Contrary to popular belief, the Sufis do not reject violent jihad. Their towering figure, al-Ghazali, taught it, and Sufis have been at the vanguard of the Chechen jihad. Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, which in turn gave birth to Hamas and Al-Qaeda, was strongly influenced by Sufism. In 2009, Iraqi Sufis meant with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and boasted of their jihad activity in Iraq. Izzat al-Douri, a Sufi leader, was instrumental in the formation of the Islamic State.
“Indian PM Praises Islam at Sufi Conference,” by Anjana Pasricha, Voice of America, March 17, 2016:
Praising Islam as a religion of peace, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Thursday that Indian Muslims reflect the spirit of Sufism, which he called the “voice of peace, co-existence, compassion and equality.”
He was addressing a four-day conference of Sufi scholars from about 20 countries being held in New Delhi to promote tolerance as a counterpoint to the rise in terrorism and extremism. Sufism is the mystical form of Islam.
The Indian prime minister’s presence at the inaugural function of the World Sufi Forum is being seen as an outreach to Muslims and a bid to ease concerns that his Bharatiya Janata Party is pursuing a Hindu revivalist agenda.
But the conference, coordinated with the help of the BJP government, was criticized by several Indian Muslim leaders as an attempt to create divisions in the country’s Muslim community.
Crediting India’s progress to every member of every faith, Modi called Islam a great religion and said Indian Muslims “reflect the timeless culture of peace, diversity and equality, of faith of our land. They are steeped in the democratic tradition of India, confident of their place in the country and invested in the future of the nation.”…

ainu888 says
I was not aware the sufis were behind such acts of violence. Quite an eye opener.
On a slightly different topic, I dreamed two nights ago that I was sitting in a hotel and attending a talk, not sure how I got there or who the speaker was. On closer examination, the speaker was our own Dr. Spencer. After his talk, I helped him carry his suitcases to his hotel room and remarked that it had an excellent view of the city. We said our goodbyes and I went back home.
Karen says
Interesting. Some deconstruction; you wish to be helpful in some way to Dr. Spencer, or show some kindness. Also the excellent view of the city is a symbol of his clear thinking or perceptions, which he shared with you.
ainu888 says
Thanks Karen. I’ve been curious about what this dream could mean.
mortimer says
ainu wrote: “I was not aware the sufis were behind such acts of violence”
Sufis were chosen to lead most jihads, because dervishes and their followers had a mystical ability to tune themselves out of reality and become fearless. Sufis often led the attack against non-Muslims.
Andrew G. Bostom deplored the naïve idea that Sufis are a cure for jihadism: “Sufism is not an ideological penicillin (let alone a modern, efficacious therapy given evolving drug resistance!) for what a neo—convert Sufi Muslim journalist terms the ‘syphilis’ of Wahhabism , nor is the much maligned Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyya the ‘index case’ of Wahhabism, which itself is deeply and broadly rooted in orthodox Islam…the sacralized, manichean bigotry which motivates (Sufis), remains the most profound existential threat to free and open societies.”
Sufis have traditionally been zealous for discriminatory Sharia law. Sufis are hard-core supremacists. The last thing a supremacist wants is egalitarianism or tolerance.
staffsgt7 says
The ones I have met and know about are Muslim Brotherhood members. They are masters of deception and ‘smooth talking’ so you don’t even know you have been smarmed by them. They are dangerous.
Angemon says
Ah, so Indian muslims might as well be apostates?
JP says
I had a Persian Muslim friend who was raised with no religious background. She became interested in Sufism and some years later when I met her, was a violently hateful anti-semite (after years of dating only Jewish men) She had gotten radicalized in her mosque. This is Los Angeles.
Manish says
Modi is lying, as usual.
He lied before the May2014 election that he was a Hindu hardliner. And having become PM in May2014, he immediately abandoned Hinduism bec he doesn’t hv the guts to stand up to Islamic terror.
He is now lying about “peace and Islam” at a time when Muslims are butchering members of his party almost every week. These killings have been going on since May2014 when Muslims realized that we would win the election and become PM. He has not shown the guts to even speak up about these killings, let alone go after the murderers.
