Roots of modern Shicite Sufism in Iran

Abstract

Theories of cultural stagnation and decline or of modernization's devastation in the realm of Sufism have not only figured in orientalist or social science repertoires. Conversing with contemporary Iranian Sufis, one comes across a remarkable consensus: the Safawid rise to state power coincided with the eclipse of Sufism's radiant sun in Iran, and it has never since regained its former brilliance. Whether such views hold true in the history of ideas or at the strictly literary level remains for specialists to decide. However, various social and political transformations that have conditioned Iranian Sufism as it is presently known, contradict the idea of Sufism's stagnant and therefore negligible religiosity.