Historically, Islam's normative vision of society and piety was mediated to the masses in large part by Sufi shaikhs, heirs to Islam's rich mystical tradition. Although anthropologists have examined the social roles played by Sufis in some contemporary societies, few historians have done the same for earlier periods, in any part of the Islamic world. Richard M. Eaton's The Sufis of Bijapur is an attempt to fill this gap by scrutinizing the social careers of Sufis ...
