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Sufism
and American Women
Marcia Hermansen
Loyola University |
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Sufism
(Arabic: tasawwuf) is Islamic mysticism, the quest for a direct experience
of the divine or the ultimate on the part of spiritually inclined Muslims.
Sufis trace the origin of their interpretation of Islam back to the Qur'an
and the practice (sunna) of the Prophet and his spiritual exercises and
experiences. Historically, over the centuries Sufism went from being an
individual inclination to ascetic practices and personal devotions to becoming
a network of broad social institutions in most parts of the expanding Islamic
world. Organized Sufi Orders (tariqas) developed after the 14th
century claiming initiatory linkages and the transmission of specific litanies
and practices from to great Sufi masters of the past. Sufism is an interpretation
and practice rather than a separate sect within Islam and there are both
Sunni and Shi'i Sufis. |
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In the
pre-modern period Sufi networking was an important social element and Sufis
are credited with carrying Islam to South Asia and South East Asia, cultures
whose pre-Islamic traditions had an affinity for doctrines that the world
was composed of signs of God and that the individual ego could be absorbed
(fana) in the divine consciousness. In addition, the tombs of Sufis became
pilgrimage sites and a means of sanctifying the local soil, along the lines
of the role of Christian saints in the expansion of Catholicism to Europe.
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In the
modern period Sufism as an interpretation and practice of Islam has been
subjected to critique and even persecution on the part of movements such
as the Wahhabis of Arabia and various Islamist groups. A major focus of
this critique is that local cultural adaptations of certain Sufi orders
such as incorporating music into worship constitute heretical innovation
(bid'a). In addition, Sufis were accused of excessive otherworldliness that
made Muslim populations subject to colonial domination, despite the fact
that Sufi warriors such as the Libyan al-Sanusi order were at the forefront
of liberation struggles. Modernity has also shifted many Muslims to an understanding
of scriptural authority akin to Protestantism, wherein Sufi concepts of
spiritual hierarchy and reverence for the unseen are marginalized as being
unscientific and superstitious. At the same time, elements of Sufism that
facilitate personal spiritual development have appealed, both in the West
and in urban centers of the contemporary Muslim world, to individuals seeking
this element of religious experience.
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In the
United States Sufi Orders range from being universalist or New Age movements
whose membership is largely Euro-American to transplanted communities constituted
by recent Muslim immigrants. The majority of American Sufi Orders are what
I term "hybrids" of traditional Islamic and modern Western attitudes, practices,
and individuals. |
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It is
said that Sufism was first brought to the United States in 1912 by the Indian
teacher, Hazrat Inayat Khan. His teachings evolved into a pluralist interpretation
that a unity underlies all prophetic revelations inspired by the same spirit
of guidance. After Khan's untimely death in 1926 his movement was revived
by his son, Pir Vilayat Khan (d. 2004), in the 1970s and joined for a time
by disciples of an American born Sufi, Murshid Samuel Lewis (d. 1971). Eventually
Lewis' disciples broke off to form their own movement, the Sufi Islamia
Ruhaniat Society, now an international movement including practitioners
of the "Dances of Universal Peace" developed by Lewis. In fact "Sufi dancing"
due to its exposure through broad public healing and dance communities is
one aspect of Sufism known to the broader American public. Such practices
are quite rare in Muslim cultures, the most notable example being the sober
turning ritual of the Turkish Mevlevi Order.
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In
classical Sufi practice and traditional Muslim cultures, Sufism may be viewed
as giving more scope for female participation since its rituals, such a
shrine visitation take place outside of mosques, in many cases. Examples
of notable female Sufis such as Rabi'a of Basra (ca. 801), are celebrated
in the classical literature. |
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A recent
statement issued by the Order states, "Spiritual practices and service are
fully integrated and initial attempts have been made to update the language
of the teaching to include the feminine. Several of the women teachers in
the Order have made rich contributions by developing practices that facilitate
an awareness of, and a deeper identification with, the feminine aspect of
the divine."1 |
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To the
degree that Islamic shari'a-based rituals are incorporated by hybrid
or Islamic Sufi Orders, gender distinctions may become visibly operative
their functioning in America. In the more strictly Islamic Sufi movements
such as the Naqshbandi-Haqqani Order led in the United States by Shaykh
Hisham Kabbani women participate in the gender segregated rituals but are
not accorded formal leadership roles. Female members of the leaders' families
are viewed as the role models for women disciples. |
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In
the case of many American Sufi women, gender segregation and other restrictions
on female participation are likely to provoke some discomfort. It is noteworthy
that when Western women visit Sufi teachers in the Muslim world they are
often accorded privileges of the shaykh's company and occupying male spaces
denied to local females. The symbolic masculinization of Sufi women in American
Orders may include adopting symbols of affiliation and authority that had
been traditionally unique to men such as wearing special caps or robes.
