Definitions. The Arabic word tasawwuf (lit. being or becoming a Sufi), generally translated as Sufism, is commonly defined by Western authors as Islamic mysticism. The Arabic term sufi has been used in Islamic literature with a wide range of meanings, by both proponents and opponents of Sufism. Classical Sufi texts, which stressed certain teachings and practices of the Quran …

Western Sufism, sometimes identified with Universal Sufism, Neo-Sufism, and Global Sufism, consists of a spectrum of Western European and North American manifestations and adaptations of Sufism, the mystical dimension of Islam.. Sufism flourished in Spain from the tenth to fifteenth centuries and spread throughout the Balkans during the Ottoman period. . Enslaved Africans …