Tech-Savvy Youth Find Islamic Mysticism Through Social Media
(ANALYSIS) Two years ago, I found myself inside the Qadiriya Boutchichiyya zawiya (Sufi lodge) in Madagh, located in northern Morocco, not as a journalist but as a spiritual seeker.
The dhikr (remembrance ritual) began slowly, like heartbeats, then accelerated until it became a collective pulse. My body moved without my will. My head nodded mechanically, my hand rose unconsciously, and my spirit broke free from gravity.
Around me, bodies pressed together. Sweat mixed with tears as the chant intensified: “Allah ... Allah ...” Each person experienced their own revelation—what Sufis describe as the mystical stages of adorning the soul with virtues, emptying it of worldly attachments, and witnessing divine manifestation.
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That night, I texted a Sufi friend: “I’ve experienced tahalli, takhalli, and tajalli” — the three stages of mystical transformation.
What I experienced that evening mirrors a broader phenomenon in Morocco: Some young, educated urbanites are returning to Sufism, Islam's mystical tradition, seeking spiritual depth in an age of digital distraction and ideological exhaustion.
At the Karkariya zawiya, where incense smoke mingles with ascending chants from female devotees, 24-year-old Nada represents this new generation. The bank employee from Nador was raised in the tradition by her parents, but her practice looks distinctly different from theirs.
She belongs to the generation of Instagram Reels and viral videos, accustomed to measuring days by likes and comments. Yet in Sufi gatherings, she finds a different rhythm — slower, internal, reminding her that behind every fleeting image lies a complete life.
“When I'm outside the zawiya, I enter it through the digital world,” said Nada, who requested her surname be withheld for privacy. “When I feel I need a little Sufism, I find myself in a digital dhikr session — virtual zawiya and online remembrance circles.”
She seamlessly navigates both worlds. She posts clips from hadras (Sufi gatherings) on Instagram or photos of candlelight during dhikr nights. To outsiders, these appear as fleeting moments. For Nada, they're spiritual sessions where she dissolves to the rhythm of drums and breaths.
“I didn’t find separation from my world in Sufism, but a new language to understand it," she explains. "The phone is a bridge, and the hadra is a root. One introduces me to others; the other introduces me to myself. I see no contradiction between Instagram and the zawiya, but balance.”
Her practice reflects what scholars call “digital Sufism” — maintaining connections to centuries-old zawiyas while engaging through social media, becoming both aesthetic expression and existential anchor for young practitioners.
Parisian programmer finds home via livestream
In a Paris apartment lined with books by medieval Sufi mystic al-Hallaj, Marwan, a Moroccan doctoral student in his early thirties studying software engineering, watches a livestream from Morocco.
As hymns rise from the Boutchichiyya zawiya in Madagh, he closes his eyes.
“I sometimes feel I'm actually sitting among them,” he whispered. “The internet has become my shortcut to a long hadra.”
For Marwan, who requested his surname be withheld, these digital sessions provide refuge from relentless work in a fast-paced world. When Parisian friends express surprise that he watches religious gatherings on YouTube, he tells them: “You attend live music concerts online; I attend my heart's concert.”
When possible, Marwan visits Morocco and travels to Madagh — not to record content, but to physically experience what he sees on screen.
“When you're present among the devotees, you feel your whole body participates, not just your ears. Sound becomes trembling, and movement becomes prayer,” Madagh said.
The phenomenon Marwan represents — transnational Sufism sustained through digital platforms — marks a departure from traditional practice while maintaining its essence. Technology hasn't replaced the zawiya; it has extended its reach across borders and generations.
Scholarly perspectives: Filling the spiritual void
Abderrahim Oudmjan, a researcher in Islamic studies at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University in Fez, sees young Moroccans’ embrace of Sufism as a response to spiritual hunger in a world of individualism and existential tensions.
“Sufism isn't a spiritual escape from present emptiness, but a return to roots," Oudmjan explained. “Sufism has remained an authentic part of Morocco's religious and cultural structure for centuries. This inclination combines nostalgia with searching for spirituality capable of touching modern concerns.”
Sufism, with its emphasis on tolerance, mercy and humility, offers an alternative both to hardline interpretations of Islam and to secularization that some youth consider spiritually empty, Oudmjan noted.
The scholar identifies two distinct groups: one gravitating toward ritual Sufism tied to local identity, another, more culturally sophisticated, leaning toward philosophical Sufism, drawing inspiration from medieval mystics like Ibn Arabi, Suhrawardi, and al-Hallaj as frameworks for contemplating self and existence.
Al-Murtada Imrasha, a young member of the Qadiriya Boutchichiyya order, bridges the academic analysis with lived experience.
“My experience with the zawiya was a passage from life's noise to the soul's tranquility,” he said, describing how the late Sheikh Jamal al-Qadiri Boutchichish's presence offered “a smile that contained light, and a word profound enough to silence the clamor of questions.”
Today, under the young Sheikh Muadh, Imrasha feels the zawiya “was born anew, with a modern face and youthful spirit trying to approach the concerns of a generation open to the world, searching for tranquility amid storms of technology and existential anxiety.”
The retreat of political Islamic movements after the Arab Spring uprisings made young people question what made their grandparents’ religious experience more meaningful, Imrasha explained.
“This drives them to search in hadra and dhikr rituals, despite their antiquity, for answers to these questions,” Muadh said.
Historical cycles of crisis and renewal
Youssef Messati, a researcher in history and heritage at Hassan II University in Casablanca, sees the revival as part of longer patterns in which Sufism has served as both spiritual practice and social stabilizer during periods of upheaval.
“Understanding young Moroccans' openness to Sufism is complex, intersecting social, political, economic, and historical dimensions,” Messati said. “Moroccan Sufism has been associated through centuries with 'crisis moments,' playing influential roles beyond isolated spiritual practice.”
With the modern state's mid-20th-century establishment, Sufism retreated due to rising Islamist movements and state centralization that reduced zawiyas’ influence. At the millennium's turn, Sufism returned in transformed form, more responsive to contemporary challenges.
Messati describes “new youth Sufism” as flexible, investing in digital media and spiritual music. However, this raises critical questions: Can such media carry traditional Sufi experience's depth, or do they empty it of spiritual weight, transforming it into easily consumed spiritual entertainment?
The danger, scholars warn, lies in reducing Sufism to superficial rituals consumed digitally without translating into internal cultivation. If that happens, Sufism loses its essence and becomes a folkloric performance.
Yet evidence suggests something more substantive is occurring. Morocco's Sufi lodges aren't merely preserving the past but offering spaces for spiritual experience that restore balance between external noise and inner tranquility.
“Conscious Sufism today seeks to address youth in their language and through their means,” Imrasha said. “This explains increasing digital presence for some orders and efforts to ensure practices align with contemporary questions.”
For practitioners like Nada, Marwan and Imrasha, Sufism provides what neither consumer culture nor political movements could: meaning, belonging, and connection to something larger than individual existence — delivered through both ancient ritual and modern technology.
Morocco's combination of deep Sufi tradition and widespread internet access creates conditions for the continued evolution of these practices among younger generations. The future may witness more flexible Sufism integrating ancient spirituality with modern tools like livestreaming platforms and virtual communities, becoming not only a personal refuge for meaning-seeking youth but a living space for reshaping spiritual identity in rapidly changing times.
In this marriage between old and new lies Sufism’s ability to renew itself while maintaining its fundamental mission: granting youth feelings of tranquility and meaning in an accelerating, challenge-filled world.
This article is published in collaboration with Egab.
Osama Baji is a writer based in Morocco.