Sufis have a very bloody record in India, which has all been expunged from Indian history textbooks.
He has suffered a complete mental disintegration under the onslaught of unrelenting Islamic terror. Anyone in India or outside India who is expecting even one ounce of work from Modu against Islamic terrorism is barking up the wrong tree.
Nil_Hindu says
Hope Modi is practicing the kuffar version of takia. Sufis have been the scum who do the initial legwork for the jihadi armies of Islam.
mortimer says
Agreeing with Manish: Modi must be lying intentionally when he says that Sufism is the “voice of peace, co-existence, compassion and equality.”
Sufis are supremacists and Koran 48.29 is the reverse of co-existence, compassion and equality:
“Muhammad is the messenger of Allah; Those with him are VIOLENT (ashiddaa’) against the disbelievers (kufaar); Compassionate amongst themselves.”
Hindu Nastik says
Islam aims to convert by force or pursuation. Sufi is the other end of the stick, which instead of being opposed to, goes hand in hand. When people fight against Islam, and when they lose, and yet refuse to convert, them Sufism comes to play to lure the currently vanquished from uniting and rising up against supremacy of Islam.
Read this article for active role of Sufism for abbeting and promoting, never secularising, restraing or reforming, Islamic jihad:
hinduexistence.org/2016/03/18/as-a-hindu-pm-modi-must-not-tell-a-lie-about-allah-and-islam/
Hindu Nastik says
Link:
http://hinduexistence.org/2016/03/18/as-a-hindu-pm-modi-must-not-tell-a-lie-about-allah-and-islam/
Hindu Nastik says
Sinister Side of Sufism
indiafacts.org/sinister-side-sufism/
tim says
The problem with Sufism is, as always with Muslim faiths, that it was a title superimposed on Rumi – who was never known to be or declared a Sufi before his death. The Sufi title was added onto him after his death. In addition, I really wonder if Rumi was not of Christian origin, enslaved and force converted. The name Rumi by itself means “The Roman” and was sometimes a name used on Roman Byzantines. In addition, some of the fragmented claims on Rumi’s life says that the Rumi family “fled” from Afghanistan during Muslim invasions into their home country. Why would they be fleeing their own?
Whenever you imply that Rumi was not a Muslim, Muslims hit the roof. It really peeves them off.
mortimer says
tim’s comments are factual: in conclusion, it is hard to know what Rumi believed in exactly beyond syncretism. Rumi’s poetical ‘conceits’ are the source of much debate. He was probably heretical.
Pere LaChaise says
Whatever Celaluddin Rumi personally believed,he inspired an order of dervishes which apparently specialize in classical music and ecstatic dance , the zikr. I have never heard anything about their wrongdoing.
There are Sufis and there are Sufis. I had a music teacher in Benares, a Shiite who derided them – probably Chishtis in North India – as louche bohemians. Bektashis probably helped the Selcuk Turks exterminate, oops, enlighten Anatolian Christians in territories newly conquered by the likes of Alp Arslan.
Often Sufism is the way Islam is sold to Europeans and Americans, as an intellectual and spiritual pursuit with little or no emphasis on Quran, Hadith, that rapist Mohammed or any of the other tribal crap most Sunnis embrace as so important to the good life. Most American Sufis do not seem interested in Sunni mainstream Islam and don’t mix with Arab-speaking immigrants. Their Sufism is elitist, comparable to Theravada Buddhism embraced by Americans. It’s not their goal to become rank and file Buddhists but to have their cake and eat it too.
I know of a man who had joined the Sufi cult of Fritjof Schuon. His wife became Moslem with him. They divorced after some years as his depression worsened. He joined another khanigah or Tekke or whatever they call their groups, led by a sheikh from Morocco. The Schoun people said it was too bad he was going to hell now. Eventually he committed suicide.
