into the entire world and every act is based on the words of Qur’an and Muhammad says and deeds. But throughout the years of spreading 12 new orders were created in Islam. They were deviations from the classical Islam. One of these orders was The Bektashi Order of Dervishes. Their religion was also known as the popular Islam or (non-canonical) (L.Esposito, 1998). The aim was to reach Allah in a different way. Dervishes could be driven in the history of Islam in the same role that monks stay in Christianity
Islamization in the Ottoman Empire started as early as in the 1530, peaked in the mid seventeenth century and slowly declined in 1730s (Barkey). Even though few instances of forced conversion took place, conversion was seen as voluntary for convenience rather than an act of coercion. It was targeted towards non-Muslims, mainly the Jewish and Christian communities. Conversion for Muslim was forbidden and the punishment was harsh if converted zimmis wanted to convert back. Conversion took place in
The juncture of Islamic and American cultural movements has found a home in the various Sufi traditions that prevalent in the Western world. These subsequent artistic cultural traditions and rituals make Sufism the most culturally dominant and pervasive form of Islam in modern day Western culture – beating out the two largest internationally prevailing sects of orthodox Islam (Sunnism) and Shia’ism. In the following paper, I will assert that there are two primary spheres of Sufi tradition that transcend
II. The Relationship Between Islam and Sufism Though plenty of Muslim scholars have spoken out in favor of Sufism, the prevailing opinion among both Islamic legal scholars and Muslims as that Sufism is bid’ah, (an inauthentic innovation) that is not wholly Islamic, and therefore rejected as an acceptable way to practice Islam. Sufism has always been an ‘alternative’ discourse in the Islamic world “existing in tension with stricter, legalistic elements in the tradition, and there continue to be voices