What does it mean?
What does Sufism mean?
Sufism is The Persian path of the heart — where the lover finds the Beloved by losing the self.
Where it comes from
Rumi · Hafiz · Attar · Ibn Arabi · Al-Ghazali · the Sufi tradition · 8th century onward. The word lives in the long lineage of practice-oriented practice, but its specific shape is unmistakably Persia — and that shape is part of the answer.
What the practice actually is
Rumi is the bestselling poet in America. Hafiz is quoted at weddings and on coffee mugs. Yet almost no one in the West has practiced what they were writing about. Sufism — the mystical heart of Islam, with branches in Persia, Anatolia, Khorasan, and Andalusia — is the longest unbroken mystical tradition in the world. T…
If you want to go deeper
A short definition is a doorway, not a room. The full practice — the framework, the daily tools, the verses or maxims, the warnings, what to do today — lives in the concept hub below.