1 Social Movements and Contemporary Sufism

Despite a long debate that started in the 1970s and several calls for collaboration, the relationship between social movement studies and religious studies is still problematic (Zald, 1982; Zald & McCarthy, 1987; Hannigan, 1991; Kniss & Burns, 2004). Alain Touraine distinguished these two fields by identifying religious movements as anti-movements, “often closer to waiting for the Day of Judgement than to strategy and negotiation” (1981, p. 98). Similarly, Alberto Melucci considered religious movements to be characterised by “regressive utopia[s]” (1992, p. 59) focused on the revivification of a glorious past rather than on tackling the issues of contemporary societies.

Other scholars have explored the boundaries between social movements and religious phenomena, implying the importance of intermingling social movement theories with the sociology of religion. This interdisciplinary approach favours treating (religious) values and political action not as separate exogenous causes, but as interlaced variables (Hannigan, 1991; Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1994; Kniss & Burns, 2004).

Within the frame of Islamic studies, social movement theories and methodologies have been mainly applied to describing Islamist and Salafist movements in opposition to Western modernity and secular states (Mandaville, 2011; Wiktorowicz, 2012). Another path has been taken by Asef Bayat, following Melucci’s approach (Melucci, 1989, 1992), by showing social change in everyday life and in cultural production (Bayat, 2005, 2013a, 2013b). Bayat’s social change did not fit within the mainstream categories of Islamism, secularism, and liberalism; in fact the protagonists of his research inhabited different social, political and religious spheres, invoking both secular and religious narratives.

To my knowledge, Sufism — the spiritual dimension of Islam — has never been studied with the social movement approach. This is probably due to the focus on the main social manifestation of Sufism — the Sufi order (ṭarīqa in Arabic, ṭuruq plural), which has a rich and complex history dating from the 12^th century (Trimingham, 1971; Veinstein & Popovic, 1996; Green, 2012). A Sufi order implies specific organisational structures, rituals, hierarchies and practices, but, as has been argued, Sufi orders are shapeshifting phenomena that change according to the socio-historical context (Sedgwick, 2000).

Furthermore, Sufism cannot be identified exclusively with the Sufi order; in fact, several Sufi phenomena have crossed over from the different forms of the ṭarīqa in contemporary societies, becoming public devotional practices (Howe, 2019), embodying feminist and LGBTQ claims (Piraino & Zambelli, 2018; Kugle, 2011; Shaikh, 2012), and merging with forms of contemporary popular culture such as rap (Bourderionnet, 2011; Brigaglia, 2019).

Since the later part of the 20^th century, Sufism has been experiencing a period of renewal; new charismatic leaders have energised old Sufi orders or founded new ones (Quinn & Quinn, 2003; Bruinessen & Howell, 2007; Dominguez-Diaz, 2014). Sufism has also spread into Europe and North America, as shown by numerous studies (Westerlund, 2004; Geaves et al., 2009; Raudvere & Stenberg, 2009; Geaves & Gabriel, 2013; Malik & Zarrabi-Zadeh, 2019; Piraino & Sedgwick, 2019), due to migration fluxes (Kane, 2011), the encounter with Western esotericism (Sedgwick, 2004a; Bisson, 2013; Piraino, 2016, 2019a), and the New Age culture (Sedgwick, 2016).

In this article, I will describe the emergence of a network composed of Sufi religious leaders, scholars, intellectuals, and artists, coming from different Sufi orders, often in competition. This network has flourished starting with the Festival des Musiques Sacrées du Monde¹ (World Sacred Music Festival) founded by Faouzi Skali in the 1990s in Fez (Morocco), and it is now diffusing thanks to several Sufi cultural events, foundations, festivals, exhibitions, and lectures. These Sufi events are mainly based in Morocco and in France and the main languages are Arabic and French, even if the participants come from the entire Mediterranean region.

