بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم Sufi News and Sufism World Report

A Buffer Zone

2012-01-27T00:01:00.032-05:00

By Fatimah Hussain/Sarah Sikander *Across enemy lines* - The Friday Times - Pakistan; January 20-26, 2012 - Vol. XXIII, No. 49

Fatima Hussain is an historian who specializes in the political history of Sufism. She is also an Indian Muslim married to a Pakistani. She talks to Sarah Sikander about the many lines she crosses and uncrosses in her life

In the withering heat of Lahore on a day like any other I found myself in a room that miraculously distracted my attention from the intense feeling of my back melting into its walls. History spoke through them and all the photographs, medals and souvenirs were collective images of nostalgia and tragedy for one could feel the Bhuttos pounding through them. From ZAB's iconic hand-on-the-chin portrait to Benazir's charisma to Nusrat Bhutto's beauty - two generations of Pakistan's first political family. And within these walls I was to meet an Indian, a patriotic Indian.

These walls, and the house by default, was Fakhar Zaman's, the revered Pakistani writer and the current chairperson of the Pakistan Academy of Letters. The purpose of my visit wasn't an interview with Zaman. I was there to meet his wife Fatima Hussain. I didn't have to wait long before she appeared, nervously apologizing for the intensified heat in the absence of electricity. Looking rather fresh for the smoldering temperature, Fatima was one of those rare people who instantly give you a sense of the remarkable conversation ahead.

Born and raised in New Delhi, Fatima graduated from Lady Shri Ram College in 1990 and went on to do Masters in Medieval Indian History. After completing an M Phil in 1994 on the relationship between the Sufi and the state, she completed her doctorate from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2002. She is currently working as Associate Professor in the Department of History at University of Delhi.

Fatima's niche is Sufism in its historical and political context. She has authored *The War That Wasn't: The Sufi and the Sultan*, *The Palestine Question: A Historical Perspective* and *Sufism Revisited*.

Why Palestine and Sufism? Because: "My study of Sufism is very political."

She believes diverging into other arenas of historical research is two-fold, it broadens vision and gives you a perspective for your own research. "Reading into other areas is something my teachers always encouraged me to do, which consequently helped me string-up the two."

About the Sufi-State relationship she said: "Sufi is a panacea for the masses not allowing the state to use the religious sentiment as a tool to propel their own aim. In the context of the Sultanate of Delhi, the Sufis were acting as a safety vows. They were allowing the grudges of the masses, muting the voice of dissent. People think the Sultan was everything but it is not true. The Sufi tried to maintain a balance between the relationship between the state and the masses. This implicit support of the Sufi was obviously beneficial for the Sultan. When the situation arose, the Sufi himself became the voice of the people and rebuked the Sultan."

The Sufi, in a way, becomes a buffer zone. He criticizes the Sultan but without the unnecessary violence, a lesson Fatima feels could come in handy in the current socio-political environment.

Fatima feels it is nearly impossible to define a Sufi. "It is a multi-faceted state of mind. A Sufi, predominantly, is a renouncer. If you insist, there are two kinds of Sufis - Ba'shar Sufi and Beshar Sufi, someone who adheres to the Shariah and someone who doesn't."

The conversation veers towards Fatima's marriage to Fakhar Zaman. Despite being married to a Pakistani, Fatima doesn't live in Pakistan. "But I love Pakistan nonetheless."

Asked whether it was as fascinating as it looked on the surface, she replied the idea of an Indian married to a Pakistani wasn't "as fascinating as it sounds and there are many nitty gritties to be resolved."

Does it have anything to do with her being a Muslim in India? "No, I have been a Muslim all my life and I know how to meander my way through that."

"Pakistan is a bad word in India. And when people back home find nothing wrong with me personally they target me from that aspect."

In Old Delhi people aren't threatened by someone like Fatima, but moving around in the South and carrying a good opinion of Pakistan, she is perceived to be threatening because of her position as a teacher. "People are far more tolerant [towards India] in Pakistan."

For the record, Fatima feels the hatred also has a lot to do with personal vendetta rather than the traditional enmity between the two countries.

The conversation turns to the history that joins and disjoins the two countries. History is "never the moral", says Fatima, "because a historian in not a moralist. One should always question, what do I believe? Do I take for granted that this is the truth? Is this even the truth? Where is it coming from? If you question only then will you be able to authenticate."

Fatima sees no reconciliation between India and Pakistan in the near future.

"Propaganda is a very important tool. The fiasco which was orchestrated by the British was also successful because of the potent tool called propaganda which has assumed mammoth proportions. I don't see a solution to the problem in the near future. I might be thinking ahead of my time. National, democratic politics should be built on the notion of mobilizing the masses by political parties. For any party that wants to come into power, it has to convince people that the bourgeoisie's interest is their interest and for this they need propaganda. We are not able to think beyond politicians. We need to look beyond nationalist politics."

"I can present a hunky dory picture but I would be lying. I am at the core of the problem and I face it from both sides. The clerk looks at my bill and says 'Pakistan se bare naqli note a rahe hain.' This is an insult because he knows I am married to a Pakistani. We are also branded as Pakistani, at the time of Kargil they would say go back to Pakistan..."

Now that Fatima has a Pakistani husband, the defense has to be stronger. Her phones are tapped, she is chased by intelligence agencies and there are bugs in her house - all this is routine for her. Fatima plans to stand tall. "It is a psychological game."

Fatima is currently working on a coffee table book on Lahore. "Pakistan is always in the news for all the wrong reasons, so much so that all the positivity is disregarded. Lahore is the heart of Pakistan and embodies the spirit of Pakistan. In terms of food and landscaping, Lahore fascinates me".

Sufism to the Rescue?

2012-01-25T00:01:00.018-05:00

By Bahzad Alam Khan, *Sufism to the rescue* - Herald/Dawn - Karachi, Pakistan; Monday, January 16, 2012

The Trappist monks of Gethsemani Farms in central Kentucky, USA, bake the most divine fruitcake.

Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Sufi University that was supposed to have started functioning in Bhit Shah,Pakistan, a year ago. But there is food for thought in the holy men’s occupation — could the power of Sufism transform legions of potential Taliban into peaceable chefs, making biryani on order or sweetening palates with fresh rabri?

Perhaps, that’s stretching it.

Yes, the Sufi University is supposed to do wonders for inculcating the values of religious and cultural tolerance by teaching Sufi thought to our restless youth. But other subjects too are presumably on the menu — after all, the title of the law approved by the Sindh governor for the setting up of the university is The University of Sufism and Modern Sciences in the Bhit Shah Bill, 2011.

Unfortunately, progress on the institute has been tediously slow, and to make matters worse, the expected funds from the Turkish government have yet to materialise. The Sindh government’s own pockets are empty on account of the flooding caused by torrential rains this year. So unless the saints give their blessings, this mega project – the initial cost of which is estimated to be more than 65 million rupees – may go the way of other grand schemes before it.

Meanwhile, how far will one Sufi university, that too in the heartland of Sufism, go in spreading the message of peace?

For better results, perhaps the provincial governments should consider revising the contents of school textbooks to encourage a more pluralistic outlook and a more tolerant worldview.

You can’t expect generations of students brought up on biased, often hate-filled, texts at schools and colleges to suddenly turn the other cheek in university.

‘Celebrating Abilities' Show

2012-01-23T00:01:00.000-05:00

By Staff Reporter, *Gifted with ‘abilities' par excellence* - The Hindu - India; Tuesday, January 18, 2012

Gifted with ‘abilities' par excellence

The Bharatanatyam performance on wheel-chairs and yoga by physically challenged persons mesmerise audience

Clothed in white long skirts and hat of camel's hair, they danced the quintessential ‘dervish dance' with an ease characteristic of seasoned professionals.

And to the soothing Sufi tunes, they whirled unmindful of all distractions. This and more they did, amid a shaken audience, on wheelchairs indispensible to them.

Differently-abled, but barely disabled, they also performed the classical Bharatanayam and yoga, all on their wheelchairs, at the ‘Celebrating Abilities' show, organised here on Tuesday.

Trained under Syed Sallaudin Pasha at the ‘Abilities Unlimited' foundation, the group has been acclaimed nationally and internationally and has also held world records.

While the feat of the physically challenged was one unseen and unheard of, another of its kind presented at the show was the classical dance recital by the hearing impaired. Although unable to gather a single note of the music played, they danced as a group with incredible coordination and perfection.

Equal opportunities

“I undertook such training for them in therapeutic dance to provide equal opportunities to Persons with Disabilities in the field of arts and culture where they barely have a presence despite being extremely gifted in their own way,” said Guru Pasha (Ph.9811340308).

Besides opening a new segment of employment for them, his foundation has also been offering courses in classical dance, dance and movement therapy, stage lighting, photography and film making, editing, sound recording and animation for PWDs.

To showcase the strength and ability of the physically challenged in overcoming their inability, the show had been organised by the Astah ladies organisation.

As Much As It Can Hold

2012-01-21T00:01:00.024-05:00

By Ellie Armon Azoulay *A new retrospective shows how far Palestinian art has come* - Haaretz.com - Israel; Saturday, January 14, 2012

A new retrospective shows how far Palestinian art has come: The Walid Abu Shakra retrospective − being held simultaneously at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and in Umm al-Fahm − reflects the London-based artist’s longings for his childhood.

"Mintarat al-Batten,” a retrospective showcasing the work of Palestinian artist Walid Abu Shakra, is one of the most fascinating political events in the history of Israel art in general and Palestinian art in particular. It is taking place simultaneously in two parts, in two locations: in the gallery established by the artist’s brother Said 16 years ago in their hometown of Umm al-Fahm, and at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

The first part of “Mintarat al-Batten” opened a few weeks ago. It both represents the closing of a circle, and also places on the agenda the importance of the museum of Palestinian art that is slated to be built in Umm al-Fahm. The show in the Tel Aviv Museum, which opened on January 5, on the other hand, not only makes amends for something that should have been done long ago, but also constitutes an important promise that we hope will be kept: to continue to research and expose such key artists, and to exhibit the next generations of Palestinian art.

