New Religious Movements (NRMs) have emerged periodically from the formative period of Islam to the present day. This Element considers a representative sample, organized by chronological period and then by type. In earlier periods, particular features of Islam either encouraged or discouraged the emergence of NRMs. Modernity brought new conditions that led to new types of NRM, the focus of this Element. Initially, NRMs arose in resistance to modernity or in support of it. Then came NRMs adjusted to the age of mass modernity. The Element also examines Western NRMs of Islamic origin or coloring. All these NRMs are understood in terms of their relationship with the dominant religious community, the host society, and political authority, as well as the novelty of their beliefs and practice.

Abstract Traditionalism, usually associated with Sufism following the examples of René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon, took an unusual Hermetic form in Spain under the leadership of Federico González Frías (1933–2014). González, originally from Argentina, established the Barcelona-based Center for the Study of Symbology during Spain’s democratic Transition, when interest in spiritual alternatives flourished. Rejecting both Sufism and Schuon’s Maryamiyya, González developed a distinctive “Hermetic” Traditionalism that emphasized symbolism, alchemy, Kabbalah, and Western esoteric traditions. His teachings, consolidated in the Agartha Program, combined perennialist philosophy with Hermetic practice and were extended through Freemasonry, publications, and initiatic theater. This article explores the origins, development, and reception of González’s movement, situating it as the only known case of Hermetic Traditionalism and assessing its relationship to Guénonian orthodoxy and Spain’s historical context.

By the time of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Russian political activist Aleksandr Dugin was known as an ultra-nationalist, a fascist, a geopolitician, a Eurasianist, a Heideggerian, and sometimes also as a Traditionalist in the school established by René Guénon. Some, however, hold that Dugin had left Traditionalism far behind, or perhaps had never really been a Traditionalist in the first place. This article examines the extent to which Dugin’s engagement with Traditionalism has persisted throughout his intellectual and political career. It begins with Dugin’s formative years in the late-Soviet Iuzhinskii Circle, where he first encountered Traditionalism, and explores his adaptations of Guénon’s views. The article argues that Dugin’s works, including his best-seller The Fundamentals of Geopolitics (1997), reflect his continued commitment to Traditionalist principles, despite significant modifications. The article thus challenges views that dismiss Dugin’s Traditionalism as superficial or abandoned. It concludes that Dugin’s enduring adherence to Traditionalism is essential to understanding his influence on Russian political thought and his broad appeal.

Guenonian Traditionalism, sometimes called Radical Traditionalism or Integral Traditionalism, is an important ideological stream within the contemporary far-right. It condemns modernity for its spiritual emptiness and for the way in which proper authority, which derives from the transcendent, has been usurped. This article asks how Traditionalist principles have worked in practice, taking the attempt to establish a Traditionalist micro-utopia in Bloomington, Indiana in the 1980s. The article argues that the Bloomington community's practice corresponded with its thought in that it achieved a degree of separation from modernity, but that it was less clearly successful in its spiritual aims, given issues with distracting ambitions, strife, and sex.

The narrative of a coming 'great replacement' of long-established European populations by Muslim migrants and their offspring is one of the most widely believed and influential stories being told today by right-wing populists. It is often seen as a marginal conspiracy theory that has somehow become mainstream. In fact, as this article shows, it is neither marginal nor a conspiracy theory, but rather owes more to scholars such as Samuel Huntington than to the extreme Right. Extremists have indeed subsequently adopted the theory, sometimes adding conspiracies to it, but this is an addition to the basic theory, not part of it. As used by politicians, conspiracies are far from central. There are several explanations of the wide popularity of the theory, chief among which, it is suggested, is the fact that it is not a conspiracy theory. After this comes the mistaken idea that figures never lie.

Journal Article Waleed Ziad. Hidden Caliphate: Sufi Saints beyond the Oxus and Indus. Get access Waleed Ziad. Hidden Caliphate: Sufi Saints beyond the Oxus and Indus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021. Pp. 368. Cloth $46.00. Mark Sedgwick Mark Sedgwick Aarhus University, Denmark Email: mjrs@cas.au.dk https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0560-8862 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 129, Issue 2, June 2024, Pages 715–716, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhae029 Published: 13 June 2024

Journal Article Muhammad ʿAbduh: Modern Islam and the Culture of Ambiguity By Oliver Scharbrodt Get access Muhammad ʿAbduh: Modern Islam and the Culture of AmbiguityBy Oliver Scharbrodt (London: Bloomsbury [I.B. Tauris], 2022), xi + 262 pp. Price HB £85.00, EB £76.50. EAN 978–1838607302. Mark Sedgwick Mark Sedgwick University of Aarhus E-mail: mjrs@cas.au.dk Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Islamic Studies, etad044, https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/etad044 Published: 07 August 2023