Unlike other forms of transnational network based on ethnicities and/or “imagined” or “real” Islamic communities (Mandaville, 2001; Saint-Blancat, 2004; Schmidt, 2005), this network focuses on Sufism, conceptualised as a heritage meant for all humankind, addressing both Muslim and non-Muslim publics. This Sufi legacy (religious, intellectual, and aesthetic) aims to have an impact on contemporary societies.

For these reasons, I consider that this Sufi network could be efficaciously described using the toolkit of social movement studies,² rather than using the framework of (new or old) religious movements. In fact, the Sufi network here discussed is not a religious movement nor an organisation, but it could be described as having: 1) “informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organisations, engaged in political or cultural conflicts” (Diani, 1992, p. 2); “clearly identified opponents”; 3) a “collective identity” (Della Porta & Diani, 2006, p. 20) or a “solidarity” (Melucci, 1989, p. 29) that goes beyond Sufi affiliation and doctrines; 4) profited from the “political opportunity structures” (McAdam et al., 2001) offered by nation state powers interested in displaying a pluralistic and tolerant Islam.

I will illustrate how this network fosters religious pluralism, human rights, and intercultural dialogue, presenting itself as a moralising force capable of tackling Islamophobia, Islamism and some negative trends in globalisation/Western modernity. This could be considered to be an example of the “rebuilding of the public sphere on the basis of a notion of intercultural civility” (Salvatore, 2004, p. 1029), merging philosophies, social sciences, natural sciences, and Islamic and Sufi sources.

On the other hand, this attempt does not come without a cost; it implies a negotiation with secular, religious, and national powers, interested in controlling the Islamic field, and in promoting a tolerant and apolitical Islam, compliant with national powers. These negotiations imply a “consensual politics”, which means that Sufi leaders try to find a precarious balance between opposing ideas and practices, by focusing on abstract concepts such as justice and human dignity and avoiding complicated issues such as social injustice in Morocco or secular normativity in France. This politics is well represented by Faouzi Skali’s enigmatic motto: “we have to spiritualise politics, and not to politicise spirituality.”³

2 Methodology

I reconstructed this Sufi network starting from the Festival des Musiques Sacrées du Monde and the Festival de Culture Soufie,⁴ both based in Fez, which I attended in 2016, 2018 and 2017, 2018 respectively. I noticed that these festivals were connected to other Sufi festivals and organisations in Europe and North Africa, sharing the same nucleus of keynote speakers. Following the snowball qualitative approach, I discovered and studied the Fondation Conscience Soufie⁵ and the Festival Soufi de Paris,⁶ both based in France, and the NGO Mouvement Cercle souffles.⁷

During the ethnographic fieldwork on Sufi festivals and other Sufi cultural events, I interviewed the main actors of this network: such as the intellectuals Faouzi Skali, Salamatou Sow, Mohammed Ghani, Éric Geoffroy and Abderrahim Hafidi, Courtney Erwin; the artist Rachid Koraïchi; the politician Bariza Khiari; and the religious leaders Hassan Dyck, Abdellah Ouazzani and Khaled Bentounes. Finally, my previous fieldwork in Europe and in North Africa with Sufi orders between 2012 and 2018 allowed me to grasp the differences between this public Sufi network and the Sufi orders (in particular Būdshīshiyya, ʿAlāwiyya, Tijāniyya, and Naqshbandiyya Ḥaqqāniyya).

3 At the Origins of the Sufi Network: The Festival of World Sacred Music

The Festival of World Sacred Music (Festival des Musiques Sacrées du Monde) was founded by the intellectual Faouzi Skali and the politician Mohammed Kabbaj in Fez in 1994. At the beginning of the 1990s this festival hosted a few concerts playing sacred music from all over the world. Over the years the festival grew in importance, and from the 2000s it gained an international reputation, attracting famous musicians⁸ and thousands of international visitors, which has strongly contributed to the touristic development of the city of Fez, Morocco (McGuinness, 2012).

The dissemination of sacred music was not the only aim of this festival. The Festival fostered interreligious dialogue by inviting musicians and intellectuals coming from different religious traditions; for example, in 1996 the Philharmonic Orchestra of Sarajevo played their first concert after the Bosnian war in Fez (McGuinness, 2012). Furthermore, the Festival fostered a discussion and critique of globalisation, as regards neo-liberal politics and neo-colonialism, critiques that did not reject modernity per se, but called instead for pluralism, ethics, and spirituality.

