Aarhus University

Faculty Member, Culture and Society

Professor MSO, Arab and Islamic Studies

Faculty of Arts

About

My research focuses on junctions for the transfer of religions and traditions in the late pre-modern and modern periods.

On the Islamic side, I have published two books dealing with Sufism: *Saints and Sons* (2005), dealing with the history of a group of Sufi orders, and *Sufism: The Essentials* (first published in 2000, and now reprinted and translated into several languages). An introduction to Islam with a difference--*Islam and Muslims*--came out in 2006. In 2010, I published a biography of Muhammad Abduh.

On the Western side, I have published on Guénonian Traditionalism, an anti-modernist movement which takes political as well as religious and philosophical forms, and has recently spread to the Islamic world and the former Soviet Union. This project resulted in a book, *Against the Modern World* (2004), a website (traditionalists.org) and a blog. I continue to work on Traditionalism and on Islam in the West.

On both sides, I have published various articles and papers on terrorism, sectarianism, and religious change.

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