Spirituality Studies 101 Nina Bilokopytova From Mystical Experience to Spiritual Process: A Metamodern Framework for Sufism Received February 1, 2026 Revised March 12, 2026 Accepted March 12, 2026 Keywords Pprocessual spirituality, metamodernism, mystical experience, subjectivity, Sufism The article offers a process-oriented interpretation of Sufi spirituality through an analysis of the classical concepts of maqām, ḥāl, fanāʾ, and baqāʾ. Moving beyond teleological and psychologizing models, it conceptualizes the spiritual path as a configuration of practice, event, and ethical verification. Methodologically, the study employs a process-sensitive analytical lens that sustains the tension between structure and openness without reducing Sufism to either subjective experience or discursive construction. Processual spirituality is operationalized through two criteria: temporality as the way of spiritual transformation that structured in the texts (patterns of linear, cyclical, or recursive transformation indicated by instability and renewal) and repetition as a structural mechanism of transformation, (the role of sustained practices, such as dhikr and muḥāsaba, in maintaining spiritual development). Nina Bilokopytova, Ph.D. earned her Ph.D. from the Ivan Franko Zhytomyr State University in Ukraine in 2021. She is currently involved as a researcher in social philosophy, Turkic sociality, Sufism, hermeneutics, and the epistemological implications of digital approaches in the humanities studies. Her research aims to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue between mysticism, philosophy, and contemporary cultural theory. She can be reached at nina_turk@ukr.net. orcid.org Nina Bilokopytova ←← A whirling dervish by Adbo Tahoon
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