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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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A Sudanese Sufi Order in the Digital Age
| Panel |
14. New Modes of Sociality in Muslim Africa
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| Paper ID | 455 |
| Author(s) |
Leccese, Francesco Alfonso
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | In my paper I intend to analyse the way a contemporary Sufi Order uses the new mass media in a post-modern space. In fact, some Sufi Orders have succeeded in renewing and spreading with an unexpected vitality taking advantage of the new technologies, combining tradition and innovation.
The Sufi Order I will deal with is the Burhâniyya, a Sudanese tarîqa revitalized by šaykh Muhammad ‘Uthmân Abduhu (1904-1983), who spread his order primarily in Sudan and Egypt. He was an expert in classical Sufi doctrines. Most of his teachings are available only as recorded material and just a few of them have so far been collected into books, whose circulation is restricted to the members of the Burhâniyya Order itself.
The Burhâniyya Order has published a monthly magazine Râyât al-‘izz, since 2002, and has two official web sites: www.burhaniya.info and www.rayat-alizz.com.
My analysis means to compare the themes of the first hand unpublished documents I got in Khartoum and in Cairo from some members of the šaykh’s family, with the ones discussed on the Order’s magazine and websites. I mean to point out how members of a contemporary Sufi Order can proselytize using the new means offered by technologies and to analyze any possible differences between the topics in Arabic and the ones in the European languages used on the web sites.
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