“A Palestinian, by essence, is made from the lost culture, from the dialectic relationship with memory and with the foreign culture on which he draws, and at the same time criticizes. The lost, expropriated time, like culture and as part of it, continues to exist in the consciousness and memory of life here and there, as if refusing to acknowledge the parting,” wrote Hanna Farah-Kufer Birim in the catalog of the exhibition “Men in the Sun” that he curated with Tal Ben Zvi about two years ago in the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, which showcased 12 Palestinian artists.

Walid Abu Shakra was born in Umm al-Fahm in 1946, and subsequently moved to England, where he has lived for over three decades. Although he says he has thrived on the bright gray light and the heavy fog there, he adds that he feels he never really left Umm al-Fahm, which has been at the heart of his work all these years.

When asked about his hometown and his relationship with it, Abu Shakra expresses mixed feelings: a sense of longing when he is far away in cold England, and on the other hand, the realization from his many visits that there has been accelerated destruction of the familiar landscape. The shattering of a dream.

Abu Shakra’s exhibition is called “Mintarat al-Batten.” Al-Batten is one of the central hills in the Umm al-Fahm area which, due to its strategic location, became the site of a watchtower ‏(mintarat‏) overlooking the surrounding fields and farms. “For us, the members of the Abu Shakra family, Mintarat al-Batten has tremendous personal symbolic meaning,” explains Said. And Walid adds: “As a child I spent hours there, days and nights. You could see the rising and setting of the sun and the moon there.”

As opposed to his first and only exhibition in the city 40 years ago, in the local council building − which was attended only by a few people aside from family members − several hundred people attended the opening of the new show at the gallery.

“It was like a festival for me,” says Abu Shakra excitedly. “I hope that what I am trying to give here will influence them − that all my friends, family and residents of the village who came to see the work will show more love and seriousness in their attitude toward the landscape that remains in the village.”

On display in the gallery are drawings, paintings and etchings by Abu Shakra, which range from the early years of his career in the 1960s to a new series of prints that he created as an artist’s album, in a limited edition. In the Tel Aviv museum, on the other hand, only etchings are on show.

The exhibition in Umm al-Fahm tells the story of the artist and his career, as well as the story of the city. It focuses on various aspects in the landscape, both alive and abandoned: the view from al-Batten, olive groves in bloom alongside felled trees, prickly pears and plowed fields. Occasionally one can see vestiges of old abandoned stone houses, swallowed up by the general landscape. He also makes you feel you are present in the place for which the work is named.

Farid Abu Shakra, who is curating the two exhibitions ‏(in Tel Aviv together with Irith Hadar‏), explains: “Abu Shakra’s works use names that the locals use among themselves: ‘Mintarat al-Batten,’ ‘Hashem’s Garden,’ ‘Al-Minjara Area,’ and so on. On the one hand the artist wanted to introduce his country, its beauty and magic to a foreign audience. On the other he wanted to express the original names of the places, the buildings, the fields and the vineyards where he spent his childhood, as though just by uttering these names he is inhaling the air of the homeland, the fragrance of jasmine and his longing for the past.”

The seed of the retrospective was planted 15 years ago, when the late Prof. Mordechai Omer, veteran curator and director of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, visited the Abu Shakra home in Umm al-Fahm. Not much happened during that visit. But four years ago, Omer visited Farid in his studio in the artists’ workshops in Herzliya. Their relationship developed and they began meeting regularly. After a year and a half of visits and trips, Omer asked Farid to make some suggestions for shows. “My first suggestion to him was a retrospective for Walid,” recalls Farid.

Walid and his brothers regretted that Omer passed away before the opening of the show. Indeed, he had had complete confidence in Farid and even agreed to hold the exhibition simultaneously in Umm al-Fahm. Farid and Said compiled an outstanding exhibition catalog designed by Palestinian designer Wael Wakim, which begins in Arabic.

‘Part of all of them’

Walid Abu Shakra, along with Abed Abdi, who is four years his senior, and Bashir Abu-Rabia, were the first Palestinian artists to study in Israeli schools, and eventually went abroad. Their choices and their daring paved the way for the younger generations.

In the catalog for “Men in the Sun,” Antoine Shalhat writes about the cultural consequences of the occupation, and the expulsion of Arab villages in 1948: “Among the victims of that war were a group of artists and intellectuals, including quite a few authors and poets, playwrights and painters, who had already achieved a considerable reputation. However, the greater part of those remaining were peasants, concentrated in their villages. This distribution indicates something about the meaningful changes undergone by the socioeconomic structure of the Palestinian community remaining in Israel, but also about what this change meant for the community’s culture and art, implications that we can compare to the outcomes of a particularly strong earthquake.”

For his part, Walid began drawing in kindergarten for himself and later became the “class artist.” Afterward he attended a high school in Afula, where an art-history class brought him to the point of no return, as he puts it. When he was 16-years-old, his father went bankrupt and Walid had to leave school to help support the family. He went to Tel Aviv, lived in a little shack in Jaffa with his cousin, and worked at three jobs simultaneously: In the early morning he worked in a bakery; at noon in a pizzeria; and in the evenings at a restaurant on Dizengoff Street. He remembers the period as extremely difficult: “I remember huge mice running under my broken-down bed.”

That year, 1964, he was contacted by an acquaintance who told him there was a position open for a tax official in Hadera; he submitted a request and was accepted.

“During the period when I worked there, I lived in a rented room in the home of Fania and Aryeh Kochok, a wonderful couple who were like parents to me, and I took art courses with Yoram Rozov. I also traveled to Haifa once a week to study at Beit Hagefen ‏(the Arab Jewish Cultural Center‏).”

Meanwhile, Abu Shakra’s passion for painting became stronger by the day. He registered at the Avni Institute of Art and Design in Tel Aviv, and studied with Yaakov Wechsler, Moshe Propes, Avshalom Okashi, Yehezkel Streichman and others.

“The socialization process undergone by Palestinian artists who study in Israeli academic institutions displays several post-colonial characteristics: first, the language of study – Hebrew – forces the artist to develop his/her creative modes of expression in a foreign linguistic setting; second, the curricular habitus − its cultural and artistic context − is firmly anchored between the Western and the Israeli art worlds, excluding the Palestinian artist’s culture; third, being a national field, despite its universalist aspiration, the Israeli art field tends to regard Palestinian artists as ‘other,’” wrote Tal Ben Zvi in the catalog for “Men in the Sun.”

Abu Shakra: “I didn’t think too much about the aspects of who and what. I felt I was a part of all of them. I liked my teachers, they were good, every one of them gave me something.” Still, he adds, he never gave up the local habitus − the cultural and artistic characteristics that he is closest to. Even later on, when he used abstraction, which was then of course the Israeli bon ton, he preserved certain prominent Palestinian cultural elements.

Community life

“The abstract works created by Walid Abu Shakra when he finished his studies at the Avni Institute, which are full of life’s tribulations and the difficulties of supporting a family of seven, were mandatory,” writes Farid in the catalog of the present exhibition.

At the gallery show, one can see the transition from the quick drawings executed in Nablus, Acre, Beit She’arim and Jenin, in which he focused on urban motifs, to abstract and geometrical structures and forms − while at the same time the artist maintained structural shapes identified with mosques, arches and minarets.

“I was attracted by the elements, the shapes in the windows, the adornments, and with them I created new compositions and preserved Middle Eastern color,” the artist explains.
As opposed to his colleagues at Avni and the dominant artistic trend during those years, Abu Shakra did not stop dealing with the concrete, with his immediate surroundings. In addition to the landscape of Umm al-Fahm, he described life there as well.

Says his brother Said: “The days when we walked around together in the courtyards of Umm al-Fahm to photograph and document everything are etched in me. With his camera he captured community life, the marvelous childhood of the neighborhood children, the elderly of the community and everything that created the local culture of that time. He captured the human experience, which has been preserved to this day thanks to his work.”

Walid Abu Shakra and his English girlfriend lived in Hadera for a while, and his work was exhibited in group shows in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. “In 1972 I participated in a group exhibition in Gallery 220 in Tel Aviv and sold a painting to a family in Holon. With that money I was able to travel to Europe. We went for six months and toured various places, met my partner’s parents in England and decided to get married. I entered Saint Martin [London’s Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design] with a portfolio of drawings and several etchings I had done in Avni with my teacher Tuvia Beeri, and they accepted me for two years. I returned to Israel with a letter from them and received a stipend from the Education Ministry.”

Abu Shakra says it wasn’t easy for the family to accept his emigration. “Before I left I gave the family enough money for a certain amount of time, so there would be no obstacles for me to deal with. My mother was good and understanding, but my father was more skeptical.”

In London, however, Abu Shakra flourished: He didn’t stop working and participating in exhibitions in England and Europe, he became a member of the Precious Metal Clay Guild, the British Printing Society and the Royal Society of British Artists. In 1974 he and his family moved to Weybridge, Surrey; he purchased a printing press and installed a workshop in his home.

“Sometimes it was hard to live far away. I missed Mother and my siblings, I came to visit, for several months each time,” he says now.

When his children ‏(now in their thirties‏) were born, it became more difficult to visit. In general, Abu Shakra says, “Every time I came the disappointment was greater. Every year I would come with money to build a house here, and because of the changes in the place I would return empty-handed.”