This cultural-political engagement flourished from 2001, with the establishment of the Forum “giving globalisation a soul” (donner une âme à la mondialisation), a set of conferences given during the days of the Festival, which appeared as an edited book in 2003 (Eersel, 2003). The United Nations declared Faouzi Skali and his Festival “[u]nsung heroes of dialogue”, for their engagement in intercultural dialogue (Kemp & Kemp, 2010). We should bear in mind that in those years the “clash of civilisations” (Huntington, 1996) was a mainstream narrative, and the wars in the Balkans and in Iraq were raging: “we [the Muslims] were the radical alterity”, comments Abderrahim Hafidi, professor at INALCO⁹ and key figure of this Sufi network.¹⁰ In this Festival an open and pluralistic image of Islam was presented as the “true Islam” (McGuinness, 2010).

This cultural-political engagement is comprehensible only if we contextualise it within the Sufi frame. In fact, Skali explained that the Festival was possible only thanks to its Sufi background,¹¹ in particular thanks to his shaykh, Hamza al-Qādīrī al-Būdshīshī (1922-2017), who led the Sufi order Būdshīshiyya from 1972 to 2017. The Būdshīshiyya became in a few years one of the most important North African Sufi orders, with a global diffusion (Chih, 2012; Dominguez-Diaz, 2014; Sedgwick, 2004b). Many Moroccan and European Būdshīshī disciples describe a “Sufism for everybody”, due to a teaching focused on love and compassion rather than on ascetic practices and dogmas. This doctrinal openness allowed the spectacularising of Sufi practises, in fact the sacred ritual of samāʿ (Sufi music) crossed over from the zāwyas (Sufi school) to jump onto the Festival scene. This process was facilitated by the Moroccan nation state, which has close links to Sufism in general (Tozy, 1990; Cornell, 1998) and in particular to the Būdshīshiyya (Chih, 2012). The Moroccan state promotes Sufism and Sufi culture as a part of Moroccan cultural heritage, and as a tolerant Islam respectful of the King’s religious and political role.¹²

Having said that, Faouzi Skali’s cultural and political engagement cannot be reduced to the Sufi frame. Skali, born in Fez in 1953, has followed a heterogenous path. His grandparents were professors at the prestigious Islamic University of al-Qarawiyyīn and also Sufi local leaders. However, Skali neglected the Sufi path during his years of education in Paris, focusing on Sartrean existentialism and rediscovering Sufism only later, during his Ph.D in the anthropology of religion at the Sorbonne University. The connection between his spiritual quest and his intellectual scientific research is so profound that he started having spiritual dreams that led him to the Būdshīshiyya during his reading of the Orientalist (and Protestant) Henry Corbin’s book Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi (1977).¹³ Skali represents a transnational Islamic humanism, merging different languages and epistemologies (Piraino, 2019b, 2022).

Faouzi Skali directed the Festival for more than 20 years, but nowadays the Festival is led by Abderrafih Zouitene. We do not know the causes of this separation; they could be related to artistic, religious, or political disagreements or to organisational factors. What is evident is that the new Festival des musiques sacrées du monde without Faouzi Skali (from 2014 onward) is less focused on the spiritual dimension and more on the spectacular dimensions of music. For example, during the lectures in the Festival’s Forum in 2018, most religious interventions were performed by the French philosopher Edgar Morin (born 1921), who evoked the sacred and the universal, while the Moroccan intellectuals gave lectures focused on scientific subjects related to their field (architecture, history, anthropology, cognitive sciences). This renewed Festival is described by Moroccan intellectuals close to Skali as a “socialite event” and “like a machine,”¹⁴ underlining how both the cultural-political and the spiritual engagement are waning.

