It is worth making a short digression in connection with sanūsiyya and mahdiyya, and to look briefly at a topic that is generally ignored in works dealing with the revival of Islam: the possible link between sūfism and fundamentalism .1 This can be understood to some extent, because from Ibn Taymiyya through the wahhābites, to the Islamist groups of today’s strict neohanbalite orthodoxy, condemns mysticism in Islam, and sees it as something which has very little in common with the original Islam – as designated by the Prophet – and which seeks personal ways to enlightenment that disregard the community, and recommends a passive response to the problems to be solved in social life. The charges laid against sūfism can be understood if we recall the development and role of the various types of intelligentsia in the genesis of classical Islam, and that played by the basic types of intelligentsia in settling societal hegemony in the struggle between theocratic community and dynasty for the exercise of power.2 Just as a reminder we will mention that in the first century after the end of the cAbbasīd period the alternative of the Muslim theocratic community – based on the Koran and the prophetic tradition – triumphed over the model of the ancient oriental "god-king"; it shaped the society of the unique empire of Islam among the various patrimonial empires, having its own system of (formal and informal) institutions, the impressive structure of religious law in sharica, the various legal schools, the amazing range of Islamic studies – based on one another and supplementing one another – and the two fundamental intellectual types: the traditional experts on religion and on religious law that set out and defended the interests of the theocratic community, playing a determining role from the aspect of the further development of Islam, and the so-called "philosopher" intelligentsia (which was generally obliged to combine the tasks of court doctor, astronomer and alchemist), which lived in princely courts and served their interests by its day-to-day activity, as in the peculiar and incredibly wealthy flowering of Muslim philosophy, based on the legacy of antiquity and late antiquity (political philosophy as they envisaged it was the unquestioned continuation of Platonic thought). The division of roles that grew in Islam was obviously the exact opposite of the intellectual paths that had been observable in Europe since antiquity: in the latter (especially in Christian Europe, based on the close involvement of Church and State since Constantine) the "experts on religion", the priesthood (as traditional intellectuals), lived and worked in an "intimacy shielded by power" and was the servant of authority; accordingly, its spiritual achievement in the service of theology was very limited. In contrast, since the ancient Greek thinkers, the philosopher intellectual, as the self-awareness and conscience of humanity, represented not only the given, the present, but also Pascal's second dimension, that is, humanity's possibility ("not only that which is, but that which might be") – the transcending of the given. In classical Islam the roles are quite reversed: the service of the court, whether voluntary or obligatory, is the task of the philosopher intellectual, although this was naturally accompanied by lasting conflicts (let us consider the careers of al-Kindī, Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Rushd, to name just three), but the expert on religion was all the more bound to the theocratic community, the social hegemony of which he not only shaped (especially by expounding and asserting the prophetic tradition ) but in later times – indeed, through the movements for restoration of tradition – he tried to defend it in a crisis and to re-establish the original, unfeigned character of the "right path”. As we know, the hegemony of the community was realised only after a long period; in the short term the exercise of power by patrimonial empirehood was frequently stronger, but in the middle term a lasting stalemate arose. The outcome of this peculiar situation was the sūfi intellectual as tertium datur, which came into being as the result of a kind of lull in the reassuringly infrequent struggle between the two sides, the theocratic community with its intellectuals and the "sword holders" who made their points of naked power. In a peculiar way, the social acceptance of sūfism and its intriguing spread within the Islamic world through the formation of the numerous "orders" or tarīqas coincided with the preponderance of neohanbalism in society. On the other side, of course, there ensues a kind of "militarisation" of society with the Būyids, Ghaznāwids and Seljuks, which reaches a peak with the mamluk order (the Ottoman Empire may be regarded as an extension of this). When the former imperial unity came to an end, the role of the sūfi "orders" understandably becomes more significant. Paradoxically, the world of Islam continues for some centuries to grow compared to the classical conquests (consider the