Urban Sufi Community and the Creation of Muslim Cosmopolitanism

This study explores the development of Muslim cosmopolitanism in the urban Sufi movement, and focuses primarily on the Sulaymaniyah community in Jakarta, Indonesia. Previous studies on the nature of urban Sufism have mainly examined how Sufi orders (known as tariqa) adapt their lives to fit a modern urban context. However, little attention was paid to the method by which those communities were able to cultivate cosmopolitan ethics and practices in each location. The purpose of this research is to address that gap, by exploring how the Sulaymaniyah community (rooted in the Naqshbandiyah tradition from Türkiye) has been able to create and maintain Muslim cosmopolitanism in a transnational setting. This study uses qualitative participatory action research to identify four related aspects that shape Sulaymaniyah’s cosmopolitan ethos, namely, ethical, institutional, civic, and cultural aspects. The findings from this study yield the following results: ethical cosmopolitanism is shown via their inclusive respect for a diverse range of the schools of thought that exist within Islamic jurisprudence (madhhabs); institutional cosmopolitanism is exhibited through their transnational management and acts of philanthropy; civic cosmopolitanism is presented via their democratic ritual practices; and cultural cosmopolitanism is visible through cross-cultural engagements, via such events as charitable fairs or bazaars (kermes). The study concludes that the continual success of the Sulaymaniyah community lies in its ability to combine a spiritual universalism together with a modern transnational approach to its organization, and this combination offers an alternative model for the understanding of cosmopolitan Islam in a contemporary urban setting.