(1) How would you summarize the main ideas of the section you selected?

Sufism used to be a part of the practice and culture of both sunnis and shiiis; however, the discipline disapeared from the sunni world arround the twelfth century. sufism is a spiritual practice based on philosophical thoughts, similar to ancient greek philosophy. in fact, Greek philosophy was translated, islamized and further developed by philosophers such as Al-Farabi. Sufism is described as a mystical practice refering to the divine wisdome, drawing ideas and understanding from spiritual meditation. on the other hand, even though sufism is present in some part of the sunni world, that sufism was developped in the shiii direction for the past centuries, which means that sunni sufism has shiii sufism line of thoughts 

(2) What additional piece of information did you discover about your topic that you found interesting/surprising?

the term sufism comes from the Prophet's era, the name sufi was given to the sahaba who used to stay at the prophets house near the Quibla wall. the sahaba used to sit in a place filled with wool (souf), reading Koraan, meditating, and debating religous concepts; becoming Ahl Souf and later called al mutassawifun or sufiyyun.