Essay · 1 min · EN
Doomsday Raki
A certain Sufi sat in the town square at midnight, pondering the things Sufis ponder at such hours, seasoning his thoughts with a bottle of raki.
Writing
Essays and field notes
Essays, field notes and research by Noam Backner on China, Inner Asia, Buddhism, the Silk Roads, food, agriculture and the lived experience of place.
Sufism (6)All writing
Essay · 8 min · EN
Whispers of Paradise: A Journey into Sufi Music
From Sassanid legends to the ecstatic rituals of the Mevlevi and Qawwali traditions, music has long served as the bridge between the human soul and the Divine.
Essay · 3 min · EN
To the Sufis of China
The Menhuan is the Chinese expression of the Sufi Tariqa—a spiritual lineage tracing back to the Arab and Persian sheikhs who first brought Islam to the Middle Kingdom.
Essay · 8 min · EN
To the Valley of Unity: The Sufi Path
Sufism is often regarded as a third branch or a parallel current to the two main streams of Islam, Sunni and Shia, with its expressions moving in and out of the boundaries of orthodoxy depending on time and place.
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Teahouses and Sufis of Kashgar
Ever since the Karakhanid Turks took the city in the eleventh century, Kashgar has acted as a spiritual pole for the Sufi orders of Eastern Turkestan.
Essay · 3 min · EN
A Sufi Imam at Chabad House
Readers of Russian literature may know Tolstoy’s Hadji Murat, but few realize the story’s protagonist was a Sufi warrior whose legacy lives on in a famous Hasidic melody.