Historically and culturally, Sufism and Zen may not seem to have anything in common. However, in the West, their spiritual messages are often perceived as strikingly similar. In this book, scholars analyse the ways in which Sufism and Zen were introduced to and developed in the West. The collection shows that the popularity of these religions arose not because of the substantive shared elements within the two traditions, but because their promoters in the West employed similar strategies to respond to the interests of a modern, Western audience. The first book to make a close comparison of Sufism and Zen, this study is an important contribution to understanding Western religious life and processes of ''easternisation''. It sheds new light on how Sufism and Zen came to represent a spirituality that is both countercultural and in touch with modern sensitivities.>

Autorentext
Saeko Yazaki is Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow. Michael Conway is Associate Professor at Otani University, Kyoto.

Inhalt
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Notes on Transliteration and Conventions for Non-English Terms

Introduction
Saeko Yazaki and Michael Conway

1. Rendering the Strange Familiar: Orientalist Appropriations of Sufism
   Robert Irwin

2. Buddhism for the West: Modern Disenchantment, Religion, and Zen's Appeal to Modern Audiences
   Tullio Lobetti

3. 'Mystics, Masters and Teachers': the Entanglement of Spirituality, Politics and Empire in the European 'Guru Field' c. 1918-1939
   Steven J. Sutcliffe

4. The Universalist Exoticism of Inayat Khan: From Sufi to Prophet
   Mark Sedgwick

5. Oneness and Separation in Japanese Buddhist Sensibility: Suzuki Daisetsu's Presentation of the Myokonin
   Michael Conway

6. 'The dance is the (s)way of life': The open approach of the Jewish Sufi-Zen teacher Samuel Lewis and his Dances of Universal Peace
   Saeko Yazaki

7. American Zen After D. T. Suzuki: Encounters with a Tibetan Buddhist Master
   Akemi Iwamoto

8. Bringing Sufism to the Mainstream: 'Traditional Islam' and the Making of the Third Place in an American Muslim Community
   Kei Takahashi

9. Zen for the Elite, Buddhism for the Masses: Religious and Spiritual Circulation between Japan and the West
   Jørn Borup

   Concluding Reflections
   George Pattison