After a long time in England, far from home, he says he found consolation in the writings of Nazim Al-Haqqani and other prominent Sufi figures. He became so involved in reading these works that he set his art aside. Walid is not the only Sufi in the family, incidentally; his paternal grandmother also was, and had a great influence on him. “She was a special woman, blind, her hands were blessed,” he says warmly.

“I’m not a fanatic. It was exactly what I wanted. It wasn’t that I had planned to stop the art, it’s just that sometimes there’s a container and you can only put as much water in it as it can hold. Apparently the place in my heart was filled with spirituality; I wanted to find more within myself. I didn’t know how to express myself, and Sufism gave me the answer. For me Sufism is a way of life. To be a person with a big heart.”

But his affair with art was not completely over. When his mother fell ill and was on her deathbed she turned to him. “She didn’t talk much, she wasn’t the type to give orders and tell people what to do. She was quiet and full of love. We understood her without words. When I came to visit her, she asked me to return to art. Apparently at the time I was also ready to do that.”

Picture: Walid Abu Shakra at the Umm al-Fahm gallery. 'He captured the human experience, which has been preserved to this day thanks to his work,' says his brother Said. Photo: Moshe Shai. [Click on the title to the original article with more pictures.]

The Revolution Continues

2012-01-19T00:01:00.010-05:00

By Staff Reporter, *Sufi orders announce participation in 25 January celebrations* - Al-Masri Al-Youm - Cairo, Egypt; Thursday, January 12, 2012

Sufi orders announce participation in 25 January celebrations

The Sufi orders, on Thursday, announced they would participate in the 25 January celebration to mark the first anniversary of the Egyptian revolution that toppled the ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

Abdel Hadi al-Qasby, head of the Sufi orders, told al-Masry al-Youm that they agreed with the Islamist, political and popular forces to participate in the 25 January celebrations in order to show that the revolution continues and to revive its spirit in Tahrir Square.

“We are keen on the unity of the fabric of Egyptian society,” said Qasby.

He also said the celebrations should be peaceful. “We are against the destruction of public institutions,” he added.

For his part, Essam Mohy, secretary general of the Sufi-oriented Tahrir Al-Masry Party, said his party is participating to demand the handover of power to a civilian authority.

On Monday, 54 political parties and movements called for country-wide protests on 25 January to demand a swift transfer of power from military to civilian authorities.

In a statement, the groups listed their demands, including the handover of power to an elected president by April, the release of all activists in detention, the end to military trials for civilians and the approval of minimum and maximum wage limits.

India funds pilgrim hospice in Jerusalem

2012-01-17T01:30:00.000-05:00

"700yr Indian address in Jerusalem gets lift"by Archis Mohan in The Telegraph (Calcutta), January 12, 2012

[Sufi News Editor' note: Originally founded after a visit to Jerusalem by the 13th century Indian Sufi Saint Baba Farid (aka Fariduddin Ganjshakar) and maintained since Ottoman times as a resthouse for Indian pilgrims, the Zawiya al-Hindiya in Jerusalem has recently been the recipient of a handsome donation on the part of the Indian Foreign Ministry.]

A nearly 700-year-old plot in the heart of Jerusalem that has been flying the Tricolour since 1947 and offering a home to visiting Indian pilgrims has got a fresh lease of life.Foreign minister S.M. Krishna yesterday announced $25,000 (about Rs 13 lakh) in assistance to the Indian Hospice, which has been fighting repeated encroachment attempts and facing financial constraints.Standing on 7000sqm of prime land, the hospice was founded in the 13th century after a visit by Sufi saint Baba Farid. The money Krishna has announced will go towards setting up a Baba Farid Heritage Centre there. The hospice will also be given maintenance funds annually.“We have ensured that the hospice will continue to fly the Indian Tricolour and offer accommodation to Indians visiting Jerusalem,” a foreign ministry source said.

Since 1924, the hospice called Zawiya al-Hindiya has been run as a charitable trust by a family with roots in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh. It hosted Indian soldiers during World War II and India-Palestine meetings in recent years. It continues to offer rooms to Indians of all faiths visiting Jerusalem.So far, the hospice has survived with intermittent Indian government and non-government help. But it has been in need of funds for renovation. Its caretakers have, however, spurned offers of help from Israelis and Palestinians for fear of complications that may arise if it loses its Indian character.

Baba Farid, who hailed from Punjab, had visited Jerusalem 700 years ago while on a journey to explore Islam (sic) [Sufi News ed. (most likely) a journey through the Islamic world either during or after his pilgrimage to Mecca]. The then governor of the Ottoman Empire had offered him two rooms to stay. These rooms grew into a holy site for Indian pilgrims over time and expanded into the hospice as it exists today. It is a short walk from Jerusalem’s holiest sites.The hospice has served as a stop for generations of pilgrims who visit Jerusalem on their way back from Haj. During World War II, it served as a camp for the 4th Indian Division of the British Army.

In 2000, it hosted a meeting between then foreign minister Jaswant Singh and Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini. The site was selected after the Israelis reportedly made it inconvenient for the delegations to meet at another spot fixed earlier. The hospice also houses a UN medical centre for Palestinian refugees.

The custodian of the hospice is Sheikh Mohammad Munir Ansari. His father had come from Saharanpur on an invite from the Palestinians. The Ansari family has had to turn to the Indian embassy to prevent encroachments. Their Indian identity has helped them keep away from local politics.The hospice has photographs of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi and Khilafat Movement leaders who visited Jerusalem. The hospice went through difficult times when India and Israel did not have diplomatic ties. At that time, non-governmental and individual donations helped it survive.

Officials said things improved after 1992 when India and Israel established diplomatic relations. Then help from New Delhi became regular. Krishna’s funds announcement would keep the hospice safe from people who want to usurp the prime plot it stands on, foreign ministry sources said.Krishna also visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Jerusalem. He stopped by the cemetery for Indian soldiers, which contains graves of 79 Indian servicemen of World War I.

Takht Gah

2012-01-16T00:01:00.009-05:00

By Mohammad Hussain Khan, *At the Urs in Bhit Shah* - Dawn.Com - Karachi, Pakistan; Thursday, January 12, 2012

At the Urs in Bhit Shah

Bhit Shah: Desperate to find her mentally handicapped missing daughter, an elderly Baloch woman, Ganj Bakht, has come to the shrine of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai.

Despite the weather being bitterly cold, she is staying in the open courtyard of the shrine along with many other women.

“I am a Sawali and have come here to ask Bhitai to find my daughter Shah Bibi,” she said as she wrapped herself in a sheet of cloth to protect herself from the cold which increased in its severity after the sunset of the 13th of Safar – the day the three-day Urs of Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai began.

Her daughter was in her mid 30s when she went missing, she said.

Ameer Hamza, a small restaurant owner in Ghotki district, has brought a goat to be sacrificed on the morning of 14th Safar. “We will distribute the lungar here as a mark of respect to our Murshid, he said, adding that he had been performing this ritual for a long time.

Till Wednesday men, women and children had converged at the shrine in Bhit Shah, a small town in Matiari district, to celebrate the 268th Urs.

The first Dhamal, according to Syed Aneesul Hasnain alias Faqeer Juman Shah, marks the beginning of the Urs which officially opens on Monday morning.

Elderly Fida Hussain Brohi has a different story to share. “I want my son out of prison,” he said. He will pray at the shrine for his son’s release.

Hundreds of thousands of devotees turn up at the shrine to pay homage during the three-day Urs. Many of them who have already come are staying in the courtyard of the shrine and burning firewood to keep themselves warm.

For the fourth consecutive year the devotees will not be able to visit Takht Gah – the abode of Bhitai – because it is in a dilapidated condition. A portion of it caved in three years ago.

“If we allow visitors there it will collapse and might lead to casualties,” said Mazhar Ali Shah alias Nazan Sain, brother of the shrine’s Sajjada Nasheen Syed Nisar Hussain.

He said the antiquities department did not pay attention to it. “We were told that Rs5.5 million was sought from the Auqaf department but it has not been given,” he said.

There are cracks at different places in the shrine’s structure. According to a shrine’s employee, Nawab Lanjwani, a mere touch will cause the affected part to collapse.

The shrine – built around 345 years agoneeds extension to accommodate the large number of devotees. Structure of the shrine needs refurbishment because recent heavy monsoon rains caused serious damage, causing cracks in Lakhi gate, Wazoo Khana and other places.

Some repairs have been carried out in patches and some refurbishing has been done. During recent rains, the roof built with woods started leaking. Devotees cramped into a Musafir Khana built in 1964, but it could not accommodate them.

Annual budget allocation for Lungar in Musafir Khana is quite inadequate. Last year Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah promised that one fourth of the annual income from nazrana (donations) at the shrine would be allocated for distribution of food among devotees, but according to Mazhar Ali Shah, the promise is yet to be met.

“We pursued it but there has been no progress,” he said.

Picture: A devotee prays at Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai's shrine. Photo: Hussain Afzal/Dawn.com
[Click on the title to the original article with many more photos.]

Out of the Darkness

2012-01-15T00:01:00.009-05:00

By Fayyaz Yaseen, *Religious leaders should impart Sufi teachings to end terror, suggests Sardar Yaqoob Khan* - News Pakistan - Pakistan; Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Religious leaders should impart Sufi teachings to end terror, suggests Sardar Yaqoob Khan

Lahore: President Sardar Muhammad Yaqoob Khan here yesterday at the inaugural session of two-day Syed Hajver Tasawwaf Seminar organized in connection with 968th annual Urs of Hazrat Data
Gunj Buksh at Punjab University, stressed the religious leaders to come forward and impart knowledge on teachings of Sufism to the youth as this could have been effective way of overcoming terrorism and extremism in the society.

