Sufism in the contemporary world is plural, globally distributed, and internally contested. By the early 2020s, scholars describe Sufism as a living set of devotional repertoires, institutional forms, and intellectual traditions practiced by millions of Muslims across Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, Anatolia, the Balkans and parts of Southeast Asia. Exact counts are difficult: Sufi identity frequently overlaps with broader Sunni or Shia affiliation, and participation in Sufi-affiliated practices can range from occasional attendance at a shrine to formal initiation into a tariqa (order). Surveys conducted in various Muslim-majority societies often report that a substantial share—in some cases a majority—of self-identified Muslims participate in activities commonly associated with Sufism, such as ziyarat (shrine visitation), collective dhikr (remembrance of God), or participation in Mawlid (the Prophet’s birthday) celebrations.
Concrete regional centers and orders remain prominent. In South Asia the Chishti and Qadiri traditions sustain large networks of dargahs (shrine complexes) and annual commemorations; the dargah of Nizamuddin Auliya in Old Delhi and the dargah of Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer (Rajasthan) are widely cited as focal points for devotional traffic, charitable distributions, and musical performance. West Africa hosts influential Tijani and Qadiriyya networks as well as the Mouride brotherhood founded by Ahmadou Bamba (1853–1927) whose spiritual center in Touba, Senegal, is associated with large annual pilgrimages and extensive social services. In Anatolia and the Balkans, the Mevlevi and Bektashi legacies shape cultural heritage and local ritual calendars; the Mevlevi sema (whirling ceremony) was inscribed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2008, reflecting its recognized cultural visibility. Naqshbandi currents are notable for their transregional reach, with lineages traced from Central Asia into Turkey, the Levant and various diasporic communities.
A vital contemporary movement is the continuing importance of shrine culture. Annual urs festivals in South Asia — such as the urs at Nizamuddin’s dargah or the celebrations at Ajmer Sharif — attract large crowds and combine devotional commemoration, food distribution, charity, and musical performance (notably qawwali in South Asia). Adherents hold that these gatherings commemorate the death anniversary of a saint as a celebration of union with God and as a site of blessing (baraka). Shrines function as centers for social welfare, linking generations through inherited custodial families, and as loci of identity for neighborhoods and regions. They also face institutional regulation—governments may register shrine committees, audit shrine revenues, or fund maintenance—and periodic contestation from reformist critics who object to intercessory rites, saint veneration, or musical forms. In some cases such contestation has been acute: attacks on shrines and mausoleums have occurred in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries—for example, violent incidents at high-profile shrines in Pakistan and the destruction of mausoleums in Timbuktu during Mali’s 2012–2013 conflicts—illustrating how disputes over practice can become matters of security and law.
Transnationalization of tariqas is another significant development. Orders with roots in West Africa (notably the Tijaniyya and Qadiriyya), South Asia (Chishti, Qadiri), and North Africa (Shadhili, Khalwati) have established diasporic networks that connect local zawiyas, khanqahs and tekkes to global flows of pilgrims, teachers and funds. Pilgrimage circuits run from Senegal to Mecca and from South Asia to Turkey; diasporic communities in Europe and North America often maintain ties to a homeland sheikh through periodic visits and remittances. The internet accelerates these links: recorded lectures, video sermons, online zawiyas, podcasts and digital litanies circulate on platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp and dedicated websites, enabling remote participation in dhikr sessions, study circles, and even forms of initiation. Adherents argue that digital media can expand access to teachings and sustain community across distance; skeptics—both within and outside Sufi circles—debate the theological limits of mediated initiation and the importance of embodied apprenticeship, physical proximity to a living guide (shaykh), and communal ritual.
