ABSTRACT
The Naqshbandiyya, and especially its Mujaddidi and Khalidi offshoots, played a major role in the formulation of brotherhood Sufism’s response to the challenge of modernity. In the early modern period (sixteenth to nineteenth centuries) Naqshbandi teachings continued to be disseminated through pious preaching and advice to rulers. From the second half of the nineteenth century novel strategies had to be forged to cope with the new realities engendered by the growing impact of the West. The spread of rationalist thought, the consolidation of colonial and subsequent authoritarian Muslim States, and the rise of Islamic modernism and fundamentalism placed Naqshbandi masters and adepts before an acute dilemma. While the brotherhood’s emphatic orthodox outlook meant adherence to Islamic tradition, its activist legacy entailed accommodation to the new circumstances.
