The Naqshbandiyya is one of the most widespread and influential Sufi orders in the Muslim world. Having its origins in the Great Masters tradition of Central Asia almost a millennium ago, it played a significant role in the pre-modern history of the Indian subcontinent and the Ottoman Empire, and is still spreading today. This volume seeks to present a broad picture of the evolution of the ideas and organizational forms of the Naqshbandi order throughout its history. It combines a synthesis of the vast literature on the order with original research, and shall be an important contribution for...

This book focuses on the evolution of Ottoman reform as it was perceived, and negotiated, from the perspectives of the capital Istanbul and of the Arab provinces of Syria, including Palestine. It also examines the close interrelationship between the symbolic and actual measures introduced by the state, and the role of Islam as its foundational ethos and as the religion of the majority of the population. The twelve case studies included in this volume reveal the extent of the changes that the Ottoman Empire underwent throughout the period, ranging from the Ottoman dynasty and court at the top,...

Modernization in the Muslim world was determined by the two interrelated processes of indigenous state formation and European economic penetration. These drove governments to enlist the orthodox and the masses in support of the consolidation of their central authority, and religious reformers to seek, partly through Western devices, checks on their autocracy. Concentrating on late-Ottoman Damascus, a focal point in the modernization of Islam in the Arab world, this study analyses the conceptual and social evolution among the three consecutive reform trends of the period: the Khālidī...

The Naqshbandiyya is one of the most widespread and influential Sufi orders in the Muslim world. This volume presents a broad picture of the evolution of the ideas and organizational forms of the Naqshbandi order throughout its history.