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American
Sufi movements of Turkish origin, the Helveti-Jerrahis and Mevlevis, are
particularly interesting in terms of the extent of female participation
and leadership. The Helveti-Jerrahi Order was brought to America by Shaykh
Muzaffer Ozak (d. 1993) of Istanbul who first came to the United States
in 1980. Branches of this tariqa developed in New York under the
leadership of Tosun Bayrak and Shaykh Nur (Lex Hixon) and in the San Francisco
Bay Area under Ragip (Robert) Frager. Ultimately one branch of the American
Jerrahis, known as the Ashkijerrahis, drawn mainly from Lex Hixon's followers,
evolved separately, and they currently have a female teacher, Shaykha Fariha
Fatima al-Jerrahi. Shaykha Fariha notes that she was made a shaykha
by Muzaffer Ozak in 1985 and is the first female leader in the Jerrahi order
in over 300 years. |
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In
the case of the Turkish based Mevlevi Order (whirling dervishes), American
initiates may learn the traditional practice of "turning" and among these
disciples are American women who are set on breaking the barrier to female
participation in the dhikr. Traditional shaykhs from Turkey may be
pleased that Americans are becoming dervishes but unsettled to be asked
to give permission for females to whirl, at least publicly. |
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In
another branch of the American Mevlevi movement, Camille Helminski joins
her husband, Kabir, in writing and teaching activities including a book
on Sufi women. |
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Among
the responses to the challenge raised by converted American women is activism
and justice. In the same way that third wave or cultural feminists try to
avoid the past mistakes of white middle class feminists in attempting to
impose their agenda on women of color; female participants in Western Sufi
movements may feel the need to negotiate their understandings of gender
roles so as to reflect both traditional authenticity and a contemporary
sense of gender justice. |
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An edited
volume on Muslim women's activism in America,2 includes articles by two women activist
associated with Sufi movements. |
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Rabia
Terri Harris who is involved in peace and justice movements and lectures
on progressive Islam and Gwendolyn Zohara Simmons who is a member of the
Sheikh Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Mosque and Fellowship in Philadelphia.
Guru Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1986) a Sufi teacher from Sri Lanka, settled in
Philadelphia in 1972, and attracted many American followers. In her writings
Simmons, an African-American, directly confronts the oppression of women
in some Muslim contexts, including among some American Muslim communities,
in the light of her personal experiences during the American Civil Rights
movement. |
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Several
Shi'a Sufi orders are present in the United States. One of the leaders is
a woman, Dr. Nahid Angha, daughter of the Sufi teacher Shah Maghsoud (d.
1980), whose shrine is located in Novato, California. In her movement, the
International Association of Sufism, a gender-equitable approach is stressed. |
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The son
of Shah Maghsoud, Saleheddin Ali Nader Angha, heads a separate organization
known as the MTO (Maktab Tarighat Oveyssi) or the Shahmaghsoudi School of
Islamic Sufism with over thirty-nine centers in North America. The membership
draws on both the Persian émigré and American convert Muslim
communities. Women have a high degree of leadership within the movement
and run a number of the local centers, giving lessons and teaching Sufi
practices. Rituals (the dhikr) of the MTO are performed with males and females
seated separately but in the same space as one another. Female members of
this movement have published works related to Sufism including Dr. Lynn
Wilcox, a California psychologist, Linda O'Riordan, Barbara Larsen, Soraya
Behbehani, Farnaz Khoromi, Melvina Noel, and Avideh Shashaani. |
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Further
examples of American Sufi women include Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar a writer in the
fields of Sufi thought and psychology who edits and translates classical
Sufi and Islamic sources including a book on women in the hadith collections. |
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Gray
(Aisha) Henry, an American woman who was initiated into the Shadhili Sufi
Order, makes available scholarly translations of works from Islamic spirituality
for both the serious seeker and the academic classroom through two publishing
houses that she founded, Islamic Texts Society and Fons Vitae. |
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In
the African American Muslim community Sufism has not played as large a role.
Some African American scholars have suggested that spiritually is integrated
in their practices to an extent that there is no need to pursue Sufism as
a separate form of Islam. African American Muslims usually join shari'a
oriented movements such as the Bawa Muhaiyadeen Foundation and the Naqshbandi-Haqqani
Order. In African-based Sufi movements such as the Tijaniyya, the Burhaniyya,
and the Mouridiyya in the Unites States the leadership is largely drawn
from African immigrants, and therefore women's leadership roles have not
been prominent. |
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Biographical Note:
Marcia Hermansen is Professor of Theology at Loyola University in Chicago.
Bibliography
Gisela Webb, Windows of Faith: Muslim Women Scholar Activists in
North America, Syracuse, NY, 2000.
Shekina Reinhertz, Women Called to the Path of Rumi: The way of
the Whirling Dervish Prescott, Ariz: Hohm Press, 2001.
Jamal Malik and John Hinnells, Sufism in the West, New York:
Routledge , 2006.
David Westerlund (ed) Sufism in Europe and North America, London–New
York: Routledge Curzon, 2004.
M. Hermansen, In the garden of American Sufi movements: hybrids and
perennials," in New trends and developments in the world of
Islam, P. Clarke (ed.), London, 1997 pp. 155-178.
"Sufism's Many Paths" website http://godlas.myweb.uga.edu/Sufism.html.
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