Sufism Meets the New Age Discourse Part 2

Abstract

In the first part of this two-part article it was argued that the New Age could be understood as a discourse instead of a movement, a modality of belief, or a set of doctrines. It identified the key elements of this discourse, stressing the differences from other religious discourses, such as esotericism. In the second part of this article, the conceptualization of the New Age as discourse will be applied to the Sufi order Naqshbandiyya-Haqqaniyya in the Italian context. The main aim is to understand how this Sufi order has been influenced by the New Age, shaping its doctrines, rituals, practices and organizational structures. This article will show that the coexistence between the Islamic tradition and the New Age discourse entails internal tensions and ambivalences, coexistence and tensions that are justified and mitigated by the Naqshbandi millennialism. This article challenges the dichotomous conceptualizations of Islamic/non-Islamic contemporary Sufism influenced by the New Age, stressing both its continuities and discontinuities.