The spiritual dimension moved to another festival: the Festival of Sufi Culture (le Festival de la culture soufie) founded in 2007 by Faouzi Skali, held in the medina of Fez. Like the previous festival, the Sufi festival is committed to the diffusion of Sufism to the Moroccan public and to fostering another image of Islam for the international public.¹⁵ The difference concerns the stronger focus on the intellectual debates, which are held for 7 days, from 10am to 6pm. Renowned scholars from Europe, the MENA region and Sub-Saharan Africa are invited to discuss religious, political, and scientific matters. The music is less present, there are not the big stars that attracted thousands of visitors, but Sufi poetry readings and Sufi concerts are performed during the evenings.

Among the participants in these Festivals are some prominent intellectual and religious figures who have started to organise new Sufi festivals in Europe and Africa, following the aims and structures of these Sufi Festivals in Morocco, inviting the same key figures, and creating de facto a network of Sufis. The Tijānī anthropologist Salamatou Sow organised a Sufi Festival in Niamey (Niger) in 2011; the Naqshbandi leader Abdelhafid Benchouk and the artist Amel Boutouchent organised the Festival soufi de Paris¹⁶ in 2017, 2018, and 2019. One of the Tijānī religious leaders (khalīfa) Ibrahim Tijānī founded the NGO Mouvement Cercle souffles¹⁷ (Circle of breath or spirit), based in Morocco, but with different branches in Europe and in West Africa. This NGO organises the Sufi Forum Festival and it is working for the creation of a museum of Sufism in Senegal.

Other organisational forms complete this Sufi network, such as the associations Fondation Conscience Soufi (Sufi Conscience Foundation) founded in France in 2016 by the ʿAlawī historian Éric Geoffroy, and the Rābiṭa majmʿa sālaḥ (Association for the common good or good government), founded in Morocco by the Sufi Shaykh Abdellah Ouazzani. Finally, many of the protagonists of this network participate in the events organised by the Institut du Monde Arabe¹⁸ (Paris) and Institut des Cultures d’Islam¹⁹ (Paris).

To give an idea of the intertwined relations in this Sufi network, the Sufi leader of the Moroccan order Ouazāniyya is responsible for the training of Imams in France (in the area of Marseilles), in West Africa, and in Morocco. Furthermore, he is a key figure in the Sufi festivals previously mentioned, and he participates in the activities of the French Fondation Conscience Soufie and in the Moroccan Rābiṭa Muhammediyya ʿulamāʾ (League of Theologians), and is the founder of the Rābiṭa Majmʿa Sālaḥ (Association for the common good or good government).

4 Conflict and Social Change

If conflict is considered a main characteristic of social movements, its definition is far from being univocal. Some scholars conceptualise conflict as the clash of historicities, the “overall system[s] of meaning which set[s] dominant rules in a given society” (Touraine, 1981, p. 81), while others consider conflict only among actors in the public sphere (Tilly, 1989), and others argue that conflict has shifted towards cultural change (Melucci, 1989). More recently, contemporary academic literature on social movements considers also “personal change” as a field for conflict, not limiting it to the realm of political actions (Della Porta & Diani, 2006, p. 23).

The conflict that characterises the Sufi network here discussed concerns Islamism and globalisation/modernity, which are regarded as strictly intertwined by these Sufis. If the first may be clearly identified by detecting movements and actors, the latter is more a generic critique against some trends of Western modernity.

The activities planned in order to counter Islamism and the negative trends of globalisation/modernity are related to the Sufi presence in the public sphere. These Sufis organise festivals, conferences, concerts, and exhibitions, and write books and articles. As shaykh Ibrāhīm Tijānī claims, they “fight extremism through art.”²⁰ These Sufis believe that these events can raise awareness of what they consider the correct interpretation of Islam and the danger of some trends in globalisation.

As regards the conflict with Islamist movements, there are different approaches within this Sufi network. Some prefer a strong opposition to Islamism, which they describe as “cultural emptiness” and “cultural uprooting,”²¹ while Sufism, to them, represents the traditional Islam. In other circumstances, some Sufi leaders prefer to avoid a direct confrontation with Islamism, remarking instead on the responsibility of each Muslim.

