The War within Islam

[Ashkiro]

Cheesy title I know. I received this article and found it interesting enough to share in this forum.

 

Mystical power Why Sufi Muslims, for centuries the most ferocious soldiers of Islam, could be our most valuable allies in the fight against extremism

[Nur]

Ashkiro sis

 

Very interesting read indeed!

 

Here is an humble attempt to summarize the gist of the article and the motivation of the author:

 

 

"..... these very Sufis -- these dedicated defenders and evangelists of mystical Islam -- are potentially vital allies for the nations of the West."

 

So, its not hidden secret, that, Sufis being a potential ally for the west in its war against Fundamentalist Islam are the best weapon to weaken Islam!

 

 

" For the Islamists -- for hard-line fundamentalists like the Saudi Wahhabis and the Taliban -- the Sufis are deadly enemies, who draw on practices alien to the Quran"

 

...Very Interesting, They are deadly enemies to Fundamentalist Islam because THEY DRAW ON PRACTICES ALIEN TO THE QURAN!!!!!!!

 

 

"..Around the world, the Sufis are struggling against violent fundamentalists who are at once their deadly foes, and ours

 

 

This means. the West wants to break a camel bone with another! ( Lafo Geel ayagaa la isku jabiyaa) Somali Proverb!

 

 

"... They ( SUFIS) presented an Islam that incorporated local traditions and worship styles, including Christian saints and Hindu gods. "

 

Meaning : They are not puritans, who divide people along faith, they are open to any interpretation of Islam and accept other faiths as valid!

 

 

" Today, moreover, Sufi brotherhoods face a deadly danger from the strict puritanical or fundamentalist Islam represented by Qaeda and similar movements, which are as threatening to the Sufi brotherhoods as they are to the West"

 

Thus the Unholy War on Terror!

 

 

" But the Sufis are much more than tactical allies for the West: they are, potentially, the greatest hope for pluralism and democracy within Muslim nations.."

 

Since they will accept all Western Ideals!

 

 

" From their beginnings, too, Sufi traditions have been religiously inclusive. Wherever the orders flourish, popular Islamic religion focuses on the tombs of saints and sheikhs, who believers venerate with song and ritual dance. In fact, they behave much like traditional-minded Catholics do when they visit their own shrines in Mexico or southern Italy

 

 

......They are the Catholics of Islam! interesting, then Al Qaeda must be the Protestants who were persecuted , who are now powerful!

 

 

"... This open-mindedness contrasts with the much harsher views of the fundamentalists, who we know by various names. Salafism claims to teach a return to the pure religion taught by the prophet Muhammad in the seventh century, and in that early Islamic community Salafis think they can find all they need to know about life and law. The most powerful and best-known version of this back-to-basics ideology is the Wahhabi movement that emerged in the 18th century, and which in modern times has built a worldwide presence on the strength of Saudi oil money. At its most extreme, this exclusive tradition rejects knowledge that is not clearly rooted in the Quran and Islamic legal thought, and regards other religions and cultures as dangerous rivals lacking any redeeming virtues. Al Qaeda and its affiliates represent an extreme and savage manifestation of this fundamentalist current"

 

 

Self Explanatory, no comment here!

 

 

" Sufis have literally everything to lose from the continued advance of the Islamist extremists. But Sufis are anything but passive victims, and in their resilience lies their true importance to the West"

 

 

Meaning: The west must keep them alive and arm them to fight the Extremists!

 

 

" .. Hard as they try, fundamentalist radicals find it impossible to gain much of a foothold in societies where Islam is synonymous with Sufism, and where Sufi loyalty is deeply tied to cultural and national identity"

 

Meaning: Sufis have more loyalty to nationalism, culture etc. than Islam.

 

 

".. In 2007, the influential RAND Corporation issued a major report titled "Building Moderate Muslim Networks," ( http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2007/RAND_MG57 4.pdf ) which urged the US government to form links with Muslim groups that opposed Islamist extremism. The report stressed the Sufi role as moderate traditionalists open to change, and thus as potential allies against violence"

 

 

No Comment here too!

