It is often assumed that Sufism stands opposed to Wahhabism. Wrong. Sufism and Wahhabism, in fact, share a fatal characteristic – they are religions of the status quo. In Pakistan, Sufism legitimises barbarities of inequality and starvation – ‘do nothing, it’s god’s will’ – while at the same time justifying structures of oppressive power, Pirism and landlordism, rather like Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia. Contemporary Sufism, rather than being a solution to Pakistan’s problems, is the cause.
Latest Updates: Sufis RSS
-
johnpi
-
johnpi
Al Shabaab launches offensive in Somali northern region of Puntland.
Having consolidated its power in the Deep South along the Kenyan border, Shabaab has launched a terror offensive in the northern self-declared state of Puntland. It is a Mexican drug gang-style campaign, with an aggressive string of targeted assassinations and low profile bombings in a Somali region that had been relatively safe and prosperous.
….In its quest to overrun Puntland, Shabaab will have to confront two strong groups. The first is Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a, a pro-government Somali Islamist militia that follows the religious tradition of Sufism. Shabaab has targeted Sufis for practicing a different strain of Islam, and has destroyed Sufi shrines, cemeteries, and other symbols. Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a is strong in the central regions of the country and has fought back against Shabaab’s incursion on its turf.
The second group standing in Shabaab’s way is the Puntland security forces.
-
johnpi
Pakistani magazine article: The Saudi-isation of Pakistan.
Soldiers, policemen, factory and hospital workers, mourners at funerals and ordinary people praying in mosques have all been reduced to globs of flesh and fragments of bones. But, perhaps paradoxically, in spite of the fact that the dead bodies and shattered lives are almost all Muslim ones, few Pakistanis speak out against these atrocities. Nor do they approve of the army operation against the cruel perpetrators of these acts because they believe that they are Islamic warriors fighting for Islam and against American occupation. Political leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan have no words of solace for those who have suffered at the hands of Islamic extremists. Their tears are reserved exclusively for the victims of Predator drones, even if they are those who committed grave crimes against their own people. Terrorism, by definition, is an act only the Americans can commit.
….Villages have changed drastically; this transformation has been driven, in part, by Pakistani workers returning from Arab countries. Many village mosques are now giant madrassas that propagate hard-line Salafi and Deobandi beliefs through oversized loudspeakers. They are bitterly opposed to Barelvis, Shias and other sects, who they do not regard as Muslims. The Punjabis, who were far more liberal towards women than the Pukhtuns, are now beginning to take a line resembling that of the Taliban. Hanafi law has begun to prevail over tradition and civil law, as is evident from the recent decisions of the Lahore High Court.
….Pakistan’s self-inflicted suffering comes from an education system that, like Saudi Arabia’s system, provides an ideological foundation for violence and future jihadists. It demands that Islam be understood as a complete code of life, and creates in the mind of a school-going child a sense of siege and embattlement by stressing that Islam is under threat everywhere.
-
johnpi
Somalia Sufi forces organize to fight the ‘existential threat’ of Shabaab Wahhabis.
Somalia’s main Sufi movement, Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa, on Thursday wrapped up an unprecedented conference in Nairobi to strategize its response to the rise and radicalization of the Shabaab group.
Dozens of the usually quiet religious movement’s leaders have in recent days converged on Nairobi from Somalia and from Western exile to close ranks against what they see as an existential threat.
“The Shabaab are misguided people who have misunderstood the true values of Islam,” overall chairman Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Muhieddin told AFP before leaving Kenya Thursday.
Sufism is dominant in clannish Somalia, where Muslim saints are often also clan founders, but its leading clerics have voiced concern that hardline Islamist groups such as the Al Qaeda-inspired Shabaab were slowly eradicating it.
It emphasizes the mystical dimension of Islam and includes practices considered as idolatry by the followers of the Wahhabi sect adopted by the Shabaab.
-
johnpi
Kadyrov, 33, was once a separatist but switched sides, recasting himself as an Islamic leader who is also loyal to Moscow.
At first, his injection of national pride along with lots of money from the central government in Moscow soothed war-weary Chechens.
And at first, the process of Islamization was voluntary. Any female student who wore a headscarf initially earned a prize of $1,000. Now all females, regardless of their religious convictions, must cover their heads in schools and government offices.
Kadyrov has banned the sale of European-style wedding dresses in the republic’s bridal salons. Polygamy is increasing. Members of the team around Kadyrov openly have several wives. Kadyrov has also supported honor killings.
Lipkhan Bazaeva, who runs a nongovernmental organization promoting women’s rights, says Chechnya is going back to the Middle Ages.
“Yes, we are a traditional, conservative society, with our own values, but the government has gone overboard, declaring unacceptable limits on women — that they should sit at home, they should obey their husbands,” she says. “As an individual, she has no rights even if her husband beats her, despite Russian laws to the contrary.”
-
johnpi
Shabaab rebels destroy Sufi religious leader’s grave and mosque in Somalia.
Witnesses said residents in the small town of Galhareeri tried to stop the al Shabaab fighters late Sunday, but the rebel gunmen opened fire in the air, forcing everyone to flee.
“They destroyed the grave of Sheikh Ali Ibaar and our mosque. They also knocked down our Islamic university,” local elder Hassan Ali told Reuters by telephone from Galhareeri.
“We are now just squatting among the trees on the outskirts of the town. We do not know where to flee.”
….Separately in the capital Monday, police displayed the body of a foreign gunman who appeared to be Arab and was killed Sunday during an al Shabaab attack on government forces.
“You see this dead Arab. He was among the members of al Qaeda who came from other countries just to destroy Somalia,” police spokesman Abdullahi Barise told reporters, standing over the corpse of a light-skinned man with several bullets wounds.
Al Shabaab have urged foreign jihadists to join their battle against what they describe as Somalia’s apostate government.
-
johnpi
Feature article on Sufi communities resisting al Shabaab in Somalia.
“Our Jihad is for the freedom of our religion and of Muslims’ property which Al-Shabab describes legal for them to loot,’’ Abu-Yusuf snappily said after taking a phone call from Mogadishu telling him that Al-Shabab executed two men for espionage.
“They kill anyone who does not want their crazy ideologies and fake justifications,’’ he adds.
….In contrast to Al-Shabab, there are no strict religious punishments in the group’s strongholds such as, whipping, executions and amputations, rather people are being peacefully preached to practice the religion well.
“The Sufis will forever be our religion’s clerics. They were the first ones to spread Islam in our country,’’ Somali educator Abdulle Nur told The Media Line by phone from Nairobi, Kenya.
The central region of Galgadud is the only place in which Sufism was threatened as Al-Shabab forbade the performances of spiritual ceremonies in the region while it was under their control.
But now the Sufis are in charge, and this time in Galgadud, Sufis are enforcing the law, patrolling the streets and implementing justice.
-
johnpi
(via Juan Cole)
-
johnpi
An annual Spring festival in Pakistan’s Sindh province has been cut short, from 10 days to only three, following threats from a Taliban affiliate group seeking a “pure, Islamic state” that has recently increased its presence in the region. The threats are specifically directed towards 18 Pakistani female dancers, whose Sufi music and dance performance is a central feature of the festival.
Local police accompanied the clerics who made the demand. Credit to all involved that nobody was killed, but have no doubt that the threat is coercive religious oppression, hence I tag this “Muslim-on-Muslim violence.”
-
johnpi