Abstract
This study examines the doctrinal and metaphysical role of Sufism in shaping religious consciousness in Central Asia, with particular attention to its Qur’anic, prophetic, and regional textual foundations. The research is based on a qualitative analysis of a purposively selected corpus of 13 sacred, theological, and Sufi sources, including Qur’anic translations, hadith collections, and major texts associated with the Yasawiyya, Kubrawiyya, and Naqshbandiyya traditions. Hermeneutic, textual, comparative-theological, and systemic-structural methods were applied to identify how Sufi concepts of the soul, divine proximity, remembrance, and spiritual discipline are represented in these sources. The findings suggest that Central Asian Sufi thought is grounded in the synthesis of external religious law and inner spiritual cultivation, rather than in a separation between Sharīʿah and ṭarīqah. The analysis identifies three principal states of the believer’s soul, from ego-centred inclination to tranquillity in God, and shows that these states function as a soteriological model of moral and spiritual transformation. The study also indicates that doctrines of subtle spiritual centres, prophetic lights, sobriety after spiritual intoxication, and the archetype of the Perfect Human occupy an important place in the region’s Sufi anthropology. Overall, the findings suggest that Central Asian Sufi teachings have contributed to a religious worldview centred on purification of the heart, ethical self-discipline, divine remembrance, and the internalisation of Islamic moral values.