108 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 22:2

Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and
the Secret Intellectual History of

the Twentieth Century
Mark Sedgwick

New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 370 pages.

One effect of 9/11 has been that Muslim voices, which until then had been
mostly ignored, are increasingly reaching a wider audience of other Muslims
and non-Muslims. In Europe and North America, this has meant that self-
identified “progressive” Muslim scholars who emphasize social justice, as
well as “traditional” Muslims who emphasize Islam’s spiritual or esoteric
dimension, have been contributing in a much more vocal manner to the con-
temporary interpretation of what it means to be Muslim. Since most of the
leading figures presented herein are Sufi Muslims of a particular strand of
esoteric Islam, this book helps fill an important lacuna concerning the devel-
opment of the traditionalist position – a position that has been voiced by
such Muslim scholars as Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Martin Lings.

Sedgwick promotes the book as a biography of René Guénon (1886-
1951) and an intellectual history of the traditionalist movement that he
inaugurated in the early twentieth century. Guénon’s movement combines
elements of perennial philosophy, which holds that certain perennial prob-
lems recur in humanity’s philosophical concerns, and that this perennial
wisdom is now only found in the traditional forms of the world religions.



Book Reviews 109

More specifically, Guénon started a movement that turned to particular Sufi
orders as the best expression of that perennial wisdom. 

But while billing the book as a biography – in fact, Sedgwick is done
with Guénon in the first half of the book – and an intellectual history (in
other words, rather dry academic stuff), the book reads very much like a spy
novel from the days of the cold war. Moreover, the author appears very
much as a sleuth seeking out far-flung, but secret, connections and influ-
ences. The tone of the book is thus conspiratorial and, in many instances,
sensationalistic. Such a tone may be partly justified by the secretive and
elitist aspects of Guénon’s own approach. However, the sensationalism
with which Sedgwick presents much of the material, particularly on the
“irregularities” in the understanding and practice of traditionalism by
Frithjof Schuon, a follower of Guénon’s movement and later a dissenter in
some important respects, seems unbecoming for an academic work pub-
lished by a respectable university press. 

The “Prologue” is written in an impressionistic narrative style that high-
lights two puzzles that drive Sedgwick’s investigation of traditionalism:
How many western Muslims could follow the traditionalist movement, in
particular the Maryammiyah tariqah, given Schuon’s “irregularities”; and
how Baron J. Evola extended traditionalist philosophy into European fas-
cism. The rest of the book sets out not so much to explain these puzzles as
to lead the reader in what is clearly meant to be an exciting, if somewhat
dark and detective-like, historical reconstruction. 

The rest of the book is divided into three parts. Part 1 (chapters 1-3),
“The Development of Traditionalism,” sketches the “cultic milieu” (e.g.,
Freemasonry, the Theosophical Society, and other western forays into east-
ern spirituality) of the early twentieth century that partly influenced
Guénon and to which he also reacted by turning to the esoteric strands of
the major world religions, especially Islam and Hinduism. Part 2 (chapters
4-6), “Traditionalism in Practice,” gradually shifts from Guénon’s role in
traditionalism to Evola’s moving it toward fascism (chapter 5) and, more
importantly, to Schuon’s megalomaniacal conceptions and his role in frag-
menting the movement (chapter 6). 

Part 3, “Traditionalism at Large,” mainly follows the developments of
Schuon’s Maryamiyah tariqah (chapters 7 and 8) and details his deviations
not only from Sufism, but also from perennialism and traditionalism. These
deviations resulted in highly explosive, if ultimately unproven, charges by
disenchanted followers. Part 4 (chapters 11-14), “Traditionalism and the
Future,” reads very much like a dénoument with a discussion of the declin-



110 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 22:2

ing role of Guénonian traditionalism in the West and its uptake in such
countries as Morocco, Turkey, and Iran through Nasr’s continuing legacy
there. The concluding chapter, “Against the Stream,” attempts to give the-
oretical rigor to what is largely a non-theoretical book and, in so doing,
gives it the academic standing that it deserves.

As I indicated earlier, Sedgwick’s book addresses an important lacuna,
and for this it needs to be taken seriously. However, the book is ultimately
marred by sensationalism, which is expressed throughout via innuendos and
speculative reconstructions, more than is usual in academic accounts.
However, the author appears to be scrupulous in acknowledging such recon-
structions in various footnotes. If we read the “Prologue” in microcosm,
Sedgwick raises suspicions of a far-flung and somewhat threatening secret
network, only to come back to the view of traditionalism as a deeply reli-
gious/spiritual movement of intelligent and sensitive people who feel alien-
ated from the modern world. He finally dismisses the connection to fascism
as marginal to the movement and regards the irregularities of Schuon’s prac-
tice as rooted in Schuon’s own practice, rather than in anything inherent to
traditionalism as a movement. But the damage to other traditionalists is done
along the way, intentionally or otherwise, by the implied associations.

My second reservation pertains to Sedgwick’s inability or unwillingness
to answer some very important questions that he implicitly raises. For
instance, whereas traditionalist authors decry the ability of critical, scientific
scholarship to understand the fundamental truths of religion, critical scholars
decry the traditionalists’ preconceived notions of truth and unity. Herein lies
an important distinction between the concerns of Sedgwick’s subjects and the
method he uses to analyze them. He is clearly aware of this, for as one of his
informants says: “What matters is metaphysics, biographies are of little
account” (p. 133). Sedgwick’s book is itself an implicit testimonial to this dis-
tinction between universal, eternal categories and contingent historical facts.
Too bad he does not address this issue more thoroughly, although given the
mode of analysis, we clearly know where he stands. But one is surprised to
learn, at the end, that Sedgwick does not entirely dismiss the universalist
truths of traditionalism; he merely separates them out as belonging to a dif-
ferent order of reality than the truths of critical, scientific discourse. And in
this implicit acknowledgment of the separate orders of reality and of dis-
course, one can perceive Sedgwick’s own residual traditionalism.

Ali Hassan Zaidi
Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology

York University, Toronto, Canada