tarbiya al-ruhiyya bayn al-sufiyyin wa'l-salafiyyin (Damascus: Dar Qutayba, 1990), esp. pp. 191-95, 287-97.
40. For a widely acclaimed historical exposition of the Sufi's contribution to jihad struggles, see As'ad al-Khatib, Al-Butula wa'l-fida' 'inda al-sufiyya (Damascus: Maktab al-Ghazali, 1995).
41. See Andreas Christmann, "Islamic Scholar and Religious Leader: A Portrait of Shaykh Muhammad Sa'id Ramadan al-Buti," Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 9 (1998): 149-69.
42. On Kuftaro's philosophy of da'wa, see Wahid Taja, Al-Khitab al-Islami al-mu'asir: Muhawarat fikriyya (Aleppo: Fussilat li'l-dirasat wa'l-tarjama wa'l-nashr, 2000), pp. 21-34.
43. See Naddaf, pp. 120-49; www.abrahamicreligions.com/kuftaro/Interfaith.htm and www.abrahamicreligions.com/kuftaro/Environment.htm.
44. For meetings with German and Swiss delegations, see Naddaf, pp. 295-309; and with an American delegation, see Syria Times, December 18, 1999, Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, http://www.islamic-study.org/new.
45. Böttcher, Syrische religionspolitik (n. 31 above), p. 149.
46. Frederick De Jong, "The Naqshbandiyya in Egypt and Syria: Aspects of Its History, and Observations Concerning Its Present-Day Condition," in Naqshbandis: Cheminements et situation actuelle d'un ordre mystique musulman, ed. Marc Gaborieau, Alexandre Popovic, and Thierry Zarcone (Istanbul and Paris: ISIS, 1990), p. 600.
47. For his biography, see Itzchak Weismann, "Radical Muslim Thinker" (n. 27 above), pp. 601-23.
48. For Abu-Ghudda, who was a disciple of Khalaf 's deputy 'Isa al-Bayanuni, see Hanna Batatu, "Syria's Muslim Brethren," Merip Reports 110 (1982): 14;
49. Muhammad ibn 'Abdallah Al Rashid, Imdad al-fattah bi-asanid wa-muruyyat al-Shaykh 'Abd al-Fattah (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Imam al-Shafi'i, 1999), esp. pp. 149-50, 152; and www.aboghodda.com.
50. For Hamid, see Itzchak Weismann, "Religious Strife on the Periphery: Sufi Populists, Salafi Ideologues, and Muslim Brothers in Twentieth-Century Hamah," International Journal of Middle East Studies, in press.
51. Sa'id Hawwa, Tarbiyyatuna al-ruhiyya, 2d ed. (Amman: Maktabat al-risala al-haditha, 1981), pp. 6-8.
52. See also the discussion in Geoffroy, "Sufism, Réformisme et Pouvoir," pp. 12-13.
53. Itzchak Weismann, "Sa'id Hawwa and Islamic Revivalism in Ba'thist Syria," Studia Islamica 85 (1997): 131-54.
54. Frederick De Jong, "The Sufi Orders in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Palestine," Studia Islamica 58 (1983): 149-58, 167-74.
55. Arnon Dancho, "Ha-techiya shel ha-sufim" (The revival of the Sufis), Eretz ve-Teva 53 (1999): 45-53.
56. De Jong, "The Sufi Orders," pp. 179-80.
57. De Jong, "Palestine," p. 175,
58. "Machreq arabe," p. 220.
59. Zohara Ron, "Be-Darko shel Avraham (In the Patha of Abraham)," Masa Akher 111 (2000): 83-88.