# Sufism · The Canon · The Atlas · The Congregation of Tomorrow

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The Canon · No. 048
Sufism
Tasawwuf; Islamic mysticism
c.8th c. CE – present · Abrahamic · Living · Worldwide, especially West Africa, Turkey, South Asia, Central Asia
V. THE MEDIEVAL WORLD — c.500 – 1500 CE
### How many
### Who began it
### What it is for
### What it worships
### What it holds
### What it does
### After death
### Its texts
### Its branches
### Of note
### Its timeline
- c.700–900 CE Early ascetic movement; Rabia; Bayazid Bastami's ecstatic utterances.
- 922 CE al-Hallaj executed in Baghdad, reportedly for declaring ana al-Haqq, I am the Truth — one of God's names. The limit case of what ecstatic speech can cost.
- 1058–1111 CE al-Ghazali makes Sufism respectable to the legal establishment; this is the reason it became mainstream rather than marginal.
- c.1100–1300 CE The great orders form: Qadiriyya, Suhrawardiyya, Chishtiyya, Shadhiliyya, Mevleviyya, Naqshbandiyya.
- 1165–1240 CE Ibn Arabi, the Greatest Master.
- 1207–1273 CE Rumi in Konya; the Mevlevi order founded by his followers after his death.
- c.1200–1800 CE Sufi orders carry Islam into West Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Indonesia and the Balkans, largely by trade and example rather than conquest.
- 1744 onward Wahhabi and later Salafi movements attack shrine visitation and Sufi practice as idolatry.
- 1925 CE Turkey bans the Sufi orders; the Mevlevi ceremony survives officially as a cultural performance.
- 2017 CE The Bir al-Abed mosque attack in Sinai kills over 300 Sufi worshippers — the deadliest terrorist attack in Egyptian history, and a reminder that the Sufi-Salafi conflict is not academic.
### Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.
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