Devotees of Sufism, the spiritual interpretation of Islam, face problems wherever they are found. In the West, many self-styled Sufis have never become Muslim, know little of the religious background of the Sufi way, and give Sufism a reputation as simply another flavor of New-Age, "weekend" mysticism. In Muslim lands, especially in the Arab core countries, classic Sufi authors may be praised while living Sufi teachers are derided as un-Islamic charlatans. And in some places, Sufis are imprisoned and murdered.
As a Muslim Sufi adherent, however, I am troubled especially by another expression of contempt very widely cast against Sufism by Islam-hating amateur experts in the West. That is the claim of Sufi irrelevance. Since the horror of Sept. 11, now almost a decade past, the identification of a moderate and contemplative form of Islam, which can oppose radical and fundamentalist doctrines, has seemed of considerable importance both for the moral health of Muslim believers and for the security of non-Muslims and Muslims alike. But the Sufi alternative to Islamist extremism is neglected or even disparaged, typically, by Muslim and non-Muslim commentators.
Western misperception of the importance of Sufis in Islamic life is complicated by lack of clarity as to who and what Sufis are. Sufis often enjoy great prestige with the mass of Muslims, based on Sufi examples of personal humility in fervor for God and Sufi preaching of love for humanity. But Sufis are not, mainly, other-worldly, exotic individuals or groups that spend all their time absorbed in semah (ecstatic turning on one foot and other forms of dance).
Some Sufis withdraw from the daily affairs of society, but others pursue satisfaction of the Creator by seeking social justice through improvement of popular education and services to the needy, such as housing of the homeless and free distribution of food. Rather than disappearing in a misty aura of meditation, numerous Sufis around the Muslim world contribute actively to defense of the victims of oppression.
Sufis may also take on the risky challenge of overt political engagement. This has been seen most strikingly in Turkish developments over the past two decades. Turkish Sufis were suppressed by the secularist regime established in the 1920s, but flourished in clandestinity, and have now emerged to lead Islamist parties and to assume positions in government. How the relations between Turkish Islamist politicians and Turkish and Kurdish Sufis will evolve remains to be seen.
Essential principles shared by most Muslim Sufis include emphasis on commonalities with other faiths and traditions, which has contributed to improved relations between Muslims and Jews, Christians, Buddhists and other non-Islamic believers. Commentators concerned to denigrate Islam altogether have asserted that Sufis, even if they embody moderation and mutual respect among people of religion, comprise no more than 5 percent of the world's Muslims. Since the importance of Sufism stands, in the minds of many Westerners, on demographic measurement, let us therefore ask: How many Sufis are found in the Muslim world?
I would first observe that Sufis are present, persistently, in every Muslim population, including those where they were persecuted the longest: Saudi Arabia. Although the Saudi kingdom prohibited and punished possession of Sufi books and the practice of Sufi observances, the country always possessed a thriving Sufi underground with access to the heights of power. Before his elevation to the throne in 2005, then-Saudi Crown Prince, and now King Abdullah, who favored Sufis, gained them the right to hold zikr (remembrance of God by vocal or silent chanting, singing and bodily movements) in their homes.
In some countries Sufism is praised as an item of a proud heritage while it is repressed in daily life. The most obvious such example is that of Iran. The clerical regime established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini could not act easily against Sufis, since so many famous Sufis -- such as Jalaladdin Rumi, the 13th century author believed by many to be, currently, the most widely read poet in the West -- wrote in Persian, and Sufi texts became the national literature of the Iranians.
But while the Tehran clerics honor the Sufis of the past, they repress Sufis in the present. Sufis have most often functioned as an alternative to clerical authority in Islam, and widely represented Iranian Sufi bodies like the Nimatullahi-Gonabadi dervish order and the "hidden," Kurdish-speaking Ahl-e Haqq or "people of truth" have sustained a difficult challenge to the Iranian authorities. Iranian Sufis have been arrested and disappeared into the obscurity of the prisons, with some doubtless dealt a fatal destiny.
