Aspects of the Sūfism of the Rifaciyya in Bulgaria and Macedonia in the light of the study published by Canon W. H. T. Gairdner in The Moslem World

Abstract

Abstract Amongst the major Sufi orders, the Rifaciyya has received less attention than several others. It is only recently that detailed studies of its branches in the Balkans have been published by Alexandre Popovic, Nathalie Clayer and Liliana Masulovic‐Marsol This fact alone makes Canon Gairdner's article on the Rifaci dhikr and the spiritual path (tariq) of the order, which was published in The Moslem World (Vol. 11, 1912, pp. 171–181 and 245–257), an unusually interesting one. This is so, despite the narrowly focused view of the spiritual vision of the order which he obtained from two converted, or Christian‐influenced, Turkish ‘Shaykhs’ from Bulgaria. He met them in Potsdam during those years when he was a ‘wandering scholar’ in Germany (1910–1911) immediately prior to the publication of his translation of al‐Ghazali's, Mishkat al‐anwar in Der Islam in 1914. His information is sparse in regard to factual details about the distribution and the importance of the order in Bulgaria and Macedonia at that time. On the other hand, his description of the dhikr and the complicated esoteric scheme of the Sevenfold Spiritual Path that was followed by the initiated prior to his attainment of the Divine Reality (al‐haqiqa) is vividly conveyed and is remarkably detailed. In this respect, his study is a pioneer discovery. It predates, for example, J. P. Brown's, The Darvishes, or Oriental Spiritualism (London, 1927), Dr K. Dittmer's, Riten des Rufaci‐Ordens ('Heulende Derwische') in Serajevo (Berlin, 1939), and John Kmgsley Birge's, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes (London and Hartford, USA, 1937). The article assesses the value of Gairdner's discoveries today and the light shed by him upon the esoteric doctrines taught in the Sūfi orders in Bulgaria at that time. It also questions the criteria adopted in the Christian approach to Sūfism, in general In some current Sufi studies the existence of ‘heterogeneous baggage’ which exists at all levels in the orders is sometimes overlooked. The relationship between Sūfism in the Balkans and the prevailing Eastern Orthodoxy, which at a popular level is equally ‘heterodox’, is a subject which deserves to be re‐examined urgently. It has a bearing on the misunderstandings and the current strained, even inimical, relations between Christians and Muslims in the Balkans at the century's close.