The seminar was organized in joint collaboration of Punjab University’s Department of Arabic and Provincial Ministry of Religious Affairs and Auqaf.

With having Provincial Minister for Religious Affairs and Auqaf Haji Ehsan-ud-Din Qureshi as the chief guest, Minister for Mines Ch Abdul Ghafoor and Punjab University Vice Chancellor Prof Dr. Mujahid Kamran, Secretary Religious Affairs and Auqaf Muazffar Mehmood also marked their presence in the seminar.

Speaking on the occasion, the AJ&K president said that the charismatic personality of Hazrat Data Gunj Bakhsh was a model for our guidance as even people of other religions also respected him. He said Data Gunj Bakhsh played a key role in guiding the masses towards the path of peace and love with humanity.

He was of the view that Sufis played foundational role in spread of Islam in the sub-continent. Referring to the present crisis the country was facing despite being an atomic power, he said that the enemies could never harm Pakistan due to the presence of such pious personalities of Sufis.

Adding further to his comments, Sardar Yaqoob said that Kashmiris were not only protecting the ideological boundaries of Pakistan, but they were also ready to sacrifice their lives for the country.

Expressing his views on the occasion, Prof Dr. Mujahid Kamran said that after Prophets, there were Sufis who had taken people out of the darkness of ignorance through their acts and teachings. He highlighted the fact that these were the Sufis who converted hundreds of thousands of non-Muslims to Muslims in the Sub-Continent.

At the end, the Vice Chancellor of the University also underscored the importance of holding such seminars on large scale so as awareness about the lives and teachings of Sufis could be spread among students and the youth.

Bhinneka Tunggal Ika

2012-01-14T00:01:00.015-05:00

By Dwi Lusiana, *SBY Challenges Muslims to Prove Islam is Peaceful* - The Jakarta Globe - Jakarta, Indonesia; Thursday, January 12, 2012

SBY Challenges Muslims to Prove Islam is Peaceful

Malang, East Java: President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, speaking on Wednesday at a a large Muslim Sufi order in Bululawang, East Java, called on Muslims to prove that Islam can live in harmony with a pluralistic nation and in a democratic society.

Yudhoyono made the call while opening the congress of the Jam’iyyah Ahlilth Thariqah Al-Mu’tabarah An-Nahdliyah (Jatman), a large Muslim Sufi order in Bululawang, East Java.

“Let us prove to the world that in Indonesia there is no discordance between religion and the state, between Islam and democracy. Islam can answer the various problems of nations and the world. Islam can become a blessing for the universe,” Yudhoyono told the thousands of people attending the congress.

He praised the Sufi’s approach, saying it was religious, calm and educative in broaching problems and therefore a suitable way to deal with disputes, conflicts and clashes in society and the nation.

“We all know that the Indonesian nation is a pluralistic one, it’s wishes and aspirations are numerous and varied,” he said, adding that in such a dynamic environment, clashes and conflict could erupt at any time.

The president called on all Muslims to abide by the four pillars of the state and nation. He cited them as the unitary nature of the country; the state ideology, Pancasila, which puts all religions on equal footing; the 1945 Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion and of worship; and the national motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity) .

“As Muslims, let us lead a religious life. As citizens, let us implement those four pillars,” Yudhoyono said.

Yudhoyono’s government has been criticized by rights activists as failing to protect the rights of the minority and the freedom of religion or worship.

The country has in recent years been the site of attacks on minority sects and minority religions, with the perpetrators often receiving only light sentences, if any.

Yudhoyono, who was accompanied by his wife Ani, Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali, and other ministers, officials and religious leaders, is touring East Java for four days.

Abdul Mujib Sadzili, the secretary of the congress’ organizing committee, said that 10,800 people had registered for the event, but said that many more people were taking part in it.

Jatman is one of the key Sufi orders in the Nahdlatul Ulama, the country’s largest Islamic organization, which has about 40 million members. The event was held at one of its boarding schools.

Picture: President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, speaking on Wednesday at a a large Muslim Sufi order in Bululawang, East Java, called on Muslims to prove that Islam can live in harmony with a pluralistic nation and in a democratic society. Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali is pictured on the right. Photo: Antara Photo.

Searching for “India”

2012-01-13T00:02:00.002-05:00

By Staff Writer, *‘I feel we are all aliens’* - Deccan Chronicle - India; Monday, January 9, 2012

‘I feel we are all aliens’: Playback singer and musician Rabbi Shergill, who was in Hyderabad for an unplugged show, says that he is still searching for “India” in Indian music.

Rabbi, who rose to limelight with Bulla Ki Jaana in 2005, is among the new wave of artistes who blend Western influences with Indian roots. He incorporates Sufi and Punjabi elements with rock in his music.

“Music is about adapting influences to your context. It’s about putting a little bit of India in it, like adding a little bit of our spices,”

says the musician influenced by the likes of Led Zeppelin.

But the disappointment is evident when Rabbi speaks of the current music trends. “Indian bands and musicians need to grow beyond Western influences. Most of our artistes are English-speaking elites who use hard-core Western instruments like the guitar. I am waiting to see a band that uses all Indian instruments and all Indian elements. I am in search of ‘India’ now.”

But this doesn’t mean a rigid classical form limited to Kabir bhajans and spiritual content, he cautions. The music still needs to be new. Rabbi does admit that it is the price one pays for a colonial past and an education system that keeps people away from their own languages.

“Sometimes, I feel we are all aliens. Commerce dictates how we live and India has become the receptionist of the world and we have a fragmented collective psyche while fighting a collective war.”

After his stint as an independent composer, Rabbi moved to Bollywood and worked on movies like Delhi Heights. He, however, does not believe that Bollywood clips the composers’ artistic wings in any way.

“There is enough creative freedom in the industry. Take A.R. Rahman, Shankar Ehsaan Loy, they are all bringing out cutting edge sounds,” he says.

I’m No Sufi Singer

2012-01-13T00:01:00.023-05:00

By Staff Writer, *Singer-songwriter Rabbi Shergill* - IBN Live - India; Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Singer-songwriter Rabbi Shergill: A graduate from Delhi’s Khalsa College, Rabbi was part of the local hard-rock music scene in his graduation days. Inspired by Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and Jimmy Page, Rabbi started writing his own songs and made a few demos too.

“I grew up in the 80’s, when the whole concept of western was like a zenith and one could not escape being a wannabe.”

He saw Springsteen perform in Delhi and after that, he says, “I always wanted to be him.”

Rabbi dropped out of his management course in the first year itself. “I went to school just to please my mother and like all the Punjabi parents, even she had academic aspirations for me. I went along with it but deep down I hated it. And so, I dropped out of it and started creating music,” he recalls.

I’m no Sufi singer

Defining his music, Rabbi clarifies, “Sufi is a misnomer for my music. I have just sung one Sufi song! My music is ‘rock and roll’ and ‘funk’ and I always keep thinking of ways to implement the funk into them.”

His latest album ‘Ganga’ also has a few of these elements. The album is all about a guy singing to a girl and telling her not to be deterred by the world and do her own thing. Listing his contemporary favourites, he reveals,

“I love Shruti Haasan, I think she is a decent musician. I really like John Mayer. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s music and a Bengali singer called Mou.”

Commenting on the rock culture scene in India, he opines, “Kids at college just learn to play guitar and form rock bands, which stick for a year or two. Then they either split or get into Bollywood. A lot of their music is not compelling, which is why they don’t last long.”

Thinking out of box

Explaining his creative process, he says, “I’m constantly trying to understand how I can step out of my own box. I think about all the things I want to talk about, get an idea and then somehow, magically some line appears. You can have a general idea about how to get there, but ultimately, it’s just pure magic.”

Rabbi’s flair for poetry can be traced back to his mother, who is a Punjabi poetess. “Her poetry is amazing and yes, there’s a lot of poetry in my songs, which I would like to be considered as something that aspires to be poetry,” he explains.

Rabbi has given music for a Bollywood film, ‘Delhi Heights’. Though he loves composing original music tracks, he says performing has always been his first love. “Making music for films is a different area and I like doing it. But, performing will always be my first love. It depends on how things work out,” he adds.

Stint with Dewarists

Sharing his experience on the music show called the ‘Dewarists’, Rabbi recalls, “It was a fantastic experience and singing with Papon was an amazing experience. It was set in a very beautiful location in Kaziranga. I guess it will be one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.”

And like the romantics of old, he believes we are increasingly living in an artificial world. “We have to get out on to the streets, live in nature and discover ourselves. Big cities act like a pump that drains out everything. It is very irreconcilable,” he points out.

Music and drugs

Expressing his views on musicians, who die of drug overdose, Rabbi says, “We have had many great musicians in the past, who have died of drug overdose, which is really sad. Even I need a relaxed state of mind to write songs. I like my scotch and have never done drugs. I think it’s too much work.”

Always Mentioning God

2012-01-12T00:01:00.025-05:00

By Zehra Onat, *Revnak: A Turkish Sufi music group that shines the spotlight on women* - Today's Zaman - Istanbul, Turkey- Sunday, January 8, 2012

Revnak: A Turkish Sufi music group that shines the spotlight on women

Sufi music (Islamic religious music) has been perceived as a man’s domain -- all semazens (whirling dervishes), the most renowned composers and the most successful performers of Sufi music have traditionally been men.

This understanding is surely the reason that women have taken a back seat in Sufi music. However, for eight years a group has existed that aims to change this perception. The name of the group is Revnak.

Revnak is a group that has its origins in the Mevlana Education and Culture Association and was founded in 1999. While the objective of the association was to serve as a Sufi music and sema (whirling) center for males, things changed in 2003.