Sufism is not there to fight against this other Islam, which is developing from a cultural loss and denaturation accomplished by Wahhabism. Our Islam exists since the beginning, an Islam of the origins that we need simply to recover. (Zouari, 2005)

Contemporary Sufi orders have been often the place for eschatological narratives which describe Western modernity as the final phase of the end times. This eschatology is based on both Islamic narratives and exogenous narratives drawing from Western esotericism and New Age culture (Nielsen et al., 2006; Piraino, 2020b). On the other hand, the attitude towards globalisation and Western modernity is more nuanced in the Sufi network.

We do not refuse globalisation, unlike others. This is an historical fact. But there are different kinds of globalisation […]. There are some things to globalise and other to de-globalise. We cannot let this globalisation monopolise us.²²

Unlike other Islamist groups (Wiktorowicz, 2012) and many Sufi orders (Sedgwick, 2004a; Damrel, 2006), the Sufi network does not intend to reject globalisation and Western modernity as a monolithic whole, but rather to take what is considered useful and limit what is considered dangerous and immoral. A common narrative in this network is that the Sufi is the “son of his time” (ibn al-waqt), which does not mean modern, but capable of addressing the challenges of his time (Geoffroy, n.a.).

This Sufi network presents itself as a “moralising force […]. We as citizens, as Sufi leaders, it’s us that have to start the reconciliation” between Islam and modernity, the Moroccan Shaykh Ouazzani argues.²³ A Moroccan professor working in Paris, Abderrahim Hafidi, describes Sufism as an “ethical magisterium.”²⁴ If human rights and democracy are regarded as positive aspects of modernity and globalisation, there are also some negative trends, such as individualism, neoliberal politics, pollution, consumerism, and identarian politics, negative trends that can be tackled only through a spiritual regeneration.

These Sufis do not acknowledge the supposed “clash of civilisations” described by Huntington (1996) between Islam and Western modernity, as they consider that the clash is between a decadent Western imperialism and a void religious form — Islamism. “It is not a clash of civilisations, it is a clash of non-sense [conneries in the original].”²⁵

5 Sufi Network Collective Identity: Narratives and Practices

With the category “collective identity”, Alberto Melucci (1989, 1992) emphasised the process of negotiation of ideas and practices within a group or movement. Collective identity cannot be reduced to the “logic of a means-ends calculation, or of a political rationality, but always carries with it margins of non-negotiability in the reasons for and ways of acting together” (Melucci, 1992, p. 49), and represents what creates a “we”. Similarly, Della Porta and Diani underlined how the collective action cannot be reduced to a set of specific goals, but happens when a group think about themselves “as elements of much larger and encompassing processes of change — or resistance to change” (Della Porta & Diani, 2006, p. 22).

The narratives and practices common to all the activities analysed in Europe as in North Africa that underpin the “collective we” of this Sufi network, are: 1) the universal message of Sufism and at the same time its Islamic-ness; 2) the necessity of going beyond the Sufi order structure; 3) the fundamental importance and Islamic-ness of religious pluralism; 4) the fundamental importance and Islamic-ness of democratic engagement and human rights; 5) the merging of Sufi-Islamic hermeneutics with social, human, and natural sciences; 6) the merging of artistic performance with religious rituals.

6 Contextual Factors, Opportunity Structures, and Political Opportunity

In order to frame the development of a network, we need also to understand the “contextual factors” and political opportunities which “facilitate and constrain [its] emergence and operation” (Snow et al., 2004, p. 12). One of the most important is the cultural trendiness of Sufism, which has become a cultural product, thanks to the process of artification employed by these Festivals, but above all thanks to the globalisation and sometimes de-Islamisation of Sufi literature (Irwin, 2019; Sedgwick, 2009), which has made Sufism interesting not only for Muslims, but also to spiritual seekers.

