104 Spirituality Studies Third, the universalization of mystical experience tends to devalue the specific linguistic, symbolic, and practical structures of Sufism. Interpreting fanāʾ as a general motif of the “dissolution of the self” or dhikr as a “technique for inducing altered states of consciousness” may facilitate philosophical comparison, but it simultaneously detaches these concepts from their theological and ethical foundations. Within the Sufi tradition, mystical experience never exists autonomously; it is always evaluated, interpreted, and regulated within the framework of communal practice and inherited tradition. From the second half of the twentieth century to the early twenty-first century, alternative approaches have emerged that seek to overcome the limitations of experience-centered models. Historical-contextual studies (Hodgson 1974), the anthropology of religion (Geertz 1973; Gellner 1981), and hermeneutical models (Ernst and Lawrence 2002) have redirected attention toward Sufism as a socially embedded practice rather than merely an inner experience. Nevertheless, even within these approaches, spirituality often remains a secondary category, yielding priority to analyses of institutional, ritual, or political dimensions of Sufi movements (Sedgwick 2016). Thus, contemporary Sufi studies are situated between two opposing tendencies: on the one hand, the reduction of spirituality to subjective mystical experience, and on the other, its dissolution into socio-historical analysis. Although distinct in their assumptions, both perspectives risk losing sight of the processual nature of the Sufi path as a form of sustained subject transformation. This situation calls for a conceptual framework capable of integrating the inner dimension of spirituality with its practical, ethical, and temporal characteristics, without reducing Sufism either to a psychological phenomenon or to a social function. It is precisely here that a metamodern perspective offers the possibility of rethinking Sufi spirituality as a process unfolding in constant tension between experience and discipline, transcendence and everyday life, inner transformation and outward form. A critical reassessment of experience-centered approaches does not entail their outright rejection. On the contrary, mystical experience remains a significant element of Sufi spirituality; however, it should be understood not as an ultimate goal or a criterion of authenticity, but as one moment within a complex process of spiritual formation. This shift opens the way for a process-oriented analysis of Sufism, which will be developed in the subsequent sections of the article.
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