Mark J. Sedgwick’s Sufism: The Essentials tries to explain and the real origins of Sufism, and the essentialities of Sufism by starting with an introduction about why Mark had chosen to write about Sufism because many Western texts do not give the real stories and definition of Sufism, as they said in some Western books that Sufism is separated from Islam which is not true at all. Thus, Mark J. Sedgwick’s book interpreted all inspects of Sufism and its history, to illustrate the real face of Sufism to the West, and to help understand the story, Mark Sedgwick decides to talk about the origins of Sufism.
The author did an excellent work by dividing his book into five major chapters. Each chapter is a continuation of the last one. Starting from
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However, Sufis were dealing with this opposition problem for a long period, but Sufism has learned to be tolerant and deal with this problem. The two major persons who criticized the practice of Sufism were Ibn Taymiya and the Wahhabis. Ibn Taymiya was against some practices of Sufism, but he did have some Sufi backgrounds. The author explains also the impact of the modernity on Sufism such as the expedition of Napoleon to Egypt, and Frederick II of Sicily said clearly that they learned a lot from Muslims.
I think that this book can be read by people who are interested to know about Sufism, such as Muslims or even persons from other religions who want to know more about Islam from a Sufism view. Mark J. Sedgwick’s Sufism: The Essentials is explaining the basics of Sufism. As a final summary, I think that Mark J. Sedgwick’s book Sufism: The Essentials was a really good book, I did know some basics about Sufism, but by reading the book I learned many things such as the origins of Sufism and its history, and the concept of “Range of participation” or the Shaikh as an example for all Sufis, or the greats theorists of Sufism.
I am actually more interested in reading other books about the same topic to know more about other points of view from other