ABSTRACT
Conflicts and encounters between Sufis and Islamists have been evidenced throughout much of Islamic history in areas such as the Middle East, the North Caucasus, and the Indian sub-continent (Sirriyeh 1999). During the nineteenth century, a major shift in their relations seemed to appear. Growing contact with western imperialism, and the decline of the great Islamic empires such as the Ottoman, the Safavid, and the Mughul, gave birth to the creation of reform movements that could be categorized as “Islamic modernism” Such were the Salafia of the nineteenth century, which, in contrast to the Wahhâbîyah movement, introduced a more ambivalent attitude toward practical and theological aspects of Sufism, usually trying to put them on a sounder, rational, moral basis. Yet, in spite of the differences of the various reform movements of the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth in their attitudes toward Sufism, it can be claimed that they posed a substantial challenge to Sufi tarìqas in various areas and societies, under different colonial rules.