The most important factor that favoured the development of the Sufi network is the collaboration with Moroccan state power. The political and religious legitimisation of the makhzen (the state power composed of the monarchy, notables and top ranking military personnel in Morocco) has been closely connected with Moroccan Sufi orders since the Middle Ages (Cornell, 1998). In contemporary Morocco, the relations between the former king, Ḥasan II, and Sufi orders were tense (Sedgwick, 2004b), probably due to their political and religious authority, which he regarded as a possible threat. Furthermore, the main Islamist movement opposed to the King, Al-ʿAdl wa al-Iḥsān (Justice and Spirituality), was founded by a former Sufi disciple (Belal, 2006).

In the 2000s King Muḥammad VI inaugurated a new era, stating that Moroccan Islam was imbued with Sufism and therefore moderate and tolerant (Wainscott, 2017). This relationship was sealed by the appointment of many Sufis among the Moroccan political elite, including the Minister of Religious Affairs Ahmed Toufīq (Chih, 2012; Muedini, 2012, 2015). Furthermore, Sufism has been used by the makhzen as a form of soft power to expand its control in West Africa (Lanza, 2012; Sambe, 2010; Wainscott, 2018). Finally, King Muḥammad VI opened a discussion about religious freedom and democracy, even if, as has been argued by some scholars, these reforms remained trapped in a security dimension (Maghraoui, 2009), and did not address the social injustices present in Morocco (Madani, 2011; Maddy-Weitzman & Zisenwine, 2012).

The collaboration between the Sufi network and the Moroccan nation state does not imply a homogenous political position among these Sufis, nor that they are passive in negotiating with national powers. This network gives more power to the Sufis to influence the social context, countering its opponents (Islamism), but also influencing its allies (state powers).

If I can influence I do it, I say it sincerely. Every time that I have the opportunity to be with politicians[…] I try to influence them and help them in adopting an ethical and moral position in their everyday life practices of politics.⁴⁴

Another good example of the political heterogeneity among these Sufis is the discussion that I witnessed in 2018 at the Festival of Sufi Culture, where the French politician Bariza Khiari and the Moroccan scholar Abderrahim Hafidi clashed in discussing the political role that Sufism should play. For the French senator, Sufism was the antidote to Islamism, and she remarked how Moroccan Sufism saved the monarchy and democracy from the dangerous Islamists who protested on the 20^th of February 2011 in Casablanca. Hafidi had a different point of view; Sufism should be an ethical substratum, not an antidote, and it should not intervene in political matters. Furthermore, he did not consider the protests of 20^th February to have been composed only of dangerous extremists, but recognised the social inequalities that moved Moroccan people to demonstrate. The Festival host Faouzi Skali tried to mitigate the discussion by using his catchphrase: “we don’t have to politicise spirituality, but spiritualise politics,”⁴⁵ leaving unanswered the dilemma of the political role of Sufism, and the paradox of a Festival that promotes religious pluralism and human rights being financed by a state that is struggling between democratic reforms and repressive politics.

Another important factor that favoured the development of the Sufi network is the collaboration with French secular state power, interested in promoting a liberal Islam in opposition to Salafism. In particular, in 2016, the French Minister of the Interior decided to influence the Islamic field, by founding the Fondation Islam de France (Foundation for French Islam).

The Foundation for French Islam (FIF) is born from the will to oppose the Salafist ideology with knowledge, [Salafist ideology] that nourishes the violence of extremist jihadists. The aim of the Foundation is to respond to an emergency: consolidating the national harmony. It contributes to the construction of a French Islam, rooted in French society, in its principles and in Republican values.⁴⁶

Among the activities that are promoted by the FIF there are several events organised by this Sufi network,⁴⁷ which promote an Islam aligned with “French Republican values”, and do not challenge the normative French secularism.

The relationship between the French secular normativity and this Sufi network is as problematic as the relationship with Moroccan state power. A good example of this precarious equilibrium is expressed by what happened in 2019 at the Festival of Sufi Culture, where a participant congratulated the Muslim activist Asma Lamrabet on her decision to remove her hijab,⁴⁸ implying all the negative stereotypes of veiled Muslim women. Another participant strongly criticised this statement, assuming that it was an attack on all Muslim women who do wear the hijab. Skali stifled the heated discussion by stating that the Festival does not produce fatwā,⁴⁹ preferring to avoid sensitive topics, such as the value of the Islamic veil, and the problematic laws in Europe concerning the ban on religious symbols in public places,⁵⁰ probably disappointing both parties.

