Although a number of overviews or general histories of Sufism have been published over the last few decades, most have focused either on the internal, doctrinal development of Sufi ideas, or on a survey of Sufi brotherhoods and their relationships to each other. Few have made, as the present book does, the Sufis’ relationship to the external world, including any political impact, their main topic. A number of monographs discuss particular instances of Sufism in context, but the object here is to unify this research into a full chronological historical survey, which is most welcome.

The author divides his history into four main epochs. In the first, the period of individual mystics (850–1100) prior to the appearance of structured orders, he discusses and mostly dismisses the now perhaps outdated suggestions of a Christian origin to Islamic mysticism. He does, however, emphasize the distinction between asceticism (the main feature of the early mystics) and Sufism, the more mature form that eschews extreme asceticism for the “middle road”. Thus, the Sufis rather than being antinomian grew out of the same intellectual environment as general (Sunni) Islam.

In the second period (1100–1400) the Sufi experience, having gained a following beyond the scholarly elites, became more structured, through both the establishing of chains of authority linking contemporary leaders back to the early period of Islam, and the early development of specifically Sufi institutions, such as the tariqa (brotherhood) and zawiya (lodge). While Green posits that the early development of Sufism took place primarily in Iraq and Khurasan, it spread in this second phase both eastwards and westwards, reaching North Africa and Central Asia. This was a period when the central lands came under the domination of Turkish-speaking and other non-Arabic dynasties, and the Sufis became equally diversified in a “vernacularization” of their teachings, both in developing literature in Persian and in other local languages. In this way, they spread outside the urban centres into the rural world.

In this second period, Sufis also came to develop close ties with many of the sultanates of the areas into which they spread, and could, in exchange for providing them with religious legitimacy, receive massive public investment in their shrines and lodges. In Green's third period, 1400–1800, some Sufi brotherhoods or leaders could aspire to higher things and become political leaders themselves. The prime example of this is the Safawi order, the founders of modern Iran, but there are many others in North Africa (early Morocco) and elsewhere. The Mughals of India put much emphasis on their sponsorship of Sufism, but had initially forged links with the Naqshbandiyya order of their Central Asian original area (who likewise originated in Central Asia). In India, they were forced to broaden their support to the brotherhoods already established there, which they did through lavish patronage. While the early Mughal age may be described as one during which Sufis and the sultan's state stood on roughly equal footing, the sultan was able to shift the balance of power in his direction. The Ottoman empire, soon to become the most powerful in the Muslim world, used sponsorship of Sufi establishments to “Ottomanize” the “sacred geography” of their areas of conquest. Thus, favouring relations to those Sufi centres which commanded popular legitimacy and support was an important element in stabilizing the power of the newly established state structures that grew in the Islamic world during the early modern period.

The last of the four great epochs is the period of colonial expansion and its continuation in a globalized world (1800–2000). At the end of the eighteenth century, some Sufi brotherhoods joined the movements for religious and political reform (such as the jihads of West Africa), and some mutated into anti-colonial movements when the Europeans arrived on the scene. The Europeans held ambivalent views on the Sufis. On the one hand, many were fascinated by the mysticism of the Sufi poets and thinkers, and on the other, the colonial authorities saw them as either ignorant “fakirs” or as dangerous secret societies. In time, however, the early tendency of militant resistance changed to one of Sufi brotherhoods accommodating themselves to the new political realities, often using the support of the colonial powers as resources to entrench and widen their popular base and institutions.

There had always been Islamic scholars critical of and rejecting Sufi practices and ideas, from Ibn Taymiyya in the fourteenth century onwards. Some of these criticisms of popular practices (such as grave worship) were accepted and repeated by Sufi reformers themselves, others were rejected. These criticisms grew more substantial in the modern period, and in particular in the various movements, from that of Muhammad Abduh through to modern Islamists, who are termed “Salafis”. To many, Sufism consists either of blameworthy innovations (bidʿa) or old-fashioned superstition, antithetical to an Islam of the modern world. However, many Sufi leaders and brotherhoods have adapted to the globalized world and, using new media and better communications, found new arenas both in the urbanized middle classes of the Middle East, and outside the Muslim world. Having adapted to the epochal changes of the last thousand years of Muslim history, Sufi thought and practice thus appears to be fully capable of once again finding a way to further its spirituality in the current context.

Green's history is well organized and offers a number of clear themes and theses. After the first period, his empirical survey spans the Muslim world from Asia to Africa, although his background as a historian of Asian Islam shines through, and provides interesting insights for readers whose background lies in the central lands. Given the broad span of time and space, Green often rushes through the examples, and some minor empirical glitches or imprecisions are inevitable. However, the way the author has structured his history clearly makes this a very useful introduction to the wider span of Sufi history as history.