The Return to Sufism: Mahmud Muhammad Taha’s modern exposition of premodern Sufi theology.

What is it about?

As a Sunnī modernist reformer, the Sudanese thinker Mahmud Muhammad Ṭaha distinguishes himself by his outright reliance on the intellectual legacy of Islamic mysticism or Sufism. Muslim modernists before Ṭaha also relied on Sufi concepts, but only implicitly. Because of the discredited reputation of Sufism in the modern age, they were shy to forward Sufism as a main source of inspiration and instead referred to rationalist traditions in premodern Islam. Ṭaha, by contrast, explicitly declares the Sufis as the guardians of true Islam and takes the intellectual legacy of Sufism as the point of departure for his modernist reform theology. The present chapter investigates the Sufi basis of his modernist reform in the context of the mystical theology of premodern Sufi authors such as al-Ghazālī and Ibn al-‘Arabī. It describes his mystical cosmology, psychology, and epistemology; his theory of prophets and saints; his views on the unity and development of religion and on the nature and exegesis of the Qur’ān and the example of the Prophet Muḥammad; his concept of individualism, and his Sufi millenarian views. It concludes that Ṭaha, in his Sufi discourse, stays close for the most part to his premodern predecessors. Only in a few places he makes modern emphases or introduces new, modern concepts. These modifications all pave the way for his two main innovations as compared to premodern Sufism: his Islamic theory of evolution and his concept of legal reform.

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Photo by Daniel Silva on Unsplash

Photo by Daniel Silva on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Apart from its purpose in the larger framework of the book, this chapter stands on itself as a modern exposition of premodern Sufi doctrine. Mahmud Muhammad Taha, in his work, gives fresh and contemporary expression to the worldview of premodern Sufism. In this chapter, his Sufi views are presented in a systematic manner and in the context of the writings of his Sufi predecessors.