The Sufi tradition as the 'other face' and 'soft core' of Islam is characterized by tolerance, humanism and the accommodation of differences. This book is an introduction to the concrete, practiced and lived forms of Islamic mysticism surveying the whole of the Muslim world with particular emphasis on South Asia as its demographic centre. The author is clearly deeply sympathetic to his subject ... It is written in a lucid and attractive style with plenty of examples from the Sufi tradition.