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About
Asad al-Khatib is a contemporary Damascene Sunni writer whose works center on recovering the historical memory of Sufism and engaging the Sunni-Sufi tradition with contemporary questions. His writings include studies of the Damascene Sufi past and biographies of contemporary masters. His book al-Butula wa al-Fida inda al-Sufiyya documents Sufi participation in jihad and resistance across Islamic history, countering Orientalist and modernist portrayals of Sufis as disengaged from history. Drawing on classical Sufi biographies and historical sources, the work traces figures from early Muslim frontier warriors to the Sufi orders that led resistance against the Crusades and Mongol invasions, and to more recent masters who led popular resistance to colonialism.
