Is there such a Thing as Islamic Esotericism?

Summary

The term “Western esotericism” seems to exclude Islam, as the West and Islam are often taken as binary opposites, and as some scholars have suggested that Western esotericism is so Western that it is essentially distinct from non-Western phenomena. Others have argued that while Western and non-Western esotericism may be hard to distinguish in structural terms at a theoretical level, it is still necessary to treat Western esotericism separately from a methodological perspective, as this allows scholars to situate it historically. Both these views imply that there should be a distinctly “Islamic” esotericism. In fact, however, Islamic esotericism has so much in common with Western esotericism that it is wrong to treat Islamic and Western esotericism as distinct entities. They are theoretically and historically situated together. Islamic conceptions of esotericism have historically been close to Western ones, partly because they have common origins, and partly because there have been transfers between Islamic and Western esotericism over the centuries, transfers which continue today. Islamic esotericism differs from Western esotericism in its sociology, however, since while Western esotericism has usually been marginal and controversial, arguably a form of “rejected knowledge,” Islamic esotericism has mostly been close to the mainstream, though sometimes also controversial.

Placing the terms “Islamic” and “Western” in opposition to each other is popular and sometimes useful, but is also problematic, if only because it compares a religious term with a geographical term – and an imprecise geographical term at that, since Athens, which most people would place in the West, is 2,500 kilometres to the east of Morocco. Both terms, however, also indicate civilisations, and in religious terms the Western civilisation is now generally understood as Judeo-Christian. The term “Islamic,” then, may be placed in opposition to “Judeo-Christian,” and if we think in terms of associated civilisations rather than of bodies of orthodox doctrine, we may distinguish civilisationally Islamic esotericism from civilisationally Judeo-Christian esotericism, especially during the many centuries when the Atlantic end of the Eurasian landmass was divided into distinct Islamic and Christian spheres, one using Arabic as its common intellectual language, and the other using Latin or Greek.

One complication, however, is that until very recently Jews lived in both Islamic and Christian societies, and so can hardly be assigned exclusively to the West.