Among the founders of this group was Birsen Çakmut, a Turkish classical music artist. She decided to organize a music group that only consisted of women. To this end, she got in touch with friends from her time as a student at the İstanbul University State Conservatory. Next she contacted her fellow artists and, one by one, she gathered the people who love Sufi music.

Revnak comprises 15 people. Six are saz (a stringed instrument) players and nine are singing artists. Almost all of them were educated in a conservatory.

This high level of musical knowledge enables them to select whichever song they like and work on it individually. They present their songs in the various Mevlevihanes (a lodge of the Mevlevi dervishes), in events organized by municipalities and also in concerts. A sema ritual takes place on the stage while they sing.

Although Çakmut points out that the interest in Sufism has increased in recent years, she mentions that Sufi groups consisting of women don’t draw much attention. Çakmut thinks this is partially because of their gender and partially because some people disapprove of them for making Sufi music. Çakmut states that she would prefer giving a concert to viewers who are only women, if she had the choice.

Aynur Demir is the group’s neyzen (reed flute player). She came to know Sufi music when she was 30 years old. At the time she was studying at university, which she began attending as a mother of two. She still has the same feelings that she had the first day she heard the sound of the ney (reed flute).

On the year that Demir entered the faculty of divinity of Marmara University she heard the sound of a ney coming from a classroom and followed the sound upstairs. She could not stop herself from standing in the doorway and listening to it. She has now been playing the ney for 15 years.

Demir describes what it is like to play the ney: “There is peace in this music. I feel as if I’m praying to God relentlessly. It is as if my heart is always mentioning God.”

Another member of Revnak is Lale Duğa. Her family supports her interest in Sufi music and she has a very strong connection with the music. She plays the classical kemençe (a small three-stringed violin) and she has been a music teacher for 17 years.

In 1982, Duğa began playing the classical kemençe, which produces the melodies that give soul to Sufi music. Aside from minor breaks, Duğa has played the kemençe ever since.

Seda Tüfekçioğlu is the kudüm (a small double drum) player, which means bright and shiny. Tüfekçioğlu learned to play the kudüm in the conservatory of the Bursa Metropolitan Municipality while she was studying chemistry at Uludağ University. After she returned to her hometown of İstanbul, she continued playing the kudüm.

After working as a chemist for three years in İstanbul, she received her master’s degree and continued to pursue her PhD in the department of religious music of Marmara University’s faculty of divinity.

Tüfekçioğlu mentions that she has become much closer to God and acquired a very different mood thanks to Sufi music. She said that ever since she began playing Sufi music and performing music with divine melodies that remind one of God, she performs much better and with deep feeling.

Picture: Group Revnak. Photo: Sunday's Zaman.

Nobody, Son of Nobody

2012-01-11T00:01:00.036-05:00

By Sadia Dehlvi, *Walk the mystic path* - The Asian Age - Delhi, India; Friday, January 6, 2012

Abu Said ibn Abi Al Khair, a 11th-century Sufi mystic, came from the Persian town of Mayhana. Studying under Abu Ali Zihir and Husain al-Sulami, he confessed that efforts to achieve spirituality with intellectual proof had failed. He spent seven years alone in the mountain deserts of Mayhana.

He established a Sufi centre for those who wished to walk the mystic path preaching, “Sufism is the subsistence of the heart without any meditation”.

Abu Said reached perfection by ridding himself of any individuality. He once visited a place where people had collected for mourning. The arrival of the visitors was announced with their respective titles of honour. When the hosts enquired of his title, the mystic replied, “Go and tell them that Nobody, the son of Nobody has arrived.”

He preached that there were as many ways to reach God as there are created beings, but the shortest path was to serve people and bring happiness to their hearts.

The mystic was once travelling with his disciples when they came across a mill. Listening to the sound of the mill, he asked the companions what the mill was saying. When they shook their heads, he said, “It is saying ‘Like the Sufi, I receive the coarse and give it back refined, I travel around myself and in myself so that I dispel what I do not need’.”

One day Abu Said was told of a person who could walk on water. He replied, “That is simple. A frog and a mosquito can walk on water too.”

He then heard of a man who could fly. He commented, “That too is simple. A fly and a raven can also fly.”

Later he heard of a person who could travel from one city to another in the wink of an eye. He said, “Satan can travel from East to West in one breath.”

Abu Said asserted that these abilities were of no value, and that a true human being is one who interacts with society but does not forget God even for a moment.

Abu Said invented the poetic form of Rubai, the quatrain, to illustrate spiritual ideas. He is the first Sufi to use poetry as a medium of instruction to his disciples.

He wrote the verse inscribed on his tomb in Mayhana:

Love flowed like blood beneath the skin, through veins
Emptied me of myself, filled me with the Beloved
Till every limb, every organ was seized and occupied
Till only my name remains, the rest is It.

I beg, nay charge Thee: Write on my gravestone
‘This was love’s bondsman,’ that’s when I am gone
Some wretch well versed in passion’s ways may sigh
And give me greetings, as he passes by.

A Rare Bird

2012-01-10T00:01:00.037-05:00

By Stephan Delbos, *Book review: The Conference of the Birds* - The Prague Post - Prague, Czech Republic; Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The Conference of the Birds: Czech illustrator Peter Sís brings ancient Persian poem to life

Peter Sís has done it again. The internationally renowned Czech illustrator, born in Brno in 1949, but based in the United States since 1982, has recently released his latest publication, The Conference of the Birds, a beautiful, condensed visual version of the eponymous, 4,500-line epic poem by the ancient Persian poet Farid Ud-Din Attar.

The book is a delight both visually and conceptually, and is an apt addition to Sís' oeuvre, which includes, most recently, The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, which won him both the Boston Globe Horn Book Award and the New York Times Book Review's Best Illustrated Book of the Year Award, his sixth.

The story follows the adventures of the poet Attar himself, who one day dreams he is a hoopoe bird. The hoopoe calls a conference of the birds to tell them they must seek out the king bird, Simorgh, who lives on the mountain of Kaf, for only he will be able to solve all of the problems the birds face in the world. Despite some resistance, from the duck for example, who is afraid to leave the comfort of his pond, the scores of birds set off on their quest for Simorgh.

But, like all quests, theirs is not easy. First, they must fly through seven valleys, of Quest, Love, Understanding, Detachment, Unity, Amazement and Death, until finally, after many trials and tribulations, they reach the mountain of Kaf, where something wondrous happens.

Despite the visionary, imaginative nature of Attar's poem, the real stars of The Conference of the Birds are Sís and his delightful illustrations. The book itself is handsome, and no expense has been spared on the hard cover and the beautiful, textured paper on which the poem and Sís' illustrations are printed. But one gets the feeling that even if the book were printed on napkins, these illustrations, in ink and watercolor, would stand out regardless.

Lush and perfectly detailed, Sís' artwork makes The Conference of the Birds a rare bird: a book that will please children with its story and its illustrations, yet one that is equally appropriate for adults. Attar's poem is simple enough for children to understand yet has spiritual and existential implications that even the most cynical adult readers will find difficult to ignore.

While Sís' previous books have told, in fine style, stories of his own making and the stories of others, it would seem that with this epic poem he has found the perfect medium for his particular skill as an illustrator. At the same time, his artwork brings the poem to life in a way that previously could only be imagined.

Abu Hamid bin Abu Bakr Ibrahim (1145-1221), better known by his pen name, Farid Ud-Din Attar, or simply "the perfumer," owing to his job working as a perfumer, is widely considered the finest Persian poet of the Sufi tradition.

The son of a prominent chemist in Nishapur, a major city in the medieval region of Khorasan, which is now located in the northeast of Iran, Attar received a first-class education and later took over from his father in the chemist shop, before abandoning his work and traveling widely across the Middle East to Asia, where he met with the Sufi master Shaykhs and returned home a devout Sufi.

Attar is well-known in the Arab world for his long narrative poems of conceptual and verbal ingenuity, mostly promoting the teachings of Sufism, a mystic branch of Islam that focuses on turning away from worldly possessions and aspirations and devoting one's life completely to a metaphysical relationship with God. "The Conference of the Birds" is considered one of Attar's finest works of literature.

In 2003, Sís was awarded a MacArthur Award, also known as "a genius grant," which entitles its winners - none of whom can apply for the award - to $500,000 over a period of five years. While such wealth is a far cry from the spiritual poverty preached by Attar and other Sufis, it would seem that Sís has made fine use of his time.

The Conference of the Birds is a delight for readers young and old, and the beauty and depth of the poem is amply matched, even enhanced, by Sís' brilliant illustrations.

The Conference of the Birds
By Peter Sís
The Penguin Press
159 pages, USD 13.97

[Picture from Amazon]

Poetry Contest

2012-01-09T00:01:00.013-05:00

By Staff Writer, *Novato group to hold poetry contest* - Marin Independent Journal - San Rafael, CA, Usa; Monday, January 2, 2012

The Novato-based International Association of Sufism will award $250 to the winning poet in its Songs of the Soul Poetry Contest, which takes place this month.

The group will accept poems from high school students and adults through Jan. 31. The theme is "The Natural Rhythm of Wisdom," and poems should reflect sacred wisdom or the wisdom of nature.

The prize will be $100 for second place and $50 for third place. Winners will read their poems at the Songs of the Soul Poetry and Sacred Music Festival, which takes place March 16-18 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Rafael.

For entry forms and information call 472-6959 or visit www.ias.org and click on "Songs of the Soul."

With a Common Denominator

2012-01-08T00:01:00.023-05:00

By Staff Reporter, *Al-Mirghani unapologetic over his party’s participation in government* - Sudan Tribune - Paris, France; Sunday, January 1st, 2012

Khartoum: The head of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Mohamed Osman al-Mirghani defended his party’s decision to join the cabinet saying that it was necessary to save the country.