Islamisation of Northern India, Indonesia, or important areas of Africa), in which expansion the remarkable members of the sūfi tarīqas established there, with their exemplary lifestyle, played a significant part.3 Another sphere of their influence and activity were the (semi)peripheral rural areas of Islam populated by the bedouin and peasants, where later on they sometimes played a more important role than did the intelligentsia of the strictly orthodox experts on religion. In this respect, the development of Islam was again opposite in character to European Christianity. In its orthodox form, the latter was extremely hierarchic, ritualised in its sacramental character, a religion that linked God and believer by means of priests, saints and angels, on which since the fourth century it had mainly been rural areas that left their mark (this was to change only after the twelfth century); "opposition movements" that rose against it tried to create a direct means of contact between God and the believer. Islam took shape in precisely the opposite way: there, orthodoxy strictly refused a hierarchy (there was, of course, neither church nor priesthood), and rituals that would require "experts"; it was, with its rational nature, a strictly urban religion that excluded communication between Allah and the believer, and despised the bedouin and fellah. Popular Islam resembled orthodox Christianity with its hierarchic, ritualised character, rich in intermediaries; the role of sūfism is especially important in this (consider the special roles of the sūfi awliyā' and the angels). While orthodox Islam and its intelligentsia of experts on religion and religious law played a dominant role in central areas, mainly ruled by Arabs, it is no over-generalisation to say that in its unsophisticated forms (and so less of a lofty, contemplative mysticism) sūfism typified Islam in (semi)peripheral areas, and was basically that area with its population, civilisation, and culture which Ibn Khaldūn (speaking, naturally, of North Africa) called cumrān badawī, that is, principally the steppe, the belt of bled siba' which includes both the bedouin and the peasant people of the countryside,4 and more recently can also impinge on the poor quarters of the city.5 Without seeking for completeness, it will suffice if we mention, among other things, the risings by fellahin that occurred in the first half of the nineteenth century (mostly in Upper Egypt, but also in Cairo), the leaders of which were either regarded as mahdis or as such as disposed of wilāya or 'nearness' (the special patronage of Allah);6 [for instance] the Mahdi in Sudan for his seventeen-year rebellion (1881–98/9), the thinking behind which G. Baer characterised as "a blend of sūfism and primitive Islam which supported the popular faith-world of the peasant and tribal people of Sudan and protested against sunna and Koranic exegesis";7 we may regard as almost paradigmatic the sanūsi movement in Libya in the late nineteenth century, which succeeded in uniting the tribes of Cyrenaica and, in the twentieth century, inspired the struggle against the Italians; as we know, after independence was achieved the leader of the movement became king (1951–69). The movement was also successful in that the "Great Sanūsi" (1787–1859) set up a remarkably pliable form of organisation, his own zāwiya, which as far as tribal unity and socialisation were concerned undertook every function that elsewhere was performed by the state and civil service.8 These institutions were positioned at commercially or strategically important points, five or six hours away from each other on horseback; they were walled round and contained a mosque,a school, and a guest-house, while other buildings provided for the sheikh, teachers, members of the ikhwān, visitors and servants, together with stores, cattle-yard and cemetery. The people of the surrounding area were administered from the zāwiya, and the sheikh was their arbitrator. It offered a kind of market to traders, which meant a further attraction for the surrounding tribes. It was also an important military centre (the ikhwān were given appropriate training), which also could be important for the area. All this was a convincing display of the multiplicity of societal functions that a well organised sūfi tarīqa could provide in a tribal environment. Sūfi influence can be shown in a very wide range of "opposition movements" other than that of the Mahdi in Sudan and the sanūsiyya; such were, for example, the anti-Russian movement in Daghestan between 1834–59 led by Shāmil (1796–1871),9 and the Kurdish rising against Kemalist Turkey, that occurred in eastern Anatolia in 1925, likewise led by one of the sheikhs of the naqshbandi, Sheikh Sait of Palu.10 A careful analysis of the non-Arab movements, those which had broken out away from the "centre" of the Islamic world, could show that by that time on the one hand strict Islamic orthodoxy and the experts on religion and religious law that represented it had been less able to attune with the local