I know of another man who had converted to Orthodox Christianity, graduated seminary and was ordained a priest as a married man. After sometime he read himself into Sufism and abjured his faith in Christ. He was a renowned scholar and a professor of note at a seminary in Berkeley. He died suddenly of a heart attack very recently.
Another friend had married a Persian lady and became intellectually enamoured of the Sufism of Suhrawardi, probably through the work of Henri Corbin, Sufi to the Shah or Iran and no follower of the Prophet in any literal way. This friend capped his esotericism by embracing Orthodox Christianity.
I personally began studies at a Chishti Sufi house in San Francisco in my youth, which led me to convert to Orthodoxy. I have now been serving as a priest of Christ for nearly a decade.
I think when Modi speaks of Sufism, he speaks from the Indian experience of an enculturated community like the Chishtis who have long functioned harmoniously within India’s cosmopolitan tapestry of cultures. I would prefer such to Wahhabi modernists any day.
Kepha says
PereLachaise: I think a lot of Western “Sufisim” is just the eccentric in pursuit of the exotic.
You might find this fun, since you mentioned Theravada Buddhism (I guess the Zen of my youth is now out of fasion): point out to a liberal, campus Western Buddhist that on its home ground, Buddhism teaches that should a woman procure an abortion, the demons will parade her around the 18th Hell in a cangue while the aborted child tugs at her skirts, then listen to the denials and take in the uncomfortable looks.
I admit I tried this only on people who were ostensibly “Mahayana.” However, I also recall how in officially Theravada Thailand, abortion is still illegal (a shame it isn’t so in the ostensibly Christian West)–thanks in no large part to the influence of the sangha.
As for Sufi’ism, I heard the same kind of claptrap the above article describes when I went through training as a Foreign Service Officer. No wonder they call the US State Department Foggy Bottom.
Tom says
I had a nightmare last night…. I dreamt Trump was the Republican candidate against Clinton. And Clinton made a surprise win by 502. The thought of having the Butcher of Benghazi run the country (once more) was just too depressing in the morning.
Charli Main says
Indian Muslims “reflect the timeless culture of peace, diversity and equality, of faith of our land.
Ah, yes Mr Modi, the slaughter of some 80 million Hindus, the rape and sexual slavery of millions of Hindu women, the defilement and desecration of hundred of thousands of sacred Hindu sites were just acts of devotion by peaceful Muslims practicing their religion of diversity and equality.
I dread to think what would have happened in India, if the Muslims had been violent and aggressive !!!!!!!!.
sidney penny says
“Crediting India’s progress to every member of every faith, Modi called Islam a great religion and said Indian Muslims “reflect the timeless culture of peace, diversity and equality, of faith of our land. They are steeped in the democratic tradition of India, confident of their place in the country and invested in the future of the nation.”…”
What utter rubbish.
But I suppose with any nonmuslim country with a Muslim population or a large Muslim population like India, has to say the politically correct things.
Carolyne says
I have read that prior to the division of India, when the Muslims were on the rampage, trains would arrive at their destination with every Hindu dead and blood sloshing on the floors of the train cars. Sure, Sufis are peaceful. And then, giving the Muslims a home in Pakistan, that isn’t enough. They have to take over the rest of India. They are barbarians who need to be eliminated, not pacified.
And I am sick and tired of reading how the Taj Mahal is a monument to “Love.” She was just one wife among many. Disgusting misogynist prattle. Prince Charles, before he was married, visited the Taj Mahal and said he would return with his wife, when he had one. Princess Diana returned alone while Charles was off probably with his mistress. Just about the same thing.
Charli Main says
The Taj Mahal is a permanent , highly visible reminder to Indians, of the shame and humiliation that they suffered at the hands of the Muslim invaders of their country.
sidney penny says
“But the conference, coordinated with the help of the BJP government, was criticized by several Indian Muslim leaders as an attempt to create divisions in the country’s Muslim community.”
Really.