As certain Islamic countries are ambivalent about Sufism, in other Muslim societies we see variations in the intensity of Sufi "activism." Analyzing Islamic Sufism, I have generally divided Muslim territories between those in which Sufism has a deep but informal influence in local Islam, in contrast with those where it has a well-established institutional presence.
In the great Eurasian expanses, Islam is widely permeated by Sufi teachings and customs. From my travels, observation and participation in Muslim life, I have seen and experienced that Sufi-oriented Islam is prevalent among Slavic and Russian Turkic Muslims, dominant in Central Asia, and widely-represented in South Asia and in Southeast Asia. Across this heartland, Sufi authors are studied and throngs of pilgrims visit Sufi shrines or otherwise commemorate the lives of Sufi saints.
Elsewhere the spiritual heritage is maintained by powerful, organized orders, sometimes called "brotherhoods" although they typically include female disciples. These are prominent in North Africa, French-speaking West Africa, East Africa, the Albanian lands, plus Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan and Iran.
In Turkey, most Muslims are Sufi either by identification with the normative Sunnism subsidized by the state, which exalted Sufis and places the works of Rumi in all Turkish mosques, or by participation in Sufi orders as well as widespread, part-time study circles and other voluntary communities that teach an esoteric Islam. Others are involved in more singular phenomena like the Turkish-Kurdish, Shia-Sufi-shamanist Alevi movement. As a different variant in the Sufi continuum, Indonesia possesses a Sufi civic movement of national scope -- the Nahdatul Ulama (NU) organization. Returning to South Asia, organized Sufism there is enacted with a backdrop of a broader, "cultural" Sufism and is under bloody attack by radicals.
Aggregating Sufi-influenced Muslims with active Muslim Sufis from Senegal to Singapore, I believe it is realistic to claim a large plurality, at least, of the world's 1.3-plus billion Muslims. This should be a source of optimism for those who seek conciliation, rather than confrontation, between the world's religions, affecting positively both the direction of Islam and the image of Islam among non-Muslims. For these reasons, more concentrated attention on the Sufis by social-science investigators and other experts would be welcome.
Sufism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
PARADOX (QS 21:35) - we could not avoid realities, so there will be "good sufism" and also "bad sufism". We could find "Pure Sufism", "Applied Sufism", and "Techno Sufism" around the world, but so sorry, in facts we could see the practices of "pseudo sufism" too.
"The clash of civilization" - conflicts among the followers of "Traditional Sufi" and "Neo Sufism" can not be avoided, as long as there is no academic study by competent intellectuals.
NeoSUFI visionary strategic thinking.
Tato Sugiarto
Sati, the practice of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands continues to be practiced in some areas.
How many wives die each year in dowry related cases in india? Indian law says receiving dowry is a crime? Is it enforced?
In March, 100 women in Tamil Nadu were walked on by a Hindu priest with nails in his shoes in a ritual intended to cure them of physical and mental illnesses.
A tribal woman in Madhya Pradesh was forced to bathe in urine
Look at the gold and cash hoarded in the bed rooms of Satya Sai Baba? Was he godman or fraud man? an incarnation of god? Nityananda again with his Krishna Leelas.
Prostitution is common. According to UNICEF, India contains 50% of the one million children worldwide who enter the sex trade each year.
Human rights groups estimated that at least 10,000 cases of female infanticide occurred yearly.
The country's caste system has strong religious ties to Hinduism. Dalits often do dirtiest jobs.
In contrast, the highest caste, the Brahmin, with 3.5 percent of the population, holds 78 percent of the judicial positions and approximately 50 percent of parliamentary seats.
Peace/Salaams/Shalom
Walk into any Muslim college in South India ask the Muslim students to indicate their original Hindu caste on a plain piece of paper… you will come up with zero information. Over a period of about 800 years, they have destoyed the castes. You do the same thing in a Christian college, every Christian student knows his Hindu caste. This is the revolution that Islam has brought about in parts of India. Hindu rightists are scared if the revolution spread and make the 200 million low caste Hindus to convert to islam and destroy the caste system over the next 200 years or so.
