Between Islam and the New Age: The Jerrahi Order and categorical ambiguity in the study of Sufism in North America
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Drawing upon our ethnographic research of the Jerrahi Sufi Order, in this paper we consider an analytical problem in the study of Sufism in North America. In engaging two distinct branches of the Jerrahi Order, we draw attention to the ways in which identities and practices shaped by classical Islamic law and theology cannot be easily parsed from those associated with the New Age movement in North America. We begin by offering a brief overview of Sufism in North America, highlighting reconfigurations of authority, organization, and practice. Following this, we consider the two major North American branches of the Jerrahi Sufi order: The Jerrahi Order of America, and the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Order, drawing out the conceptual problems of categorizing these branches by distinguishing between the “Islamic” and the “New Age” within these movements. We conclude with a summary of the utility and drawbacks these categories offer the study of Sufism, while considering some directions for future scholarship on the subject.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.009 | 0.031 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".