May start a regular thread where I share an interesting paper in full. Recently discovered the scholarship of Dr. Lipton after the recent publication of his Rethinking Ibn Arabi that challenges Frithjof Schuon and by extension Perennialist commentaries about Ibn Arabi

vis a vis his soteriology. Dr. Lipton published a paper a while back that reads very much as a thoroughly fleshed out continuation of Saba Mahmood's paper, 'Secularism, Hermeneutics and Empire' where he outlines with great detail and care the concept of 'Secular Sufism'

Reviving some of the worst and enduring tropes of European Orientaism, the American security/think tank establishment quickly mobilised and deployed 'Sufism' as a bulwark to be used against its enemies and in an effort to placate its Muslim minority

The paper is worth reading in full to see how exactly this was done - it offers a robust analysis of the now infamous RAND publication

What I was particularly struck by was how the portrayal of Sufism as a distinct sect, deemed to be at odds with normative Islamic practice (the commandments from fiqh for instance and observation of rites and ritual for e.g.) and seen to be the product of foreign interference

I.e. the influence of Christian mysticism (based on numerous misguided assumptions such as - that Muslims are unable to create and articulate normatively grounded expressions of mysticism or spiritual wisdom or the presence of the Sharia precludes such a development)

Is something that one comes across in Najdi/Salafi polemics. In this regard, the polemic deployed by the esteemed brother Dr Bilal Philips mirrors the historical inaccuracies of the discourse surrounding Sufism that is found by mainstream academics such as Darlymple

Or the American security establishment such as RAND. The difference however, is the implication - they both rely heavily on Orientalist caricatures of the tasawwuf tradition but come to differing conclusions to suit their ideological projects.

The honorable Dr Philips makes similar allusions to Chrsitian mysticism being the name harbinger for the emergence of a distinct sect in the shape of Sufism throughout his work https://blog.islamiconlineuniversity.com/question/emergence-of-sufism-in-islam/

A similar paper to Dr. Lipton's surveying the central texts of the Najdi tradition and highlighting their numerous historical inaccuracies that surprisingly align with Orientalist discourse would be instructive

There has been some interesting work done also on how autocratic regimes in MENA are trying to create a 'compliant mysticism' for political expediency for e.g. 'Sponsoring Sufism'