ABSTRACT
Historically the word s. u¯fı¯ was first used in an eighth-century Islamic context for ascetics wearing woolen cloaks – like their Christian counterparts – in the deserts of the Near East. Eventually by the tenth century this activity developed into a branch of the Islamic religious sciences which has become known in the West as Sufism. In the Sunnı¯ world (the mainstream Muslim community) “the process of becoming a S. u¯f ı¯” (tas.awwuf) and in the Iranian Shı¯ ı¯ world “theoretical mysticism” ( irfa¯n) are conflated by the English term Sufism. The activities of S. u¯f ı¯s are generally acknowledged by historians to be responsible for the spread of Islam in the eastern Islamic world, including present-day Turkey, India, Indonesia, and Africa. Investigations into the historical processes of Islamization, still going on today, indicate that the S. u¯f ı¯ message is more expansive yet inclusive of the doctrinal, orthopraxic religion known as Islam. That is, although Sufism historically has been practiced almost exclusively by Muslims, it has also gone beyond the human-created boundaries of the religion of Islam to include anyone who seeks to submit to God, the technical meaning of muslim in Arabic.
