ABSTRACT
The acquisition of religious knowledge is not only attained through transmission and reason. This chapter examines the inward experience of the intimate and personal encounter between the individual believer and the divine (God, Transcendent), historically known as Sufism (often referred to as Islamic mysticism). Aside from the experiential dimension, there are also intellectual and institutional aspects associated with Sufism, manifested in theosophy and the continuing existence of Sufi orders respectively. In the modern and contemporary world, there are also connections of Sufism with Traditionalism and Perennial philosophy, with psychoanalysis, and with a restoration of the spiritual dimensions in modern sciences through projects of the ‘Islamization of knowledge’ or the ‘Islamization of science’. Attention is also paid to the role of literature (classical poetry as well as modern novels) in the explorations of spirituality and individual religious experience by Muslims today.
