Journeys to Sufi Islam in America: Self-Transcendence, Tradition, and Social Change in the Contemporary World

Unlike many other religions in the U.S. that are experiencing decline, Islam attracts about as many new members each year as it loses, sustaining its continued presence in the nation. While Sufism (Islamic mysticism) is known to play a role in attracting converts, the reasons behind its appeal remain understudied. Drawing from three years of multi-site fieldwork involving participant observation of major Sufi communities, content analysis of their media materials, and in-depth life history interviews with 43 Sufi converts, my dissertation explores why Americans are attracted to Islamic mysticism, and how Sufis engage in spirituality, tradition, and social change. My research interrogates the Western-centric frameworks underpinning these concepts. I argue that Americans are drawn to Islamic Sufism because it offers an inward spiritual path focused on self-transcendence while simultaneously providing a connection to religious authority structures. As such, my dissertation challenges the standard divide between “spirituality” and “religion,” and the understanding of spirituality as an inward turn away from traditional authority. Additionally, I demonstrate how Sufism’s spiritual framework and practices motivate individuals toward acts of service and giving, contesting views of spirituality as inherently individualistic and detrimental to public engagement and civic action. Through destabilizing conventional understandings of spirituality as a movement away from organized faith and intentional social change, my dissertation critically engages with the presupposed Western liberal frameworks of selfhood and agency that provide the foundations for these predominant views. I demonstrate that these frameworks —which are rooted in the notions of autonomy and sovereignty—have limitations in explaining Islamic spiritual subjecthood. The result is to broaden and deepen our theoretical understanding of the possibilities of human agency, selfhood, spirituality, and how spirituality relates to social change.