Sufi brotherhoods and the impact of Sufism on national identity within the Balkan Muslim communities

Professor R. A. Nicholson, in his article on ‘Mysticism’, in the first edition of the Legacy of Islam,1 concluded his survey of Sufism with this assessment:

Instead of judging them by ordinary standards, which is futile, let us rather reflect that sincere devotion to the Ideal-or as they would say, the Realcovers a multitude of sins, and acknowledge that in the course of their quest they reached, if not the goal, at any rate a purer religion and a higher morality than Islam could offer them.