The legitimisation of this network is not limited to nation state powers, but comes also from other religious authorities who attend these events, such as Rabbi Gabriel Haggaï, and the Catholic monks of Tibhirine, Algeria (who escaped the massacre in 1996). It is more difficult to evaluate the relations between this Sufi network and the population. For example, in Morocco, the expensive tickets discourage the participation in the Festival of people coming from the working class. De facto, the Festivals are reserved to Europeans and the Moroccan middle and upper classes. The intellectual Hafidi confirmed that this is a raw nerve, and that he would like to involve Moroccan students in the forthcoming editions of the Festival. The situation in Paris is completely different; at the Festival of Sufism many people of different cultural backgrounds and socio-economic status participate, contributing to legitimising this network from the bottom. These differences between Fez and Paris, together with the fact that we are discussing a newly formed network, discourage me from assessing whether this network represents only a small elite of Sufi intellectuals or if it embodies the ideas and wishes of a wider part of the population.

Finally, we have to consider the “opportunities structures” that the social context offers (Melucci, 1992, p. 67) to its Sufi participants. The opportunities that this network offers to its actors are not limited to the negotiation with nation state powers, nor to the legitimisation in the public sphere implied in participating in prestigious international events. Another opportunity offered by this network is reaching potential new audiences, such as lifelong Muslims who are interested in spirituality and arts, but might have prejudices against Sufi orders — the anti-Sufi bias is still quite widely diffused in Morocco, due to Islamist, modernist, and nationalist opposition to Sufism (Sirriyeh, 2014). Non-Muslims as potential new converts to Islam are another public reached by this network; as we have seen, these Sufi festivals are open to everybody beyond religious differences, but at the same time promote “the beauty of Islam”. However, one could wonder if and how proselytism is possible in the frame of the religious pluralism professed by these Sufis. Hence, I would define it as a sort of “soft proselytism”.

Furthermore, the network is a space of intellectual, artistic, and religious freedom for Sufis, who are free to discuss delicate topics that otherwise would not be accepted in many Sufi orders. Themes such as gender equality, human rights, epistemological hybridity, which are commonly discussed in this network, like the artification of Sufism, would not be accepted by all Sufi disciples in the frame of the Sufi orders. In fact, contemporary Sufi orders are shapeshifting and heterogeneous phenomena which can harbour both progressive and conservative positions on politics and morality.

As we have seen, the Sufi Festivals — the Sufi network — is not meant to replace the organisational structures of the Sufi orders. The Sufi actors here described, such as intellectuals, politicians, artists, and to a lesser extent religious leaders, do not want to create a new religious movement, but a new space for internal and external dialogue. One could wonder if this Sufi network offers opportunities within the structures of the Sufi orders: “is there a strategic gain in participating in this network?” one might ask. I think that in the well-structured Sufi orders, such as ʿAlāwiyya, Būdshīshiyya, and Tijāniyya, the internal hierarchies are not influenced by belonging to this network. In fact, local leaders are indicated by the shaykhs, and consequently, disciples’ roles and responsibilities are decided by local leaders. In this frame, to my knowledge, famous Sufi disciples do not climb the hierarchies of the Sufi order. Slightly different is the case of Sufi orders, such as the Naqshbandiyya-Ḥaqqāniyya, which have a fluid organisational structure (Damrel, 2006; Nielsen et al., 2006). In this case, local leaders have an entrepreneurial role, promoting and shaping their zāwiya, and are often in competition to attract more disciples (Piraino, 2020b). Hence, participating in this Sufi network could contribute to legitimising Naqshbandi local leaders, both within and outside this Sufi order.

