The Nimatullahiya and Naqshbandiya Sufi Orders on the Internet: The Cyber-construction of Tradition and the McDonaldisation of Spirituality
Issue: Vol 26 No. 1 (2013) Sufism in the West
Journal: Journal for the Academic Study of Religion
Subject Areas: Religious Studies Buddhist Studies Islamic Studies Biblical Studies
Abstract:
This article is an exploration of the level of integration of Nimatullahi and Naqshbandi Sufi orders in the consumer culture of the West. One reason for comparing and contrasting these two orders is that they have originated in similar socio-political and religio-cultural climates within fourteenth century Iran, and have been affected by similar changes in their historical extension, persecution and migration. Notwithstanding, their relations to the West and to the ‘authenticity’ of their traditions appear to have been differently constructed on the Internet, the basis for which difference is the type of Sufism they each promote. The groups have been chosen because they are two of the most prominent in the West, and are useful in reflecting how Sufi groups in similar contexts can shift dramatically in adapting to a late modern climate. This article will address the Khaniqahi Nimatullahi branch of the Nimatullahiya and the two influential branches of the Naqshbandiya: Khalidi and Haqqani.
Author: Milad Milani, Adam Possamai
References :
Abu-Manneh, Butrus
2003 Salayya and the Rise of the Khalidiyya in Baghdad in the Early Nineteenth Century. Die Welt des Islams 43(3): 349-72.
2005 A New Look at the Rise and Expansion of the Khalidi Suborder. In Susm and Sus in Ottoman Society, edited by A. Yaşar Ocak, 279-314. Turk Tarih Kurumu, Ankara.
Abu-Manneh, Butrus, and Thierry Zarcone
2008 Sheikh Khalid and the Khalidi Suborder. Journal of the History of Susm 5: 1-12.
Algar, Hamid
1970 An Introduction to the History of Freemasonry in Iran. Middle Eastern Studies 6: 276-96.
1976 The Naqshbandi Order: A Preliminary Survey of Its History and Signicance. Studia Islamica 44: 123-52.
1990 Political Aspects of Naqshbandi History. In Naqshbandi: Historical Developments and Present Situation of a Muslim Mystical Order, edited by Marc Gaborieau, Alexander Popovic and Thierry Zarcone, 123-52. Isis, Istanbul and Paris.
Anderson, B.
1986 Imagined Communities: Reections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso Editions and NLB, London.
Bauman, Zygmunt
1998 Postmodern Religion? In Religion, Modernity and Postmodernity, edited by Paul Heelas, 55-78. Blackwell, Oxford.
Buehler, Arthur F.
1998 Su Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the Su Shaykh. University of South Carolina Press, Columbia.
Bunt, Gary
2003 Islam in the Digital Age. E-Jihad, Online Fatwas and Cyber Islamic Environments. Pluto Press, London.
Campbell, Colin
1972 The Cult, the Cultic Milieu and Secularization. Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain 5: 119-36.
Cowan, Douglas E.
2005 Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet. Routledge, New York and London.
2011 The Internet. In The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion, edited by Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler, 459-73. Routledge, New York.
Damrel, David, W.
2006 Aspects of the Naqashbandi-Haqqani Order in North America. In Malik and Hinnells 2006: 115-26.
Drane, John W.
2000 The McDonaldization of the Church: Spirituality, Creativity, and the Future of the Church. Darton, Longman & Todd, London.
Ezzy, Doug
2001 The Commodication of Witchcraft. Australian Religion Studies Review 14(1): 31-44.
Flyvbjerg, Bent
2001 Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Graham, Terry
1999a Shah Ni’matu’llah Wail: Founder of the Ni’matu’llahi Su Order. In The Heritage of Susm, vol. 2, edited by Leonard Lewisohn, 173-90. Oneworld Publications, Oxford.
1999b The Ni’matu’llahi Order Under Safavid Suppression and in Indian Exile. The Heritage of Susm, vol. 3, edited by Leonard Lewisohn, 165-200. Oneworld Publications, Oxford.
Hammer, Juliane
2006 The Soul of Islam: Writing and Publishing as Engaged Susm. Journal for Islamic Studies 26: 36-70.
Heelas, Paul
1993 The New Age in Cultural Context: The Premodern, the Modern and the Postmodern. Religion 23: 103-16.
1996 The New Age Movement. Blackwell, Oxford.
Henkel, Heiko
2009 One Foot Rooted in Islam, the Other Foot Circling the World. In Susm Today: Heritage and Tradition in the Global Community, edited by Catharina Raudvere and Leif Stenberg, 103-17. I.B. Taurus, New York.
Hermansen, Marcia
2000 Hybrid Identity Formation in Muslim America: The Case of American Su Movements. The Muslim World 90: 158-97. Doi: 10.1111/j.1478-1913.2000.tb03686.x.
Hill, Michael
2007 Tradition as a Resource: A Personal Trajectory. Australian Religion Studies Review 20(1): 27-43. Doi: 10.1558/arsr.v20i1.27.
Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger
1983 The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge University Press, New York.
Howell, Julia D.
2006 The New Spiritualities, East and West: Colonial Legacies and the Global Spiritual Marketplace in Southeast Asia. Australian Religion Studies Review 19(1): 19-33. Doi: 10.1558/arsr.2006.19.1.19.
