Introduction

Introduction to 'Journey among Dervishes between Past and Present', edited by Thomas Dähnhardt and Giovanni De Zorzi. The book intends to invite readers on a multi-dimensional and multi-faceted journey meeting dervishes in different places and environments of the Muslim world; its peculiarity is to bring together a classical orientalist approach, based on texts and written documents, with the approach typical of Anthropology, Ethnography and Ethnomusicology, based on research in the field and oral sources: the ethnographic study of the present sheds new light on practices, methods and theories exposed in treatises of the Past while, at the same time, practices of the present may be clarified and illuminated by the study of ancient Sufi texts and authors. These different approaches want to draw attention to the multiple dimensions embraced by tasawwuf (Sufism) both in its historical and social context and in its non-temporal aspect, concerning spirituality and the ways the latter is conveyed and transmitted, both in the past and present.