Sufism has been one of the most widely debated and contested fields within the Islamic tradition. Despite being a mainstay of Islamic religious life, it has been the subject of Muslim critical discussions for centuries. This has particularly been the case during the modern period. Indeed, over the past two centuries, many Islamic reformers and reformist movements have construed Sufism as the primary obstacle to the realization of piety and progress in Muslim societies. In this paper, I examine the relationship between the critique and defense of Sufism and the historical foundations of one of the most influential Islamic reformist movements in history, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. An activist movement founded in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna (d. 1949), the Brotherhood is today understood to be a sharp critic of Sufism. However, as I show in this paper, during its earliest years, the Brotherhood positioned itself as an ardent defender of Sufism. Although the secondary scholarship on the Brotherhood has recognized the influence of Sufism on its organizational structure and educational program, the Brotherhood’s early defenses of the Sufi tradition have not been sufficiently examined. In this paper I analyze the Brotherhood’s earliest publicly facing writings on Sufism, which were printed in its early magazine, Jaridat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin, to do two things. First, I uncover al-Banna and his Brotherhood colleagues’ deep commitment to Sufi esoteric and cosmological ideals. At the root of this commitment, I show, was their conviction in the primacy of the unseen spiritual reality. Brotherhood writers attributed the maintenance of this reality to the Sufi tradition and thus mounted a defense of that tradition in the face of growing reformist critiques. Second, I show that these Sufi ideals fundamentally informed al-Banna’s vision of the Brotherhood’s activist spirituality. As he depicted it, the Brotherhood’s mission was to confront a spiritually vacant Egyptian society and re-infuse it with a robust spirituality, the outlines of which he drew from Sufism. As such, Sufi esoteric and cosmological ideals, I argue, were far more essential to the Brotherhood’s activist approach toward Islam than previously understood. Most importantly, by highlighting this, my paper brings out the very significant role Brotherhood leaders and writers attributed to God as an agent and interlocutor in the realization of their activist project.

The rise of the Safavids to power was marked by their implementation of Shi'ism as the official religion of Iran, a move that played a vital role in solidifying their legitimacy. On the other hand, the Sunni Ottomans, who adhered to the Hanafi school of thought, established their dominance over the Islamic world. The conflicting religious beliefs and competing claims to leadership had significant consequences for the policies of both states, leading to long-lasting tensions that lasted for centuries. They made no effective attempts to resolve the sectarian and religious conflicts among themselves. The ascension of Nader Shah Afshar in Iran brought about a significant shift away from the Safavid tradition. Through his initiatives, he successfully established the Jaʿfari denomination, which played a crucial role in promoting harmony between Shia and Sunni communities. Later, he suggested to the Ottoman Empire that they formally acknowledge it as the fourth orthodox Islamic denomination. However, the Ottomans did not confirm it . Finally, Nader convened a meeting of ulama from all Islamic world in Ecumenical Islamic Council of Najaf (1743). After several days of debate on the question of the Jaʿfari denomination, the participants signed a document, which recognized the Jaʿfari denomination as a legitimate legal school of Sunni Islam. However, the outcome did not impress the Ottoman sultan. Despite the considerable efforts exerted by Nader Shah and the establishment of the Ecumenical Islamic Council of Najaf, his plan ultimately failed. The primary objective of the current research is to address the question of why the Ecumenical Islamic Council of Najaf did not achieve practical success in the end. In order to effectively tackle this question, it is essential to thoroughly examine the important approaches taken by the Ecumenical Islamic Council of Najaf. At the Ecumenical Islamic Council of Najaf, we encountered five different approaches, which can be divided into two scholarly approaches represented by Suveydi, an Ottoman scholar, and Molabashi, Nader Shah’s scholar, as well as three state approaches represented by the Ottomans, Iraq’s governor, and Nader Shah. Each of them had their own interests, motivations, and objectives. To initiate this study, the initial step entails gathering the necessary information from chronicles, direct correspondences, and the Council’s report. After carefully examining the compiled information, the aforementioned approaches will be assessed, leading to a comprehensive conclusion.