Transhumanism is a social trend that characterizes a growing number of people who are confident that technologies of human enhancement will enable them to transcend physical and mental weakness, frailty and imperfection. Life extension, intelligence increase, disease resistance, rejuvenation and genetic fortification ... these and other boons lie only slightly in the future, according to transhumanists. There is an inverse relation between technical and philosophical sophistication among leading transhumanist. For example, Nick Bostrom professes nearly blind faith in European Enlightenment rationality and the salvific power of science and technology. For all its technical savvy, transhumanism's uncritical embrace of Enlightenment philosophy renders it a doctrinaire trend in popular cultural, not a philosophical one. Sufism emerged early in the history of Islam as a blend of East Asian spirituality, orthodox Islam and Greek philosophy. Despite its emergence within a revelation-based religious culture, Sufism's deliberative refinement of philosophical anthropology over the course of 13 centuries lends a selfreflexive character to its approach to human transformation. I will argue that while it shares certain transcendental ideals that are traditionally found in Sufism, transhumanism understands and pursues these ideals without significant self-critical evaluation. Transhumanists tend to reduce erstwhile religious ideals to upgradeable, more or less plausible technological products. By contrast, the Sufi perspective offers a non-literal, nontechnological ideals of human perfection. Based on this contrast, I contend that while transhumanists are moved by the same transcendental urges, they act on these in ways that are at best futile, and at worse, ultimately self-defeating.

• Farzad Mahootian(PhD, Global Liberal Studies Program, New York University)