The Naqshbandi Order: A Preliminary Survey of Its History and Significance

the sunna of His Messenger; it is reliving, by inner state and outer deed, the auspicious age of the Messenger and his Companions; it is the very essence of Islam. (1) Such is the definition of Sufism, concise, simple and sober, that is given by a contemporary Turkish master of the Naqshbandi path. It is a definition that many will find surprising and even inadequate, given the complexities of the historical expression of Sufism, and it is, moreover, at variance with numerous concepts of Sufism that have proliferated in the present century, in scholarly circles and beyond. Numerous Orientalists, joined by certain Muslim modernists, have sought to establish an extra-Islamic parentage for Sufism, just as they have seen in the Qur'anic revelation little but an amalgam of Judeo-Christian borrowings,