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Sufism in Canada

Sufism in Canada

Weaving Islamic Practice and Contemporary Spirituality

Edited by Geneviève Mercier-Dalphond and Merin Shobhana Xavier

Published by: UBC Press

Imprint: UBC Press

7 b&w photos

Digital download
9780774870719
Published: April 2025

Digital download
9780774870726
Published: April 2025

Description
Contents
Authors

This accessible work will resonate with students and scholars of religious studies and Islamic studies, and engage any reader interested in understanding Sufi and religious history in Canada.

Introduction / Merin Shobhana Xavier and Geneviève Mercier-Dalphond

Part I: Situating Sufism

1 Sacred Landscapes and Universal Sufism: From Canada to South Asia / Geneviève Mercier-Dalphond

2 Circles of Remembrance: The Halveti-Jerrahis of Toronto / Atif Khalil

3 Sufism and Spiritual Ecology: The Pacific Northwest / Merin Shobhana Xavier

4 Shaykh Ibrahim Joel Kreps: A Sufi Sage of Montreal / Marcia Hermansen

Part II: Practices and Rituals

5 What Is "Sufi" about the Montreal Sufi Centre? A Portrait of a Neighbourhood Zawiya / Naïm Jeanbart

6 The MTO Shahmaghsoudi Order: From Iran to Canada / Emily Victoria Hanlon

7 Branches of Sound: The Aurality of Safety in Sufi Toronto / Alia O’Brien

Part III: Reflections on Sufism

8 Reweaving Old Sufi Stories: Three Canadian Writers / Sara Abdel-Latif

9 Speculations on Sufism and Gender in Canada: Critical Dialogue between Two Racialized Scholars / Amina Jamal and Maryam Khan

10 Light upon Light: Would Sufism by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet? / Abdul-Rehman Malik

Index

Geneviève Mercier-Dalphond is an independent scholar in Islamic and gender studies whose work has appeared in Canadian Ethnic Studies, ReOrient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies, and the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Merin Shobhana Xavier is an associate professor of religion and diaspora at Queen’s University. She is the author of The Dervishes of the North: Rumi, Whirling, and the Making of Sufism in Canada and Sacred Spaces and Transnational Networks in American Sufism: Bawa Muhaiyaddeen and Contemporary Shrine Cultures, and a coauthor, with Meena Sharify-Funk and William Rory Dickson, of Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics, and Popular Culture.

Contributors: Sara Abdel-Latif, Emily Victoria Hanlon, Marcia Hermansen, Amina Jamal, Naïm Jeanbart, Atif Khalil, Maryam Khan, Abdul-Rehman Malik, Alia O’Brien