ABSTRACT
In the last fifty years Britain’s Muslim presence has been transformed by the arrival of various populations, predominantly from Pakistan and Bangladesh, but also from Malaysia, Turkish Cyprus, Iran, Yemen, North, West and East Africa. These are all places where, either historically or as a living faith tradition, Sufism is significant. Although slow to organize themselves in the British Muslim diaspora, the last twenty years has seen the transplantation of several prominent Sufi tariqas, including various offshoots of the Naqshbandis, Chishtis, Qadiris, Mevlevis, Alawis, Shadhilis and Tijanis. The establishment of these tariqas has provided a series of organizational structures to the prevailing tendency towards ‘folk’ or ‘popular’ Islam in the above populations who mostly originated from rural areas. The tariqas have capitalized on the strong empathy with the teachings of traditional Islam1 as embodied within Sufism and in recent years have been able to provide a unifying Islamic discourse based on practice and belief and drawing upon the traditional loyalty of the above populations to the leadership of pirs and shaykhs rather than the ‘ulama. In spite of the strong presence of orthodoxy manifested in Wahhabi and neo-revivalist movements, it is nonetheless true to say that the British Muslim population is predominantly traditional rather than orthodox and maintains a strong Sufi allegiance.2
