Exploring Sufi politics in Europe: Civic engagement, Metapolitics, and Apolitical millenarism
In this seminar, Francesco Piraino will present his new book “Sufism in Europe, Islam, Esotericism, and the New Age” (Edinburgh University Press, 2024).
Date: 16 / 12 / 2024 Digital Lecture: 16.00 – 17.30 (CET)
Sufism, the spiritual, mystical, and esoteric dimension of Islam, is experiencing a renewal in the 21st century.
Charismatic Sufi masters have been able to revitalize their language, attracting new disciples and going beyond their cultural-geographic framework.
This book describes the development of Sufism in Western Europe, particularly in France and Italy, through extended empirical research based on participant observation in four Sufi orders.
The author illustrates the different forms of hybridization between the Islamic-Sufi tradition and Western esoteric discourses, in particular the Guénonian-Traditionalist and the New Age discourse.
In this seminar, Piraino will discuss his methodologies, proposing a socio-anthropology of mysticism and Sufism, and Sufi politics, describing three Sufi political approaches: civic engagement, metapolitics, and apolitical millenarism.
Francesco Piraino, PhD – University of Bologna