read and answer questions

Ernst, “What is Sufism?” Reading Questions

1. What is an Orientalist? What is Orientalism? What is the problem with it? 2. Where do we see Orientalism in the first European studies of Sufism? 3. What is the author’s stated methodology in this chapter? How is this different from an Orientalist methodology? 4. Where do we get the idea of treating Sufism as a technical term (an “ism”) and what is the problem with this? What is the author’s way of correcting this problem? 5. On p. 22 the author writes, “The term Sufi in this way took on a didactic rather than informational purpose.” What does he mean by this? 6. Why would Sufi authors include etymologies (word origins) for Sufism in their books that they knew were not correct?