Are Muslims happy anywhere, for anything?
sidney penny says
http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/books/negaind/ch3.htm
” In Islam, this glimpse of universalism is confined to a few of the early heterodox Sufis, who were considered heretics by authoritative guardians of Islam. At any rate, their works are only read by a few intellectual amateurs, but the official doctrines are hammered into children’s minds in Islamic schools the world over. An occasional tolerant Muslim does not have the power to overrule and abrogate the Quran.
Not one Islamic school in the world teaches that Allah’s declarations of war on the unbelievers stand abrogated. The cleavage of humanity into Muslims and non-Muslims is so fundamental to Islamic doctrine, that it is very hard to even imagine the transformation of Islam into a tolerant religion”
GKP says
Does Sufi leaders reject the teaching of Qur’an and Hadith , it do not reflect so in their deeds. Sufi conference is just an act to divert the thought of mankind from the terrorism
It is simply “taquiya” ,an attempt to prove Islam is the religion of peace , which is false.
Peace can only be establish only by destroying Islam.
International leaders like modi should try not to engage in any pro Islamic movement
Florida Jim says
There is no peaceful muslim until they reject Mohammad and Islam. Sharia, jihad,enslavement, taxing infidels, disrupting neighborhoods with loud noises 5 times a day to taunt the same neighbors, lying to the face of infidels and Congress all are the daily habits of a religion of hatred teaching three year -olds to slit the throats of infidels, Jews and Americans.
Carolyne says
And don’t forget the mistreatment of women courtesy of Allah. FGM, beatings, child marriage, polygamy, etc. etc. etc.
Disgusting creatures.
sidney penny says
“For centuries, the Sufi creed and Sufi music have been tom-tommed as great symbols of spiritualism and promoters of peace and harmony between the Hindus and the Muslims. The cleverly marketed concept of Sufi spiritualism has been unquestioningly accepted as the hallmark of Hindu-Muslim unity. As with most such myths, history becomes the first casualty.”
It is, therefore, time we studied the history of Sufis, tried to track the narrative of their coming to India and analyzed their explicit missionary role in promoting conversions to Islam. More importantly, it needs to be assessed how did the Sufis conduct themselves during reckless killings and plunders by the Muslim invaders? Did they object to the senseless mass killings and try to prevent the unremitting plunder of Hindu temples and innocent masses? Did the Sufis ever object to the capture of helpless men and women as slaves and the use of the latter as objects of carnal pleasure? These are some of the questions to which answers have to be found by every genuine student of Indian history.”
………….
Like all Sufi masters, his main task was to apply the balm of spiritual unity on the traumatized Hindu population and then gradually persuade them to convert to Islam. Not a single Sufi, the so-called mystic saints, ever objected to the ongoing senseless manslaughter and reckless plunder, or to the destruction neither of temples, nor for that matter to the ghoulish enslavement of the so-called infidel men and women for sale in the bazaars of Ghazni and Baghdad
……………………
No Muslim, nor any Sufi, has ever agreed to worship in a Hindu temple, nor make obeisance before the images of Hindu Gods and Goddesses.
That is the truth about the Sufi saints and their “philosophy” of inter-religious harmony.
http://indiafacts.org/sinister-side-sufism/
Lawrence says
I must admit to being one of those – even as I knew Islam was a mad death cult – who got blinded by the Sufis are different and peaceful mystics crap. I think it may have been Idries Shah’s book on Sufis that suckered me
Depressing to see Modi sell out like that. India is like the West – no light at the end of the tunnel.
sidney penny says
http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/books/negaind/ch3.htm
last paragraph chapter 3
“In this context, Hindus are in a unique position. They have been victims of Islamic imperialism and intolerance for more than thirteen centuries. They know it in their bones what Islam has done to their ancient homeland, their society, their culture, and what it has so far stood for.
They have only to stop complaining about the Muslim behaviour pattern and trace that pattern to its source in the Islamic scripture: then they will acquire an initiative which they have never had in their long encounter with Islam. Once they educate themselves about the true character of Islam, they will be in a position to educate their Muslim countrymen, on most of whom Islam sits rather lightly. It need not be a campaign for Shuddhi, it has to be only a battle for liberating Muslims from the stranglehold of a closed creed.”