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Mark J. Sedgwick (born 20 July 1960) is a British historian of Islam. He is Full Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University in Denmark. Sedgwick is notable for pioneering historical research into the religious movement called Traditionalism.
Sedgwick was born in London, England. He was educated in England at Harrow School, where he first became interested in history, [1] and Worcester College, Oxford. He did his PhD in Norway at the University of Bergen under the supervision of Séan O'Fahey.
While living in Cairo in 1990, Sedgwick encountered Sufis from both the Naqshbandiyya tariqa and the Traditionalist Maryamiyya. While not joining either group, he started research on Traditionalism in 1996. [2]
Sedgwick first taught history at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. In 2007 he moved to Aarhus University, Denmark as Coordinator of the Arab and Islamic Studies Unit. His books have been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Romanian, Serbian, and Turkish. [3] He was a founder member of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism, of which he was Secretary 2010–16. [4] He was elected to the board of the Nordic Society for Middle Eastern Studies in 2016, [5] and was elected chairperson in 2019. [6]
Sedgwick's earliest research was on Sufism in the Arab and Muslim world. [7] He is best known for his work on Sufism and Traditionalism, especially for his Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (2004). He is also known for his work on terrorism, especially for his 2004 article "Al-Qaeda and the nature of religious terrorism" in which he argues for understanding the terrorism of Al-Qaeda should be understood in political rather than religious terms. [8] He is a critic of the concept of radicalisation, which he argues is a "source of confusion." [9] Despite his association with the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism, he has argued that understanding Western esotericism as distinctly Western may no longer be appropriate. [7]
Sedgwick has been accused of "an undisclosed personal history with Traditionalism" and, therefore, of having "a personal and undisclosed bias against Traditionalism". [10] He has also been accused of being a secret Traditionalist Sufi and part of a conspiracy against Enlightenment values. [11] He has pointed out that both charges can hardly be true at the same time and explained that his personal history with Traditionalism was early and limited. He claims this did not result in any bias one way or the other. [2]
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Sufism is a mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic purification, spirituality, ritualism, and asceticism.
A tariqa is a religious order of Sufism, or specifically a concept for the mystical teaching and spiritual practices of such an order with the aim of seeking haqiqa, which translates as "ultimate truth".
Islamic fundamentalism has been defined as a revivalist and reform movement of Muslims who aim to return to the founding scriptures of Islam. The term has been used interchangeably with similar terms such as Islamism, Islamic revivalism, Qutbism, Islamic activism, and has been criticized as pejorative.
Islamic studies refers to the academic study of Islam, which is analogous to related fields such as Jewish studies and Quranic studies. Islamic studies seeks to understand the past and the potential future of the Islamic world. In this multidisciplinary program, scholars from diverse areas participate and exchange ideas pertaining to the particular field of study.
Ibn Taymiyya was a Sunni Muslim scholar, jurist, traditionist, ascetic, and proto-Salafi and iconoclastic theologian. He is known for his diplomatic involvement with the Ilkhanid ruler Ghazan Khan at the Battle of Marj al-Saffar, which ended the Mongol invasions of the Levant. A legal jurist of the Hanbali school, Ibn Taymiyya's condemnation of numerous folk practices associated with saint veneration and visitation of tombs made him a contentious figure with many rulers and scholars of the time, which caused him to be imprisoned several times as a result.
The Salafi movement or Salafism is a revival movement within Sunni Islam, which was formed as a socio-religious movement during the late 19th century and has remained influential in the Islamic world for over a century. The name "Salafiyya" is a self-designation, to call for a return to the traditions of the "pious predecessors", the first three generations of Muslims, who are believed to exemplify the pure form of Islam. In practice, Salafis claim that they rely on the Qur'an, the Sunnah and the Ijma (consensus) of the salaf, giving these writings precedence over what they claim as "later religious interpretations". The Salafi movement aimed to achieve a renewal of Muslim life and had a major influence on many Muslim thinkers and movements across the Islamic world.
Traditionalism, also sometimes known as Perennialism, posits the existence of a perennial wisdom or perennial philosophy, primordial and universal truths which form the source for, and are shared by, all the major world religions. Historian Mark Sedgwick identifies René Guénon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Julius Evola, Mircea Eliade, Frithjof Schuon, Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Alexandr Dugin to be the seven most prominent Traditionalists.
