Tasawwuf
The Arabic name of Sufism: the inward dimension of Islam, a path of purification of the heart and knowledge of God.
Tasawwuf is the name the Islamic tradition gives to what European languages call Sufism. The word is a verbal noun derived from sufi, the man who practises this path. On the etymology of sufi, the classical authors hesitate between several explanations: the most widespread ties it to suf, wool, from which the rough garments of the first ascetics were made; others link it to saff, the rank, or to safa’, purity.
Al-Qushayri, in his Risala (1045), devotes whole pages to this question of vocabulary, a sign that the term already carried a debate about identity in the 11th century. Tasawwuf is not a sect or a separate branch: the masters present it as ihsan, the third dimension of religion after submission (islam) and faith (iman), following the hierarchy of the famous hadith of Gabriel.
Concretely, tasawwuf denotes the whole of the practices and knowledge aimed at purifying the heart: ethics, invocation, the companionship of a guide. See also the path and the difference between Sufism and Islam.