Insights into Sufism: Voices from the Heart
Sufism has long constituted one of the most powerful drawcards to people embracing Islam. This book considers a broad range of questions relating to Sufism, including its history, manifestations in various countries and communities, its expression in poetry, women and Sufism, and expressions among popular spirituality. In addition, the volume challenges the long-held view of Sufism as being necessarily peaceful, through a consideration in one paper of Sufis engaging in violent Jihad.
The book works at the interface between the scholarly and the practical, using rigorous methodology to ensure that its findings are reliable, while also giving attention to how Sufi thinking impacts the daily lives of Sufis. This represents an original and important dimension of this study, given the significant role played by Sufis throughout Islamic history in enriching discussion of intellectual and charismatic questions, as well as informing popular practice among “Folk” Muslims.
Ruth J. Nicholls is the Administrator and Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam of the Melbourne School of Theology. She worked in an Asian Muslim country for many years, serving both the Muslim and Christian Communities, and has contributed articles to several volumes, including When Women Speak (2018). She is also the author of several articles, and has edited a number of volumes relating to Islam. She is the contributing editor of Ayesha’s Sisters: Some Perspectives on Women in Islam (2020).
Peter G. Riddell is Senior Research Fellow of the Australian College of Theology at the Melbourne School of Theology and a Professorial Research Associate in History at SOAS University of London. He holds a PhD on Islam in Southeast Asia, a subject on which he has published widely, from the Australian National University. His publications include Islam and the Malay-Indonesian World (2001); Islam in Context (2003); Christians and Muslims (2004); and Malay Court Religion, Culture and Language: Interpreting the Qur’an in 17th Century Aceh (2017).
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