The central gesture
This is Khaled Bentounes's best-known book, and the finest doorway into his teaching. The title already states the essential: Sufism is neither a sect, nor a folkloric margin, nor one school among others — it is the heart of Islam, its inner and living dimension.
Bentounes writes as a master, but without loftiness. He addresses at once the Muslim reader who would rediscover the depth of his own tradition, and the reader who is not one and seeks to understand. His aim is not to defend a thesis: it is to make sensible what a life turned towards God is, from within.
The key concepts (made plain)
- The heart of Islam — Sufism adds nothing to Islam: it unveils its inner meaning. Prayer, fasting, pilgrimage have a husk and a kernel; Sufism is the science of that kernel.
- A way of experience — Bentounes insists: Sufism cannot be reduced to a doctrine that one would learn. It is an experience, a transformation of the heart, transmitted from master to disciple, from one living being to another.
- Living transmission — Heir of the ʿAlāwiyya way, Bentounes speaks of an unbroken chain — the silsila. Sufism is not a knowledge of books: it is a fire that is passed on.
- A Sufism for today — The book does not look towards the past. Bentounes shows that the inner way answers the questions of contemporary man: meaning, peace, the place of the sacred in a secularised life.
To read it
Clear, accessible, without jargon: it is the book to recommend first of all, to anyone who wishes to understand Sufism without prior erudition. It situates the way, gives a taste of it, and opens the door to the other books.
Resonances
- The author: Khaled Bentounes
- His other books: The Inner Man in the Light of the Quran, Therapy of the Soul
- The way of which he is the guide: Sheikh al-ʿAlawī
- Discovering the way: Discover