Muḥammad ʿAbduh was an Egyptian Islamic scholar, judge, and Grand Mufti of Egypt. He was a central figure of the Arab Nahḍa and Islamic Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Islam is the dominant religion in Egypt, with approximately 90% of Egyptians identifying as Muslims. The majority of Egyptian Muslims are adherents of Sunni Islam, while a small minority adhere to Shia Islam. Since 1980, Islam has served as Egypt's state religion. Due to the lack of a religious census, owing to the alleged undercounting of non-Muslim minorities in Egyptian censuses, the actual percentage of Muslims is unknown; the percentage of Egyptian Christians, who are the second-largest religious group in the country, is estimated to be between 6% and 11% of the population.
Timothy John Winter, also known as Abdal Hakim Murad, is an English academic, theologian and Islamic scholar who is a proponent of Islamic neo-traditionalism. His work includes publications on Islamic theology, modernity, and Anglo-Muslim relations, and he has translated several Islamic texts.
Martin Lings, also known as Abū Bakr Sirāj ad-Dīn, was an English writer, Islamic scholar, and philosopher. A student of the Swiss metaphysician Frithjof Schuon and an authority on the work of William Shakespeare, he is best known as the author of Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, first published in 1983 and still in print.
The Murabitun World Movement is an Islamic movement founded by Abdalqadir as-Sufi, a branch of the Šāḏilī–Darqāwī Sufi order with communities in Europe, South America, Southeast Asia, and South Africa, where it is officially based. Its heartland is Spain. The number of its followers may amount, according to one estimate, to around 10,000.
Islamic schools and branches have different understandings of Islam. There are many different sects or denominations, schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and schools of Islamic theology, or ʿaqīdah (creed). Within Islamic groups themselves there may be differences, such as different orders (tariqa) within Sufism, and within Sunnī Islam different schools of theology and jurisprudence. Groups in Islam may be numerous, or relatively small in size.
Ivan Aguéli, also named Shaykh ʿAbd al-Hādī al-ʿAqīlī upon his conversion to Islam, was a Swedish wandering Sufi, painter and author. As a devotee of Ibn Arabi, his metaphysics applied to the study of Islamic esotericism and its similarities with other esoteric traditions of the world. He was one of the initiators of René Guénon into Sufism and founder of the Parisian Al Akbariyya society. His art was a unique form of miniature Post-Impressionism where he used the blend of colours to create a sense of depth and distance. His unique style of art made him one of the founders of the Swedish contemporary art movement.
Jihadism is a neologism for militant Islamic movements that seek to base the state on Islamic principles. In a narrower sense, it refers to the belief held by some Muslims that armed confrontation with political rivals is an efficient and theologically legitimate method of socio-political change. It is a form of religious violence and has been applied to various insurgent Islamic extremist, militant Islamist, and terrorist individuals and organizations whose ideologies are based on the Islamic notion of lesser jihad from the classical interpretation of Islam. It has also been applied to various Islamic empires in history, such as the Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates of the early Muslim conquests, and the Ottoman Empire. There were also the Fula jihads in West Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Persecution of Sufis over the course of centuries has included acts of religious discrimination, persecution, and violence both by Sunni and Shia Muslims, such as destruction of Sufi shrines, tombs and mosques, suppression of Sufi orders, murder, and terrorism against adherents of Sufism in a number of Muslim-majority countries. The Republic of Turkey banned all Sufi orders and abolished their institutions in 1925, after Sufis opposed the new secular order. The Islamic Republic of Iran has harassed Sufis, reportedly for their lack of support for the government doctrine of "governance of the jurist".
Western Sufism, sometimes identified with Universal Sufism, Neo-Sufism, and Global Sufism, consists of a spectrum of Western European and North American manifestations and adaptations of Sufism, the mystical dimension of Islam. Many practitioners of Western Sufism follow the legacy of Inayat Khan and may identify with a variety of Sufi traditions, some of which have evolved to be pluralistic and not exclusively Islamic. In addition to Western Sufism, traditional Sufism also exists in the West, although it is significantly less prevalent among Muslims in the West than Sufism in the Muslim world. Most Sufi organizations in the West outside of the Balkans are Western Sufi.
Islamic neo-traditionalism, also known as Wasatism is a contemporary strand of Sunni Islam that emphasizes adherence to the four principal Sunni schools of law (Madhahib), belief in one of the Ash'ari, Maturidi and Athari creeds (Aqaid) and the practice of Sufism (Tasawwuf), which Islamic neo-traditionalists consider to be the Sunni tradition.
Victor Danner was a Mexican-American author, researcher, and translator specializing in comparative religion and Islamic mysticism.
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