 

 

" The British government especially has befriended the Sufi orders, and has made groups like the British Muslim Forum and the Sufi Muslim Council its main conversation partners in the Muslim community. ......If this British model works, it would encourage the growth of a Euro-Islam that could reconcile easily with modernity and democracy, while yielding nothing of its religious content"

 

 

I like how the British fight "war on terror" ( bogus war against Islam with pretext of self inflicted wound blamed on Muslims to steal their Oil), their tactics are soft compared to American tactics. Back in the Eighties, the British Intelligence was tipped off that a group of Iranians were planning to assassinate the Queen, unlike the Americans, they did not go after the suspects, they simply published the Queens family tree, the Iranians were shocked to find out that the Queen was a descendant of Prophet Muhammad! ( Her ancestors married the Muslim rulers of Spain who were direct descendants of Prophet Muhammad SAWS, which foiled the attempt without a shot, The Queen can walk unprotected now in streets of Tehran).

 

 

" Nobody is pretending that building bridges with Sufis will resolve the many problems that divide the West from the Islamic world. In countries like Afghanistan or Somalia, warfare and violence might be so deeply engraved into the culture that they can never be expunged. Yet in so many lands, reviving Sufi traditions provide an effective bastion against terrorism, much stronger than anything the West could supply by military means alone. The West's best hope for global peace is not a decline or secularization of Islam, but rather a renewal and strengthening of that faith, and above all of its spiritual and mystical"

 

 

Meaning: Somalia and Afghanistan are a headache for the west, let us contain spread of puritan Islam that is competing with Christianity in other parts of the Muslim world before its too late!

 

 

About the Author:

 

 

"Philip Jenkins is Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. He is author of " The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia -- and How It Died" (HarperOne, 2008)"

 

 

Is this the author's attempt to revive Christianity at the expense of Islam by reviving SUFISM as an ally?

 

 

Nur

 

2009 eNuri Western Media Digest

Reading Between The Lines

[Fabregas]

There is a new term for this strategy to promote so called sufis and other groups: Rand Islam:

 

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1716/ MR1716.pdf

 

this approach seeks to strengthen and foster the development of civil, democratic

Islam and of modernization and development. It provides the necessary

flexibility to deal with different settings appropriately, and it reduces the danger

of unintended negative effects. The following outline describes what such a

strategy might look like:

 

 

• Support the modernists first, enhancing their vision of Islam over that of the

traditionalists by providing them with a broad platform to articulate and

disseminate their views. They, not the traditionalists, should be cultivated

and publicly presented as the face of contemporary Islam.

 

 

• Support the secularists on a case-by-case basis.

 

• Encourage secular civic and cultural institutions and programs.

 

• Back the traditionalists enough to keep them viable against the fundamentalists

(if and wherever those are our choices) and to prevent a closer

alliance between these two groups. Within the traditionalists, we should

selectively encourage those who are the relatively better match for modern

civil society. For example, some Islamic law schools are far more amenable

to our view of justice and human rights than are others.

 

 

• Finally, oppose the fundamentalists energetically by striking at vulnerabilities

in their Islamic and ideological postures, exposing things that neither

48 Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies

the youthful idealists in their target audience nor the pious traditionalists

can approve of: their corruption, their brutality, their ignorance, the bias

and manifest errors in their application of Islam, and their inability to lead

and govern.

Some additional, more-direct activities will be necessary to support this overall

approach, such as the following:

• Help break the fundamentalist and traditionalist monopoly on defining,

explaining, and interpreting Islam.

 

• Identify appropriate modernist scholars to manage a Web site that answers

questions related to daily conduct and offers modernist Islamic legal opinions.

 

• Encourage modernist scholars to write textbooks and develop curricula.

 

• Publish introductory books at subsidized rates to make them as available as

the tractates of fundamentalist authors.

 

• Use popular regional media, such as radio, to introduce the thoughts and

practices of modernist Muslims to broaden the international view of what

Islam means and can mean.

[Ashkiro]

^Salams brothers Nur & Abu,

 

Thought I share this article written by Shaykh Tawfique Chowdhury on the issue. It's clear the previous author has an agenda of pitting one group of Muslims against another, but here's a Muslim Scholar's perspective. Do you guys believe the Muslim world does have a problem with extremist kwarji groups? Anyway here's the article and a wealth of comments following it.

Source

[Fabregas]

^^I posted his article( he's not scholar btw) and a refutation by imam anwar in the other thread. you should find that interesting, if you haven't seen it already. good night folks.