Sufism’s public face has diversified. In many Muslim-majority societies, Sufi orders operate schools (maktabs and madrasas), hospitals, charitable foundations and microeconomic cooperatives; they contribute to social welfare, education and intercommunal relations. Examples include hospital and educational enterprises associated with prominent brotherhoods in West Africa and community welfare projects run out of shrine complexes in South Asia. Conversely, in other contexts Sufi institutions have been suppressed or co-opted: twentieth-century Soviet policies curtailed Sufi activity across Central Asia—closing tekkes, banning public rituals and detaining religious leaders—and new nation-states have sometimes restricted Sufi associations as part of broader religious regulation. Authoritarian regimes in selected countries have, at times, sought to patronize or instrumentalize Sufi networks for political ends, granting recognition to particular tariqas while marginalizing others; scholars trace how such state–Sufi interactions have reshaped the modern geography of Sufism.
Reform and revival movements characterize the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and continue to influence contemporary configurations. The eighteenth-century founder of the Tijaniyya, Ahmad al-Tijani (d. 1835), catalyzed a West African network that became politically and socially influential across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the early twentieth century, figures such as Inayat Khan (1882–1927) brought forms of Sufi teaching to Europe and North America, establishing organizations that adapted Sufi terminology for Western spiritual seekers and helped give rise to diverse Western-oriented Sufi groups. These movements created a dialogical space between classical Islamic frameworks and modern spiritualities, producing forms of practice adapted to new cultural and legal settings while raising questions about lineage, textual authority and the role of local custom.
Confrontation with non-Sufi Islamic movements remains salient. Since the late nineteenth century the rise of scripturalist and reformist movements—often labeled Salafi or Wahhabi by observers—has produced critique and in some places suppression of practices such as saint veneration, tawassul (seeking intercession), and certain musical rites. Adherents of these reformist positions argue from a strict textualist reading of scripture; Sufi defenders respond by citing precedent in classical juristic literature, hagiographical sources and the centrality of spiritual apprenticeship in their own traditions. These debates have sometimes escalated into legal restrictions on rituals, public polemic, and, as noted above, episodes of violence directed at shrines.
Sufism’s cultural influence extends beyond strictly religious communities. The poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207–1273), the music of qawwali centered around composers such as Amir Khusrow (13th–14th centuries) in South Asia, and the iconic performance of whirling dervishes have entered global cultural circuits. Rumi’s poems appear in popular anthologies and concert programs worldwide; his verses and the music of Sufi repertoires have been repurposed in secular and therapeutic contexts. Adherents celebrate the communicative power of Sufi poetry and music, while scholars and critics caution that popularization sometimes detaches these forms from their doctrinal, linguistic and ethical contexts.
Modern scholarship, translation projects and museum exhibitions have also affected Sufism’s contemporary visibility. New critical editions of the works of Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240), contextualized translations of al-Ghazālī (1058–1111) and Rumi, and ethnographic studies of living orders have made Sufi thought and practice more accessible to academic and general audiences. University courses, conferences and curated museum displays mediate public understanding and sometimes reshape intra-Sufi debates about textual interpretation and historical lineage, as scholars and practitioners engage over historical sources, chains of transmission (silsila) and the contemporary relevance of classical texts.
Gender dynamics within contemporary Sufism are evolving but uneven. While many traditional orders continue to exhibit patriarchal leadership patterns, there is growing documentation of women serving as teachers, custodians of zawiyas, and authors of devotional literature—particularly in South Asia and parts of North Africa. Historical figures such as Rabia al-Adawiyya (8th century) provide inspirational precedents for contemporary women’s spiritual authority; feminist scholars and fieldworkers have highlighted both expanded opportunities for female religious agency and persistent constraints rooted in legal norms, local custom and institutional structures.
Finally, Sufism faces the twin challenges and opportunities posed by modernity: rapid urbanization, secularizing trends in some regions, state regulation, and the global spread of mass media. At the same time, the tradition’s emphases on inner ethics, spiritual discipline, compassion and social welfare provide resources for civic engagement and interreligious dialogue. Observers note that Sufism’s capacity for local adaptation—evident in its historical permutations across languages, customs and political orders—remains a hallmark of its contemporary vitality. As scholars of religion and participating communities alike observe, Sufism in the early twenty-first century is neither monolithic nor marginal; it continues as a diverse, contested and widely practiced stream within the global Islamic landscape.