In prepared remarks read out to supporters by his son Ja’afar, on Sudan’s 56th anniversary of independence, al-Mirghani said that ’loud’ voices seeking to label the DUP as a ’betrayer’ will not succeed in creating confusion within the party ranks.

Al-Mirghani said that their agreement with the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) to join the government would help to begin a consensus and enforce democratic transformation, saving the country from unilateralism while moving away from the sad stage of ’cracks and fissures’, towards unity.

The DUP chief called for an end to the military conflicts in Blue Nile and South Kordofan as well as a resumption of normal relations with the newly established Republic of South Sudan.

However the decision of the DUP to join the ’broad-base’ government formed last month has triggered a party crisis, which has seen many DUP members tendering their resignations and others protesting in their home areas.

There were limited clashes between those opposing the DUP participation, and al-Mirghani’s supporters at the independence day celebrations, but these were eventually contained.

In his prepared remarks, Al-Mirghani warned against religious, racial and political extremism.

He praised the role played by Sufism, political parties and national unions in integrating the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-racial components of the society into a national melting pot with a common denominator, unity.

However the DUP chief noted that the weakening of this aspect paved the way for the emergence of extremism.

Party officials told the Sudan Tribune that Al-Mirghani’s absence at the celebrations today were explained by a sudden illness. They said that it was likely that he would be traveling abroad in the coming days.

[Picture: Map of Sudan. Photo: Wiki.]

A Storytelling Tradition

2012-01-07T00:01:00.026-05:00

By Klaus Werle, *Books for Afghanistan keeps culture an open book* - San Francisco Chronicle - San Francisco, CA, USA; Monday, January 2, 2012

It was a bright sunny day, but 4-year-old Ferohar Bellagh and other preschoolers at Fremont's Brier Elementary School weren't interested in going outside.

Instead, they were captivated inside Room 11 by their teacher reading a story of a boy from another country who travels to a neighboring village to find its residents terrified by a dangerous animal.

Ferohar, who wore black braids tied with a pink ribbon, laughed along with her classmates when the forbidding creature turned out to be a mere watermelon.

Having overwhelmed the "animal," the boy in the story hands out delicious fruit slices to villagers and teaches them how to grow watermelon. The town will henceforth be known as Watermelon Village.

"The Clever Boy and the Terrible, Dangerous Animal," which aims to teach children how to overcome their fears and question prejudices, is one of many children's stories from the rich oral traditions of Afghanistan.

Its publisher, Hoopoe Books, has published such stories since its inception in 1998. The company, a division of the Los Altos-based educational nonprofit Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge, publishes tales collected and retold by the late Afghan author and teacher Idries Shah.

Born in India to a family of Afghan nobility, Shah wrote more than three dozen books before his death in 1966. His writings generally show how Sufism - the mystical dimension of Islam - is a source of wisdom.

Since 2009, Hoopoe Books has distributed the books to Afghan and U.S. libraries, schools and orphanages under the label Books for Afghanistan.

"By repatriating these tales to the nation, we are restoring a part of Afghan cultural tradition and fighting illiteracy," Hoopoe Books Director Sally Mallam said.

Almost three-quarters of Afghans over the age of 15, according to Hoopoe Books, cannot read or write, while 5 million of the country's 12 million school-age children have no access to education.

The Books for Afghanistan program recently received a Public Diplomacy Grant award of $4.5 million from the U.S. State Department, which will allow it to print and distribute nearly 2.6 million books by September, including 1.7 million copies in Dari and Pashto, the major languages of Afghanistan. That's a huge boost from its paltry 2011 budget of $67,000 from private donors.

The books are printed in Afghanistan and delivered in cooperation with such Afghan nongovernmental organizations as the Kabul-based Khatiz Organization for Rehabilitation.

Shah's tales are designed to encourage children to think on their own, question authority and counter extremist ideologies. They also convey values and capabilities such as kindness and courage, as in the story about the boy and the "terrible, dangerous animal."

"The tales revitalize a storytelling tradition disrupted by three decades of conflict and help to enable the next generation to fully participate in a modern country," Mallam said.

To date, more than 600,000 books, which are illustrated by Bay Area artists, have been distributed across the United States.

Brier Elementary received more than 300 kits, which include books and CDs, last year.

"The kids, parents and teachers like the stories, because they are authentic and exciting," said Beverly Taub, program manager of Brier's preschool programs.

English is not the first language of many Brier parents, who come from such countries as Mexico, India and China.

"The kits from Hoopoe came with a CD and in an English as well as a Spanish version. That's a good way to bring books into the homes," Taub said. "Many households do not own more than one or two children's books."

Ferohar's parents are Afghans. Fremont has the largest Afghan community in the country, which is centered in an area known as Little Kabul. Some Afghan families might recognize the tales from their childhood.

Picture: Ferohar Bellagh and Sohaila Belagh look at "The Clever Boy and the Terrible, Dangerous Animal". Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle.

Love, Affection and Prosperity

2012-01-06T00:01:00.018-05:00

By PO Correspondent, *Arrangements finalized for Bhittai’s Urs* - Pakistan Observer - Islamabad, Pakistan; Friday, December 30, 2011

Hyderabad: The arrangements of organizing three days annual “urs” celebrations of great Sufi Saint Hazrat Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai have been finalized by Mela Organizing Committee in its meeting held on Thursday at Bhitshah Rest House under the chair of Sindh Culture Secretary Abdul Aziz Uqeli.

The 268th three days annual urs celebrations of Hazrat Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai will be held from January 9 to 11, 2012 at Bhitshah.

Addressing the meeting, the Provincial Culture Secretary informed that around 0.7 million people are expected to attend the annual urs celebrations.

He said that the arrangements to provide uninterrupted power, water supply and efficient drainage system have been finalized while health facilities at fixed camps and hospital as well as mobile medical units have been ensured to meet any eventuality during urs celebrations.

Besides, the management concerned has also been directed for fumigation in the area, he said.

He informed that arrangements for holding international Adbi (Literary) Conference, Malakhra (traditional Sindhi wrestling) Sugharan Je Katchehry, establishment of Model Village, Mach Katchehry, Catle Show, Agro-Industrial exhibition, Musical Concert and other events have also been finalized to provide informative entertainment to the devotees of Hazrat Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai.

He informed that Sindh Culture Department has always made effort not only to convert the event of annual urs of Hazrat Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai into transformation of his message of love, affection and prosperity in the world for universal peace but also to depict the Sindhi culture, literature, and rites of inhabitants.

[Picture: Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai mentions his travels in the Risalo. Photo: Wiki.]

Message of Peace

2012-01-05T00:01:00.000-05:00

By Owais Jaffery, *Bahauddin Zakariya: Qureshi urges Sufi followers to join him* - The Express Tribune - Karachi, Pakistan; Sunday, January 1st, 2012

Multan: Ceremonies to mark the 772nd death anniversary of Bahauddin Zakariya, patron saint of Multan, started on Saturday.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi gave bath to the mausoleum.

Addressing the Zakariya conference, Qureshi said some political parties were planning to divide Sindh to prevent followers of Sufi saints from propagating the saints’ message of peace and harmony.

He said he hoped these people would leave President Asif Ali Zardari and instead join him to thwart the former’s designs against them.

He said his party would bring peace and prosperity to the country by acting on the teachings of Bahauddin Zakariya and Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

He announced he would soon hold tours to all provinces of the country to meet people from various ethnic groups so that they could be united on PTI’s platform.

He said terrorism was in fact a conspiracy against Islam and was meant to malign Muslims all over the world. He said the government had failed to counter these designs against Muslims. Qureshi also spoke about the Balochistan crisis.

Minister for Zakat and Usher, Ehsaan-ud-Din Qureshi, also attended the ceremonies on Saturday.

The Urs will continue for three days. Pilgrims from all over the country have arrived in Multan to attend the ceremonies. These pilgrims are staying at camps set up at Qasim Baagh Stadium.

More than 500 police personnel were deployed in and around the shrine to ensure security.

Picture: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi gave bath to the mausoleum. Photo: Express.

Joyous

2012-01-04T00:01:00.012-05:00

By Staff Reporter, *Egyptians celebrate 2012 in Tahrir Square* - Ahram Online - Cairo, Egypt; Sunday, January 1st, 2012

Egyptians celebrate 2012 in Tahrir Square: Tens of thousands of Egyptians flocked to Tahrir Square on Saturday to see in the New Year in the symbolic home of the revolution

In a joyous atmosphere where Coptic hymns, Sufi music and revolutionary songs intertwined, thousands of Egyptians marked the end of 2011 and the beginning of the New Year in Tahrir Square, which has for some revolutionaries become their makeshift home since January.

At the Qasr El-Dobara Church, site of a field hospital during clashes, a service began at 8pm as youth created a human shield around the church to protect it from any attacks. After the service, a march began from the church to the square as participants held aloft tens of balloons containing photos of martyrs who have been killed during the past year.

When they arrived at the square, several priests climbed the stage and addressed the crowd to be met with cheering and whistling from the excited crowd who began chanting “Muslim and Christian are one hand.”

Ramy Essam, revolutionary singer who became famous for penning the song “Leave” during the 18-day uprising, also sang several patriotic songs for the crowd. Several other stars also made an appearance serenading the night including Aly El-Haggar, Azza Balbaa, Sufi singer Sheikh Ahmed El-Touny and poet Abdel Rahman Youssef.

At the stroke of midnight, balloons the colours of the Egyptian flag were released into the air amidst fireworks, and cheers and whistles from the crowd.

Picture: Ali El-Haggar sings in Tahrir for the martyrs to start 2012. Photo: Mai Shaheen.

