Companion site to the book Ambient Sufism: Ritual Niches and the Social Work of Musical form (University of Chicago Press, 2020) by Richard C. Jankowsky

INTRODUCTION: Ambient Sufism

This is an image of an internet meme of a soccer field with names of saints (in Arabic) as players at each position, posted during the 2018 World Cup.
Soccer team of saints (internet meme from the 2018 World Cup)

Ambient Sufism: Ritual Niches and the Social Work of Musical Form opens with an account of an internet meme from the 2018 World Cup that imagined the Tunisian national soccer team as populated by long-deceased Tunisian Muslim saints, including Sīdī Belḥassen, Sayyda Mannūbiyya, Sīdī Meḥrez, and others who factor into the chapters of the book. In addition to expressing the sentiment that the national team would benefit from divine intervention, the meme illustrated an important aspect of the concept of “ambient Sufism,” namely that the saints are understood as interrelated and inhabiting a shared landscape in which they all contribute, in their own ways, to common goals.