Sydney Sufi Book Festival

Dive into the world of Sufi books and talks at a book fest you won’t wanna miss!

Sufism has touched Western and Australian culture in ways that are often overlooked. Rabia al-Adawiyya, the great woman saint of eighth-century Baghdad, was the first Sufi figure to enter European literature, through the writings of Joinville in the late thirteenth century.

Sufism also has deep roots in Australia, stretching from the early Makassan contact with northern Australia to the cameleers and their communities. Its wider cultural influence is equally remarkable. The Taj Mahal emerged from a culture deeply shaped by Sufi ideas of love, while Rumi, now widely read across Australia and the West, was himself a Sufi whose poetry grew from that tradition.

Yet Sufism remains widely misunderstood in Australia media which almost always has presented it as a small sect or fringe movement in Islam.

In reality, Sufism has stood at the core of Islam for centuries. Most of Islam's great scholars and all saints belonged to Sufi traditions, while its influence can be seen across Islamic psychology, literature, art and architecture.

At its simplest, Sufism is about love. It is an Islamic science concerned with transforming both our inward state and outward conduct.

For many Australian Muslims, opportunities to encounter authentic Sufi teachers and literature have been limited. That is changing as interest in the tradition continues to grow.

The inaugural Sydney Sufism Book Festival is about opening that door: bringing together books, ideas and people to deepen awareness and understanding of Sufism in Australia.