Moshe Gammer, ed., Islam and Sufism in Daghestan

Words of Ecstasy in Sufism

Reconsidering A. Reza Arasteh: Sufism and Psychotherapy

Four decades ago, A. Reza Arasteh combined Westernized psychology with Sufism to emerge as an important voice in the integration of psychology and religion. Arasteh’s writings have remained largely unnoticed by the psychological community; however, we believe that it is time to reconsider his ideas. This article presents Arasteh’s main ideas about the relationship between human development and ...

Love (Mohabba) in Sufism

In the following, I describe the Sufi Path (tariqa) as a dialectical process which transforms the person through love. I examine the belief system of Islamic mystics as a journey involving both creativity and passion. I do so by using a fresh approach, a perspective that has heretofore yet to be applied to the spiritual alchemy of the Sufis.

Yaghoobi, Claudia. Subjectivity in ʿAttar, Persian Sufism, and European Mysticism

Islam in local contexts: Localised Islam in Northern Pakistan

As Clifford Geertz remarked in his Islam Observed (1968), the idea of a ‘changing’ religion is a contradiction in terms, as religion is fundamentally concerned with what is permanent and eternal. Still, one way to come to terms with religious change is to consider the many ways that religion is interpreted, by laymen and scholars alike. Social anthropologists like myself have naturally found a ...