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CSI Monday Majilis: Sufism in Europe: Islam, Esotericism, and the New Age

Francesco Piraino (Harvard)

The CSI Monday Majlis is a Monday evening, online event, where invited speakers present on aspects of their current research


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https://universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/vSqdqvkGTgK9grF1p8KC-A

Francesco Piraino is a sociologist of religion, culture, and art. He obtained his PhD in Sociology in 2016 at the Scuola Normale Superiore (Florence) and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris), and have held research positions at KU Leuven, CNRS, Ca’ Foscari, and Harvard Divinity School. He is currently Marie SkÅ‚odowska-Curie Research Fellow at the University of Bologna, in collaboration with the University of Lausanne and Harvard University (Project “RELIGIOMICS” GA 101149839). He also serves as director of the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilizations and Spiritualities at the Cini Foundation in Venice. Piraino works on spirituality, esotericism, mysticism, and the relationship between art and religion, especially, but not exclusively, in the Islamic and Sufi frame. He has recently published "Sufism in Europe. Islam, Esotericism, and the New Age" (Edinburgh University Press, 2024) and edited "Religious Dimensions of Conspiracy Theories Comparing and Connecting Old and New Trends" (with Marco Pasi and Egil Asprem, Routledge 2022). 

 

Sufism, the spiritual, mystical, and esoteric dimension of Islam, is experiencing a renewal in the 21st century. Charismatic Sufi masters have been able to revitalise 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 hybridisation between the Islamic-Sufi tradition and Western esoteric discourses, in particular the Guénonian-Traditionalist and the New Age discourse. These hybridisations often involve the creation of new doctrines, rituals, and organizational structures, and produce different universalist discourses, which imply different Sufi politics in Europe, such as a lack of interest due to an imminent eschatology, civic engagement, and metapolitical elitism.