ABSTRACT
This essay focuses on the issue of Sufic devotion in Muslim communities that once belonged to traditional Sufi orders, but nowadays no longer consider themselves to form part of them. Turkish Muslim organizations that dominate Muslim life in Europe offer themselves for a case study. Milli Gorüs¸, Nurçu and Sulaymançi all descend from the Naqshbandi Order, but in the course of the twentieth century they came to embrace different organizational principles and religious foci. For the past four years, I have studied forms of collective memory and religious communication among the Sulaymançi in Europe.1 More recently, I have carried out fieldwork in Milli Gorüs¸ mosques. It is my argument that these organizations constitute Sufic lay communities, holding on to Sufic devotion while refocusing on worldly religious aims.
