NEW AGE SUFISM AND ITS FOUNDATIONS: THE CASE OF MEVLÂNÂ CELALEDDIN RUMI IN ROGER HOUSDEN’S CHASING RUMI

Abstract

Mevlânâ Celaleddin Rumi, a thirteenth Century Sufi mystic, has gained increasing popularity in the UK and in the USA from 1990s onwards. This study explores this decontextualised popularity through an analysis of the political and sociological factors that led individuals’ interest in a form of spirituality which is out of religious context. It asserts that the insecurity capitalism and neoliberalism created in the workplace for working class people resulted in a search for a way for them to improve themselves first in the marketplace and then in the psychological and spiritual realms of their lives. In order to unpack this claim, the paper starts with brief histories of capitalism and neoliberalism from the second half of the nineteenth century and shows how political and social impact of capitalism and neoliberalism prompted the emergence of self-help publications. It then moves on to discussing the notion of governmentality and its function in the decentralised governance of neoliberal state. Through this, it offers a Foucauldian analysis of New Age movement as a technology of power. It then proceeds with a historical account of the New Age movement, it scrutinises the relationship between neoliberal governance and the New Age movement. Having established the foundations of New Age Sufism and briefly touched the historic presence of Sufism in the West, it presents a close reading of Roger Housden's Chasing Rumi as a New Age novel and discusses how values of New Age spirituality comes together with the 13th Century mystic in the belief system of the novel and shows in what ways New Age Sufism and Rumi’s theosophy varies from its traditional roots.