It is true South Indian Christians loyally, faithfully, and proudly stick to their castes such as Mudaliar, Nadar, Pillai, Devar, Maravar, Vanniar, Naidu, Vellalar, Kallar, etc but in spite of the fact that South India Muslims had been converted from all castes right across the board, deep research shows that their original Hindu castes had totally disappeared .. this has been one of the biggest achievements of Islam in parts of India.
It may be partly true there are a few caste berriers among Muslims in North India, but that will disappear in course of time, but in Hindusim it is part of manu and hindu scriptural law and laws on redemption after death and rebirth
Here is another sort of fact on the ground in south India.
http://www.persecution.in/content/police-register-sedition-case-against-kerala-islamic-outfit-involved-hand-chopping
You mention Caste based distinction, My Lord, honestly ask a Kurichan Christian whose name is Joseph Chitran, his forefathers became Christians about 150 years ago, he still has the “distinction” of Apartheid right in his village church simply because he is an untouchable.
But go into a mosque where Hasan( probably a Pallan untouchable ancestor, his Muslim name has destroyed his caste already) prays shoulder to shouder with all other Muslim brothers, no segregation, first come first served on the rows of worshippers, he has the distinction of calling himself with dignity belonging to the community of about 1500 million Muslims of the world.
He does not want to recall even if he knew by almost an impossible chance in South India, his Pallan caste because he considers that identity as shameful as he was considered as an untouchable filthy outcaste.
Should you convince the Dalit Christians to come back to the fold of Hinduism, some may consider coming back to enjoy the Govt benefits, but should you try the same with Muslim Indians, the success rate will be highly negligible because in the first place you would not know in what castes you would place them as they did no know their original castes.
Your second part is a trash, we can give 1000 such instances by insane people like the Oslo Bomber
Dude! If you want to use HuffPost to reach out to non-Sufi readers and educate them about Sufism, don't presume that we already know what a Sufi is. You say that you know we in the West don't know what Sufism is, and then you proceed to fail utterly to tell us in any but the most vague, cryptic ways.
At some point early in your essay, spare a paragraph to give us all a clear, cogent, brief definition of a Sufi. Then, of Sufism.
Spare a second paragraph to lay out the historical relationship between Sufism and all the various forms of Islam.
Then take us on a more reflective ride.
Is there not a HuffPost editor to hand this back to the author with some recommended changes that will make it more clear and more compelling?
Score 1:0.
A:Not enough.
The trick is to find one without too many vestiges of religious mumbo- jumbo.
Nothing particular special or advanced about Sufism in that respect.
"The Elephant in the Dark" by Idries Shah
The expansion of Islam outside the core areas of the Middle East is above all a Sufi story. Sufi orders led the armies that conquered lands in Central and South Asia, and in Southeastern Europe; through their piety and their mysticism, the brotherhoods then won the local populations over to Islam. Along the way, it blended with local cultures, accepting worshippers across class, caste and religious divides. But in South Asia – until recently – Sufism was the norm, not a fringe movement .
Over the centuries, the territories where Sufi orders seeded Islam have evolved from the faith’s frontiers to its demographic heartlands. These regions now encompass Islam’s largest and fastest-growing populations. Of the eight nations with the world’s largest Muslim communities, only one (Egypt) is Arab. A fifth of the world’s Muslims today identify with Sufism, and for many millions more, Sufism is simply part of the air they breathe.SUFISM is relevant whereever ISLAM is relevant.
You're leaving out quite a bit of nasty business conducted by these armies led by Sufi orders. Spare a thought for those force converted out of their native cultures, instead of your romantic notions. What you write goes to show that being a Sufi does not necessarily mean non-violent or non-exclusivist.
In India, Islam had to adapt and Sufism was the result. And then, various Hindu traditions of Yoga greatly impacted Sufism, from technique to metaphysics. Translated Bengali and Sanskrit texts were circulated as far as modern Turkey.