Sufis in the Age of Persian Enlightenment (A Research on the Epistemological, Economic and Social Origins of Sufism in the Persian Constitutional Period)

Sufism has been one of the most controversial currents of thought in Iran. The epistemological foundations of Sufism and the behavior of Sufis have always been criticized by critics and opponents. The conflict with the Sufis has often had to do with a religious dimension and sometimes a jurisprudential dimension. However, in the constitutional period, a special current of Sufi criticism emerges that differs from all previous periods of Sufi criticism. The critics of this period are not jurists and theologians, and their critique of Sufism is not about the compatibility/incompatibility of Sufism and Islamic law; Rather, these critics are intellectuals who, due to their familiarity with new knowledge, criticize the behaviors and beliefs of Sufis and consider Sufis and their beliefs and behaviors as an obstacle to achieve their goal of modernity in Iran. In this paper, epistemological, economic, and social dimensions of the critiques of Sufism were examined. It was shown that the deep epistemological contradiction of the liberal intellectuals of the constitutional period with the Sufis arose from their liberal worldview, the basic concepts of which are autonomy, division of social labor, production, and so on.