From alternative medicine to national cure. Another voice for the Sûfî orders in the Indonesian media

Abstract

This article discusses the ways in which a recent periodical devoted to Sufism argues that the inculcation of proper mystical piety in the Indonesian people will save their nation from its current raft of problems. It does this with reference to modernity as an inescapable reality and suggests that while people are well served by an intellectual and contextualist approach to the history of Sufism, the actual understanding of it is still most ably communicated in the traditional Islamic schools and its practises are best examplified by the traditional orders.