ABSTRACT
The Muhammadan Path and Sufi Renewal . The imitation of the Prophet (ittibā’ al-nabī) is an ancient doctrinal theme of Sufism, amplified in the early Modern Period by the claim on the part of Sufi masters of a direct attachment to the person of God’s Messenger. And yet, those who held to a thesis of neosufism saw this as a recent phenomenon, appearing only in the eighteenth century. I thus felt the necessity, in this book about early modern Egyptian Sufism, to go back over this ground in this third section and to consider the controversies and debates on the question of Sufi renewal that shook academic circles, particularly in Germany, throughout the second half of the twentieth century; I give an account of the historiographical advances brought about by these debates. I have attempted, in light of these new findings, a chronology of the circulation of the concept of a Muhammadan Path in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, with all its networks and modes of transmission. I describe the significance of this path of perfection, transmitted by the Prophet, for any Sufi who claims it as his own: it brings him temporal authority.