Sufi Light

2012-01-03T00:01:00.034-05:00

By Staff Writer, *Author Delivers the Secret of Meditation* - PRWEB / Digital Journal - Cortland, NY, USA; Thursday, December 29, 2011

For anyone who has fallen in love with the works of Persian poet Rumi, Dr. Ahmad Javid’s new book “Sufi Light: The Secret of Meditation” (published by Balboa Press) may come as a welcome accompaniment. Like the work of Rumi, “Sufi Light” contemplates the themes of faith, love and the divine.

“The main objective of this book,” says Javid, “is to explore the secrets of human and divine love, their relationship, and their interaction through meditation on the personal Name of God, Allah. Such meditation is a portal to draw upon and receive the ever-shining light and a means to live in the divine presence.”

Living in this “divine presence” has become the aim for many.

“There is a growing awareness about spirituality and increasing interest in religion due to the failure of modernization and rapid technological advancement to provide peace of mind and personal fulfillment,” says Javid.

“Sufism is becoming more popular, and mystical poetry is being read widely throughout the world. Millions are practicing some form of meditation, yoga, or prayer, as well as attending spiritual retreats. Thousands of books have been written on the subjects of meditation, yoga, positive thinking, the power of imagination, and the laws of attraction. Both men and women have an ever-increasing appetite for self-help spiritual guide books so as to satisfy their inner desire to connect with their source. The number of people seeking the truth is ever increasing.”

Javid, who is also a pediatrics physician, brings a unique perspective to his work, bridging eastern and western philosophies.

“‘Sufi Light and The Secret of Meditation’ is the only book uniquely positioned to appeal to all those interested in religion, spirituality, meditation, and yoga—seekers on the path and divine lovers. It is a must read for both teachers and students of spirituality. If they do not know what is divulged in this book, their knowledge of meditation on the Divine is incomplete, and their efforts are just hard labor.”

About the Author

Dr. Ahmad Javid is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He was born in Pakistan, a twelfth-generation Sufi raised in a traditional religious and spiritual household. He received his medical degree from Khyber Medical College, Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1973.

He has a diploma in pediatrics from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow, and the University College, Dublin, Ireland.

He spent 17 years in Iran, where he extensively studied Sufi literature and poetry. He came to the United States in 1993 and finished residency training in pediatrics from Columbia University, New York, where he served as a chief resident as well.

He has been invested with khirqa (cloak) of the Sarwari Qaderi order of Sufis.

[Click here to "look inside" the book.]

[Front Cover: Balboa Press.]

Be More Alert

2012-01-02T00:01:00.014-05:00

By Staff Writer, *Leader of Sufi Sect cautions Muslim youth against electoral violence* - Vibe Ghana.com - Ghana; Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Leader of Sufi Sect cautions Muslim youth against electoral violence

The Spiritual Head of the Sufi Sect of the Tijanniya Muslim Council of Ghana, has asked Muslim youth to reject overtures by politicians who are out there to create confusion in pursuit of their self-serving agenda.

Sheikh Khalifa Abdul Faidi said as the nation prepares towards the 2012 General Election, the youth should be more alert and refuse to be part of any evil project likely to stir up violence and wreck the peace.

He said it should not be lost on them that Islam stands for peace and asked adherents of the religion to mirror the virtue.

Sheikh Faidi admonished the youth to distant themselves from acts that would dent the image of Islam.

Sheikh Faidi was speaking at the launch of the 36th annual “Sufi Maulud” celebration of the Tijanniya in Kumasi.

It is a religious tradition performed to mark the birth day of the Founder of the Tijanniya Sect, Sheikh Ahmed Tijanni.

The event fixed for January 5- January 7, 2012, would be held at Prang in the Brong Ahafo Region.

Sheikh Faidi appealed to the citizenry, especially leaders of the political parties, to be more responsible in their conduct to prevent tension ahead of the upcoming Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

He said it is important for the political parties to accept to play by the rules of fairness and transparency to ensure the success of the polls.

[Picture: Larabanga Mosque, Ghana. Built in 1421 by Arabian settlers, is the oldest mosque in West Africa. Picture: Wiki.]

Through Philosophical Songs

2012-01-01T00:01:00.022-05:00

By Syed Muthahar Saqaf, *A musical journey to the mystique* - The Hindu - India; Thursday, December 22, 2011

The New York City reverberated with soul-stirring fare presented by Najmuddin and Saifuddin.

Reverberation of sacred Qawwali, a popular and traditional Sufi musical form of the Indian sub-continent, at the inaugural of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts' New Galleries, in New York city recently, was a rousing tribute to the unique occasion meant to honour the diversity of cultures.

The rendering of Qawwali on the occasion of international significance exemplified its popularity worldwide.

The Morocco's Gnaoua music was the other musical concert selected for the occasion.

Qawwali, which has been part of India and Pakistan's Sufi tradition since the 13th century, was a perfect foil for Morocco's Gnaoua music that emanated from enslaved people who came into Morocco centuries ago through the slave route via Timbaktou.

The Gnaoua community is also known as Bilalis because they follow Hazrat Bilal, the Prophet Mohammed's Ethiopian muezzin, or caller to prayer.

The enchanting Qawwali performance rendered by famous Pakistani singers – Najmuddin and Saifuddin brothers, added in no small measure to the dazzle of the New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and later South Asia.

Popular across the world, Qawwali is a very interesting way of preaching the tenets of Sufism and serves as a guide and teacher through philosophical songs based on love and peace. The music from Qawwali is mystical and symbolises ‘Zikr,' which is taking God's name.

Captivating Performance

People from various countries, who had come down to attend the inaugural, enjoyed and experienced the mystique power that perhaps only Qawwali can create.

The brothers captivated the audience with their soul-stirring Qawwali and the variety of Sufi songs that they presented in rich, deep voices provided an ideal setting for heavenly music.

Also, the way the troupe presented kalams, ghazals and nazams with ease and involvement enchanted the audience.

The repeated applause bore testimony to the popularity of Sufi music even in alien lands.

Saifuddin Mehmood and Zafeeruddin Ahmed on the harmonium, Mughisuddin on the tabla and Naseem Ahmed on the dhol (cylindrical drum) provided ample support.

Qawwal Najmuddin and Saifuddin, are the direct descendants of the leader of the first Qawwali chowki, or ensemble, formed by Amir Khusrao, a Sufi mystic and called as ‘Father of Qawwali,' in the 13th century.

The group consisted of young musicians, who came to be known as Qawwal Bachhey.

The current day ensemble continued in their family's musical tradition for more than 700 years.

Both the brothers are now based at Karachi, Pakistan, but often tour India to sing at Dargahs and Sufiana mahfils (gatherings). They were part of the U.S. National Caravanserai: A Place Where Cultures Meet U.S. National Tour.

“Qawwali enjoys a very good patronage in the U.S. and Qawwali groups from India and Pakistan perform in various parts of USA often. Every time, the hall is jam packed,” said Zeyba Rahman, creative consultant for public programmes of The Metropolitan Museum, New York, and artistic director for the U.S. National Caravanserai: A Place Where Cultures Meet.

The Gnaoua group that Moroccan-American musician Hassan Hakmoun brought together included his family members and friends, who are musically inclined, including the multi-instrumentalist Brahim Fribgane.

The musicians of both the ‘Qawwali' and ‘Gnaoua' forms, met for the first time before the Museum concert and were delighted to learn about each other's traditions.

Each group performed separately at first and then came together to perform the specially chosen sacred repertoire for the audience at the New Galleries, who gave the musicians a standing ovation thrice in the course of one evening.

“The occasion proved to be a unique inaugural concert programme that was a rousing tribute to the amazing new galleries and to the richness and diversity of Muslim cultures. It seemed most fitting to bring together two great traditions to show the distinctions and common grounds that are their hallmarks,” added Ms. Zeyba Rehman, who is also Creative Consultant of Public Programmes to celebrate the opening of the Metropolitan Museum's new galleries.

Picture: Najmuddin and Saifuddin brothers rendering 'Qawwali' at the inaugural of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts' New Galleries in New York city. Photo: Ehsun Mirza.

[Also of interest: *The Met resets a Gem* by Walter B. Denny.]

Not Any More

2011-12-31T00:01:00.018-05:00

By Ashfaq Yusufzai, *In Arms Against Saints* - Inter Press Service - Rome, Italy; Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Peshawar: The Taliban have destroyed schools, bombed music shops and carried out gruesome executions in Pakistan’s territories bordering Afghanistan. But what they may never be forgiven for is the destruction of ancient shrines where revered Sufi mystics are interred.

"Three years ago, I used to be a supporter of the Taliban because I believed they were true Muslims, but this destruction of shrines of revered saints has saddened me and others," said Afaq Ali, a shopkeeper in the Khyber Agency.

Ali was reacting to the destruction of the shrines of Sheikh Bahadar Baba and Sheikh Nisa Baba in separate attacks in the Khyber Agency on Dec. 9.

"These attacks are unacceptable and the people who used to contribute money to the Taliban in the past hate them now," Ali told IPS. "People don’t respect them any more."

Since 2005, the Taliban has been carrying on a relentless campaign to destroy the tombs of mystics and poets since reverence for them is considered ‘un-Islamic’ by Wahabi purists.

Some 25 shrines across Pakistan, many of them centuries-old, have been destroyed in these attacks.

"Taliban have several factions and the Wahabi group is opposed to people visiting shrines, and these attacks are designed to scare away people," Mufti Ghulam Nabi, a prayer leader in Peshawar, explained to IPS.

"Except for the Wahabis, all other groups hold the Sufis and mystic poets in high esteem," Nabi added.

Maulana Ghulam Rasool, another cleric, said that the mainstream Tehreek Taliban Pakistan was opposed to desecration and destruction of shrines of saints and poets, but Taliban belonging to Ahle Hadith school (Wahabis) are opposed to visits to these shrines by people.