Hutchings, Tim
2010 Online Christian Churches: Three Case Studies. Australian Religion Studies Review 23(2): 346-69.
Introvigne, Massimo
2001 After the New Age: Is There a Next Age? In New Age Religion and Globalization, edited by Mikael Rothstein, 58-72. Aarhus University Press, Aarhus.
Jonker, Gerdien
2006 The Evolution of the Naqashbandi-Mujaddidi: Suleymancis. In Malik and Hinnells 2006: 71-86.
Koenig, Peter-R.
2001 The Internet as Illustrating the McDonaldisation of Occult Culture. Cesnur. Online: http://www.cesnur.org/2001/london2001/koenig.htm (accessed April 30, 2001).
Lambton, Ann K.S.
1987 Qajar Persia: Eleven Studies. I.B. Tauris, London.
Lewisohn, Leonard
1998 An Introduction to the History of Modern Persian Susm, Part I: The Ni’matullahi Order: Persecution, Revival and Schism. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 61(3): 437-64. Doi: 10.1017/S0041977X00019285.
2006 Persian Susm in the Contemporary West: Reections on the Ni’matu’llahi Diaspora. In Malik and Hinnells 2006: 49-70.
Linjakumpu, Aini
2010 Alternative Islamic Voices on the Internet. In Mediating Faiths: Religion and Socio-Cultural Change in the Twenty-First Century, 37-48. Ashgate, Aldershot.
Mançon, Ural
2010 Corporéités, ascétismes et sécularisation dans le discours de la confrérie Naqshbandi turque contemporaine. Social Compass 57(4): 479-92.
Malik, Jamal, and John Hinnells (eds.)
2006 Susm in the West. Routledge, London and New York.
Matthee, Rudi
2008 Safavid Dynasty. In Encycloaedia Iranica. Online: http://www. iranicaonline.org/articles/Safavids (accessed April 30, 2001).
Milani, Milad
2005 Cyclical History, Gnosis, and Memory: A Study in the Role and Signi¬cance of Mystical Poetry as a Medium of Popular Culture for Persian Susm. In The Buddha of Suburbia: Proceedings of the VIIIth Interna¬tional Conference for Religion, Literature and the Arts 2004, edited by Carole M. Cusack, Frances Di Lauro and Christopher Hartney, 223-43. RLA Press, Sydney.
2012 Cultural Products of Global Susm. In Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production, edited by Carole M. Cusack and Alex Norman, 659-81. Brill, Leiden.
Nielson, Jorgen S. et al.
2006 Transnational Susm: The Haqqaniyya. In Malik and Hinnells 2006: 103-15.
Nurbakhsh, Javad
1996 Discourses: On The Su Path. Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, London.
2000 Piran-i Balkh (The Su Masters of Balkh). Intisharat-i Yalda Qalam, Tehran.
Possamai, Adam
2005 In Search of New Age Spirituality. Ashgate, Aldershot.
2007 Religion and Popular Culture: A Hyper-Real Testament. P.I.E.-Peter Lang, Brussells et al.
Possamai, Adam (ed.)
2012 Handbook of Hyper-Real Religions. Brill, Leiden.
Ritzer, George
2000 The Mcdonaldization of Society. Pine Forge Press, Newbury Park, CA.
Robertson, Roland
2002 The Future of Traditional Culture and Religion. In Traditional Religion and Culture in a New Era, edited by Reimon Bachika, 141-52. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ.
Sahib, As’ad (ed.)
1915–16 Bughyat al-wajid min Maktubat Hadrat Moline Khalid. Damascus.
Sands, Kristin
2010 Muslims, Identity and Multimodal Communication on the Internet. Contemporary Islam 4: 139-55. Doi: 10.1007/s11562-009-0105-z.
Schlegel, John-Louis
1995 Religions à la carte. Hachette, Paris.
Schmidt, Garbi
2004 Su Charisma on the Internet. In Westerlund 2004: 109-26.
Tayfun, Atay
1994 Naqshbandi Sus in a Western Setting. PhD diss., University of London.
Trimingham, John S.
1971 The Su Orders in Islam. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Van Den Bos, Matthijs
2002 Mystic Regimes: Susm and the State in Iran, from Late Qajar Era to the Islamic Republic. Brill, Leiden.
Wai’ili, Uthman ibn Sanad
1895–96 Asfa al-mawarid min silsal ahwal al-Imam Khalid. Al-Ilmiyya Press, Cairo.
Werbner, Pnina
1995 Powerful Knowledge in a Global Su Cult: Reections on the Poetics of Travelling Theories. In The Pursuit of Certainty: Religious and Cultural Formulations, edited by Wendy James, 134-60. Routledge, London.
Westerlund, David (ed.)
2004 Susm in Europe and North America. Routledge Curzon, London and New York.
York, Michael
2001 Selling Nature in the Spiritual Supermarket. Cesnur. Online: http://www.cesnur.org/2001/london2001/york.htm (accessed April 30, 2001).
Yukleyen, Ahmet
2010 Production of Mystical Islam in Europe: Religious Authorization in the Sülaymançi Su Community. Contemporary Islam 4: 269-88. Doi: 10.1007/s11562-010-0125-8.
Zarcone, Thierry
2001 The Transformation of the Su Orders in the Turkish Republic and the Question of Crypto-Susm. In Cultural Horizons: A Festschrift in Honor of Talat S. Halman, edited by Jayne L. Warner, 198-209. Syracuse University, New York and Istanbul.