Fragmentation

• Published in: Against the Modern World
• Main Author: Sedgwick, Mark
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: New York Oxford University Press 17-06-2004
• Subjects: Italy; Schuon; Masonry; Sufism
• ISBN: 0195152972; 9780195152975
• DOI: 10.1093/0195152972.003.0007

This chapter returns to Gu”non’s biography, covering the period from the Second World War until Gu”non’s death in 1951. It introduces Martin Lings and Henri Hartung, and includes the split between Schuon and Gu”non during 1948–50. The chapter explores the causes and consequences of this split. It examines the modifications made to the Alawiyya by Schuon that led to the rejection of Schuon by Gu”non and others, and the independent Traditionalist groups established as a result of the split. These included various Masonic lodges in France, one Sufi order in Turin, another under Michel Vâlsan in Paris, and (much later, in the 1980s) a third in Italy, in Milan. The chapter completes the history of Traditionalist Masonry and Traditionalist Sufism with an examination of the later histories of these lodges and orders; the later history of Schuon’s order, however, is covered in later chapters.