Re: Why Sufism didn’t flourish in west?
Peace muqawwee123
No the West did not accept them - There was a group of Gnostics who started off as mystical Jews and then Christians … they had they own books - after several meetings in the 3rd and 4th centuries - Gnostics were declared heretics and pushed out in to Asia or killed. Then came the Renaissance period, which tried to bring more rationalism and empiricism in to play. The cool thing about Sufi practices is that they are empirical - i.e. they can be tested and experienced, the problem is they are hard to reproduce - because the premise behind their test condition is true faith and sincerity - whereas the empirical methods adopted by the West are predominantly skeptical.
Spiritualism has been accepted - but not asceticism or gnosticism because the latter required hard work and effort but the Christian world does away with that and has it that belief alone is enough. This provided that platform for further degradation … Philosophy was left behind and Science took over coupled with no moral or soul cleansing led to what we have today - might is right and satisfaction in the idea that life is nothing more that animalistic processes.