population (most often living in tribal societies or under threat of "detribalisation") than had the sūfi orders, who, in accordance with their early traditions, had been prepared to absorb local religious customs into their sūfi practices, and on the other hand the movements led by sūfi "brotherhoods" assisted the most varied ideals and political/societal/control purposes. We know of numerous such movements11 on the (semi)periphery of the Islamic world (in Inner Asia, India, China, Indonesia and Black Africa12); these, however, had been defined from the start by the characteristic of struggle against non-Muslim (Russian, Dutch, Hindu, Chinese etc.) rule, and/or the the assumption of independent political power, and they had in many cases made use of certain forms of Islam as a device. This also underlines the fundamental differences that persisted between the retraditionalising renewal movements of neohanbalite Islamic orthodoxy and the movements influenced or directed by sūfi orders. Among the divergencies we can distinguish deeper structural characteristics, and such were connected with problems of modernisation ,beginning from the nahdha of the last century, the experiments with renewal of the Muslim "reform age".13 Among the latter, first we may mention the opposition of sūfi "brotherhoods" to rationality, their indifference towards national and liberal ideals, and their commitment to local and biased issues.14 In connection with the latter accusation, for the sake of historical accuracy, it must be noted that after the Mongol invasion, from the second half of the thirteenth century the sūfi tarīqas played an important stabilising role in the world of Islam,15 and contributed significantly to it not collapsing, and although it was not possible for the Persian, Arab and Turkish elements (especially bearing in mind the rivalry of the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Persia and Mughal India), to conceal their differences the fact that Islam remained intact both as the requirement of a normative system and as an essential union was very much due to the sūfi "brotherhoods". With the exception of wahhābiyya, a significant part of the intelligentsia of experts on religion did not find fault with their activity until the nineteenth century. Understandably, opposition became sharper in connection with responses to challenges from Europe, and it was then that it became clear that orthodox Islam, especially its hanbalite/neohanbalite tendency, differed radically from the world view and way of life represented by sūfism. We have already made clear the essential difference between the two (their forms of hierarchy, ceremonial, rationality, communication between Allah and believer, their shaping of urban or rural life etc.), and at this point we would supplement that with what is perhaps the most important structural difference between the two: that sūfism does not fit in with the re-traditionalising aspect of Islam that constantly reconstructs "original" tradition – the movement came into being in many respects precisely in opposition to that, or at least in the spirit of wanting nothing to do with it: the principle motivations of this movement were disappointment at the cyclic repetitions of catastrophes and withdrawal from the forever temporary imperial experiments at revival, which aimed at moving towards a militarily and politically controlled society. For this reason, it always had a much greater affinity for the swift and untroubled adoption of peripheral, local, and externally alien elements than for orthodox Islam, because the sūfi sheikh had all those at his disposal as devices, and – especially after Ibn cArabī – the values and norms of Islamic orthodoxy too could appear to him as external forms in essence (seldom explicitly, of course). This last circumstance also explains why it is so difficult to determine the concrete roots of sūfism (because that is in fact an incidental problem from the point of view of essence), and why further development too, amazingly rich and profuse, displays more elements that are foreign than are genuinely Islamic. As we know, the aversion of orthodox Islam and the censure of sūfism became more strident in the last third of the nineteenth century, and in parallel with that the profound societal changes (the system of education and schools has significantly reduced their role in this sphere, clubs have largely taken over the halaqāt function of sūfi "circles" etc; industrialisation etc. has marginalised the former role of associations of artisans and traders; new religious groupings – the Muslim Brotherhood etc. – have made "more contemporary" responses to challenges), reduced more and more the weight and effectiveness of the "brotherhoods" – although a number of recent discoveries indicate that closeness to the people still enables sūfism to play an important part in opposition movements, mainly on the periphery of the Islamic world (as they have, for example, in Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Senegal since the 1950s).16