7 Conclusion

Contemporary Sufi orders led by charismatic leaders have attracted many scholars, artists, politicians, and journalists, both in North Africa and in Europe. These intellectuals, both lifelong Muslims and converts to Sufi-Islam, have organised several cultural events, festivals, associations and exhibitions, and they write articles and books about Islam and Sufism. These cultural events have led to the formation of a network of Sufis, affiliated to different orders.

In this article, which represents the first attempt to describe this new phenomenon, I have showed how this network could be viewed through the lenses of social movement theories, using the categories of Melucci, Della Porta and Diani. Despite some tensions that I have described, the network shares a “collective identity” based on: 1) the universal message of Sufism and at the same time its Islamic-ness; 2) the necessity of going beyond the Sufi orders structure; 3) the fundamental importance and Islamic-ness of religious pluralism; 4) the fundamental importance and Islamic-ness of democratic engagement and human rights; 5) the merging of Sufi-Islamic hermeneutics with social, human, and natural sciences; and 6) the merging of artistic performance with religious rituals.

This network presents itself as a moralising force capable of tacking Islamophobia, Islamism, and some negative trends in globalisation, by raising awareness among Muslims and non-Muslims through the publication of books and the organisation of cultural events.

The development of this network has been facilitated by the process of artification of Sufism, which has become a fashionable topic even among non-Sufis and non-Muslims. This has meant a bigger audience and also better funding for developing these Sufi cultural activities. Furthermore, this network was facilitated by the collaboration with national powers.

This precarious but pragmatic balance between different competing ideas and powers is not new in the history of social movements, which are often described as a form of “hetereogeneous and fragile” mobilisation (Melucci, 1989, p. 4). The conciliatory approach of this network resonates well with Peter Mandaville’s concept of “pragmatism”.

This is not a pragmatism defined in terms of short-term tactical compromise, a willingness to negotiate on strategy and a privileging of practical outcomes over theory, ideology and even principle — but rather a notion of the pragmatic that derives from the more literal roots of pragma as ‘’deed’‘. In other words, a movement premised on the idea that social vision is expressed through the everyday activities that characterise a particular way of’‘being in the world’’, rather than through external organisation towards the achievement of political power or a national consciousness (Mandaville, 2011, p. 13).

On the other hand, this pragmatism implies some shortcomings; in fact, it has to be stressed that if this network promotes religious pluralism, democratic participation and justice, without touching on delicate topics such as the violation of human rights in Morocco or French secular normativity, it risks reducing its credibility and in some cases reproducing the stereotype of the “Good Sufi” versus the “Bad Muslim” (Safi, 2011).

To conclude, I would like to briefly discuss the Sufism here analysed within the frame of the so called “spiritual turn” in contemporary societies. Since its founding fathers, such as George Simmel (1968) and Ernst Troeltsch (1912), the sociology of religion has described the increase in individual religious experiences to the detriment of participation in institutional religions, which were supposed to decline. These authors described the prominence of mystical experiences and fluid religious organisational structures in the developing modernity. Today, several sociologists still agree with this analysis, even if they prefer to use the category of spirituality instead of mysticism (Houtman & Aupers, 2007; Woodhead et al., 2005). Following this perspective, one could ask if the Sufism presented in this article corresponds to the spiritual turn described by many sociologists. I think that there is no single answer. On the one hand, the Sufi Festivals, thanks to the intellectual debates and rituals performed onstage, offer to spiritual seekers the opportunity to live the “experience of Sufism”, its beauty, without belonging to a Sufi order, and even without being a Muslim. Attending these Festivals would be a surrogate of the Sufi religious experience, what Stark and Bainbridge would call an “audience cult” (1979, p. 126). On the other hand, spiritual seekers are not the only participants in these Festivals, where there are several practicing Sunni Muslims, who find in this social movement not a way to challenge Sufi orders, but a place for creating new synergies among Sufi orders, exploring ideas and aesthetics, and implementing politics. Following this perspective, the Sufi Festivals — the social movement — are not just another expression of an individualistic spirituality, but another way of living and embodying Islamic spirituality, both in the private and in the public spheres.