Western Sufism

New religious movement with its origins in traditional Sufism This article is about Sufism. Western Sufism , sometimes identified with Universal Sufism , Neo-Sufism , and Global Sufism , consists of a spectrum of Western European and North American manifestations and adaptations of Sufism , the mystical dimension of Islam. Many practitioners of Western Sufism follow the legacy of Inayat Khan and may identify with a variety of Sufi traditions, some of which have evolved to be pluralistic and not exclusively Islamic. In addition to Western Sufism, traditional Sufism also exists in the West ( Hisham Kabbani is one notable traditional Sufi figure in the West), although it is significantly less prevalent among Muslims in the West than Sufism in the Muslim world . Most Sufi organizations in the West outside of the Balkans are Western Sufi. Sufism flourished in Spain from the tenth to fifteenth centuries and spread throughout the Balkans during the Ottoman period. Enslaved Africans maintained Sufi traditions in the Americas. It was not until the twentieth century, however, that Sufi organizations were established in Western Europe and North America. In 1911 Ivan Aguéli established a Sufi society in Paris. Inayat Khan's legacy has sometimes been associated with the neologism "Universal Sufism", though he never used the phrase. Inayat Khan opened his London-based Sufi Order to people of all faiths and simultaneously founded the Anjuman-i Islam (Islamic Society) for "the furtherance of the study of Islam and unity between the Muslims and the non-Muslims in the world by discovering the universal spirit of Islam." Aguéli's legacy is associated with the Traditionalism and Perennialism of his student René Guénon . Western Sufism: From the Abbasids to the New Age . Witteveen coined the term "Universal Sufism" in his book of the same title (London: Vega, 2002). "Laws of Anjuman Islam", MS in the hand of Sharifa Goodenough in the archival collection of the Nekbakht Foundation, Suresnes, France.