Twelfth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

‘Spirituality’ has relatively been a highly debated topic in human and social sciences. All mainstream religions have spiritual teachings and practices that focus on one’s personal and social development. In Islamic studies, concept of Sufism is alternatively used as Islamic spirituality. Sufism has a widespread popularity and appeal, which sees it being increasingly adopted by people all across the world. Regardless of the recent popularity, the focus of Sufis remains on awakening spirituality and enhancing the positive energy among humans. This arguably provides the basis for a spiritual society. However, the link of such spiritual society to social spirituality is not well described in the prior literature. Therefore, given the niche gap, this study seeks to critically evaluate the Sufi methodology and its relation to spiritual society together with social spirituality. Largely using a qualitative methodology, the paper focuses on those societies that inherited Sufism as their core social ideology in the Subcontinent. In doing so, the paper tests the preliminary hypothesis that the way and approach to address the socio-economic, psychological, religious, ethnic, and political issues of a society revolve around formulation and implementation of strategies and spiritual methodism to get people acquainted with pluralism and religious harmony.