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Abstract

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This chapter describes and explains how from the early 20th century until the present, Sufi movements in America evolved from offering universalist teachings that emphasized private personal spiritual development, to increasingly Islamic and public organizations. Causes for this shift include demographic changes in the American population ranging from the immigration of Muslim Sufi teachers from the Middle East in the 1980s, to the rise of a current generation of young Muslim Americans, many of whose parents were immigrants. The pursuit of authentic Islamic knowledge, often identified with both fiqh (expertise in Islamic law) and adab (proper Islamic conduct), among this cohort of American Muslim youth, has evolved in a direction that increasingly embraces emotion and affect as factors that unite and mobilize Sufiinfluenced Muslims who may be post-tariqa, but espouse many elements of Sufi teaching, vocabulary, and comportment. The final section of the chapter explores the recent turn towards emotion and affect on the part of several Sufi-influenced movements based in America such as CelebrateMercy and the Ta'leef Connection. These groups emerged from the embrace of Islamic authenticity grounded in knowledge and performance of Islamic legal norms promoted by Sufioriented Muslim scholars popular among youth in the West and such as Hamza Yusuf Hanson, Abdal Hakim Murad, Umar Faruq Abdullah, and Habib Umar Jifri. While these emotive Sufi movements have some characteristics of counter-publics, they find increasing acceptance, integration, and even public influence within major American Muslim organizations, including the Islamic Society of North America.