"This school considers visits to the shrines un-Islamic as they argue that the people should directly seek blessing of God and visiting the shrines amounted to equating them with God," he told IPS.

"But, the attacks on these shrines has greatly harmed the image of the Taliban," Rasool added.

Wahabi fundamentalism originated in Saudi Arabia, and the present Saudi government provides funds to the school’s adherents for the construction of mosques and other institutions.

Until the May 28, 2005 destruction of the shrine of Bari Imam in Islamabad by a suicide bomber, killing 20 people, attacks on Sufi shrines were unthinkable.

In 2006, the Pakistani Taliban captured the shrine of Haji Sahib Turangzai in the Mohmand Agency and converted it into their headquarters.

By 2008, the militants had accelerated their campaign, blowing up important shrines such as that of Abdul Shakoor Baba in Chamkani, Peshawar.

On Mar. 5, 2009 when the ‘mazar’ (domed mausoleum) in Peshawar of the 17th century Sufi poet Abdul Rahman Baba was blown up, people began to openly condemn the Taliban for the desecration.

"Attacking shrines of revered people shows that Taliban are not Muslims. They are doing this to please the enemies of Islam," Saeed Bibi, 26, a housewife told IPS. "Now I am staunchly opposed to the Taliban."

The Pakistan government has tried to protect the more important Sufi shrines. The 16th century tomb of the highly respected saint Pir Baba in the Buner district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was saved from being burned down in 2009 by the timely intervention of security forces.

But, three determined suicide attackers hit the famous Data Darbar shrine in Lahore in July 2010, resulting in the deaths of at least 40 persons.

"We have allocated 800,000 dollars to reconstruct the damaged shrines and appoint permanent security personnel around them to deter attacks in future," Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told IPS.

"We received letters from Taliban in which they warned us to stop women from visiting the shrine," said Umar Shah, a caretaker of the tomb of the 20th century poet and mystic Amir Hamza Khan Shinwari in Khyber Agency, which came under attack in July 2011.

"Militants think that women who visit the shrine indulge in immoral activities," Shah said. "There is no truth in this as the women are coming here to receive blessings."

"Targeting the shrines of poets shows that Taliban are against culture and poetry. People have immense love for local culture and anyone targeting the tombs of poets are the enemies of Islam and local culture," said Muhammad Abdullah, a poet.

Abdullah said that the views of poets and mystics are anathema to the Taliban. "The former advocates tolerance and the latter extremism… they are poles apart."

The Khyber Literary Society in Peshawar is among entities actively working to safeguard the tombs of poets against attacks.

"We have raised a committee of volunteers who perform duties in different shrines during nights. The government is supporting us," Ali Kamran, an activist with the society, said.

Picture: A Sufi shrine damaged in an attack being rebuilt. Photo:Ashfaq Yusufzai / IPS.

Sulh-e-Kul

2011-12-30T00:01:00.022-05:00

By Umer Nangiana, *Sultan-e-Hind: Mysticism takes centre stage* - The Express Tribune - Karachi, Pakistan; Monday, December 19, 2011

Islamabad: Ayeena Theatre group recently paid homage to the 12th century Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti with a dramatic play called “Sultan-e-Hind” which was part of the ongoing drama festival at the Pakistan National Council of Arts (PNCA) in Islamabad.

Although directorial bloopers and technical mistakes could have easily spoilt the show, the play was well-received. The production, which had a considerably large cast, was based on the life of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti and his work for the Sufi concept of Sulh-e-Kul (peace to all).

With an unconvincing, flimsy stage design, the play showcased everything from the Sufi’s birth to his childhood and subsequent travels to Ajmer in India.

Even though the play was fine in the beginning, when Chishti arrived in Ajmer and the emperor Prithvi Raj Chauhan’s court came into play — it seemed like the director and the set designer were not in sync on the storyline.

Strangely enough, the court was set in a way that the domineering king could only see the raqasa’s (dancing girl) back as she performed facing the audience. For a good 10 minutes, Chauhan looked like a sorry figure who had nothing to do but smile.

On more than two occasions, the spotlights disappeared at the wrong time. Furthermore, when the actors left the stage after certain acts, they lost their exits, inviting laughter from the audience and marring the seriousness of the scene. At one point, the raqasa had to wait on stage for the music to start while standing in her dancing posture.

“I am hurt that such a tribute could go wrong. The PNCA did not give us enough time to rehearse on their stage and there were multiple multimedia issues as well,” said the writer and director of “Sultan-e-Hind” towards the end when he introduced the cast and crew. He requested the PNCA management to provide ample time for rehearsals as other theatre groups had complained of similar issues facing them during the festival.

However, the Director of PNCA Hassan Abbas was quick to rebuff these complaints.

“This is a national festival where a play is held every day including the weekends. The teams are expected to come prepared with their rehearsals. One should not blame PNCA for their own lack of preparation,” said Abbas.

Nevertheless, the audience enjoyed the play and applauded various performances. The highlight of the play was when the most trusted of the king’s courtesans was converted by the Sufi.

The actors playing the characters of Chishti and Chauhan gave strong performances and were well supported by their co-actors. However, it was the king’s deputy, played by Javed Bhatti, who received the most appreciation from the audience.

The play ended with dervishes swirling on the tunes of a qawwali and courtesans paying tribute at Chishti’s mausoleum in Ajmer Sharif, India.

Picture: Artists perform in play “Sultan-e-Hind” by Ayeena Theatre Group during “National Drama Festival 2011” organised by Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) in Islamabad. Photo: Muhammad Javaid / Express.

In His Followers' Hearts

2011-12-29T00:01:00.000-05:00

By Arun Ganapathy, *A different kind of Haj* -The Times of India - India; Monday, December 19, 2011

A different kind of Haj: Arun Ganapathy visits the shrine of Bahauddin Naqshbandi in Bukhara and is touched by the serenity of the place.

The woman was dressed in a colourful rumcha, a long, loose robe. Her husband and two little sons were wearing a great black kalpok, or skull cap. The boys looked like smaller versions of Genghis Khan.

"Hindustani?" the man turned to me and asked. "Yes. And you?"

"My name is Sherzodbek. I come from Karakalpakstan, close to the Uzbek-Kazakhstan border."

"That's a long way for you to come."

"Yes, but coming here is like going on Haj for us."

We were in a marshrutka, a shared taxi, driving swiftly through flat, melon farms towards the complex of Bahauddin Naqshbandi, just outside Bukhara in Uzbekistan.

Every now and then, the marshrutka would slow down to make way for rosy-cheeked Uzbek girls on the wayside, carrying buckets piled high with peaches and quinces.

Finally, the taxi took a turn off the highway and stopped. The driver announced that we'd arrived at our destination. I tumbled out of the taxi, still reading from the guide book that I was carrying.

Naqshbandi tradition

Bahauddin Naqshband Bukhari - also called Shah Naqshband - was the founder of the Naqshbandi order of Sufis. He was born in the village of Quasr-Al-Arifan, close to Bukhara, in the early 14th century.

When he was still young, he met and served his Sufi masters, Shaikh Muhammad Baba as-Samasi and Shaikh Sayyid Amir Kulal. During the time he was with the latter, he had a series of visionary experiences. In one such experience, according to the guidebook, he found himself in the Divine presence.

'O Bahauddin,' he heard a voice say, 'whatever you want, we will grant.' In response, Bahauddin said, 'I want to be given a path (tariqat) that will lead anyone who travels on it, straight to the Divine Presence.'

His wish was granted. And thus began the tariqat of Sufis known as Naqshbandis.

Not knowing where to start, I followed Sherzodbek and his family, and we walked along a flagstoned path that led, first through a high arch dressed in dazzling blue geometric tiles, and then through a garden of roses and fir trees.

We reached a large dun-coloured building complex, surrounded by ayvans, or covered courtyards, and was topped off by a great lotus dome. As I stepped in, through the heavily carved wooden doors at the entrance, I realised how big the place was and why the Uzbeks called it a ritual ensemble; inside, there was a mosque, a minaret, tombs of dervishes, a series of tanks and courtyards.

"Why did you say coming here is like a Haj?" I asked Sherzodbek.

"Praying to Shah Naqshband is like praying directly to Allah," he said. "He always takes up our requests and shows us the way. The Shah showed us the tariqa - the way to pray and meditate. He would write Allah on the wall and ask his followers to move their finger on the word, concentrating on the divinity within it. In this way, he engraved Allah in his followers' hearts. This is the meaning of 'Naqsh' in Naqshbandi."

By now we crossed a passageway and come to a courtyard, enclosed on three sides by an ayvan. Immediately in front was the tomb of Shah Naqshband - a solid marble platform with a carved fretwork fence running around its perimeter.

From where I was standing, it looked like a performing dais for artists rather than a place for veneration, but it was only my impression. The Sherzodbeks and the other Uzbek families suddenly stopped and fell silent; clearly, they were moved by the place. They kissed the tomb and walked around it thrice, anti-clockwise. All the time, they pleaded for the saint's support with raised palms. It was a touching moment.

Sherzodbek finished praying and we walked for the next 15 minutes along the pathway. It led us through a maze of tombs of Sufi dervishes. When we came to a dead end, we turned around and headed back with Sherzodbek continuing his story of the Shah's life.

Wish-fulfilling tree

"Shah Naqshband's life was full of miracles and you can see them for yourself here," he pointed into the distance. I followed his finger to see the huge tree trunk lying on its side on a platform. It was once a mulberry tree.

"During one of his visits to Mecca, Shah Naqshband was gifted a walking stick. One day, on his return to Bukhara, he was strolling in his garden carrying the walking stick. While walking, he jabbed the stick into the ground and a mulberry tree grew on the spot. It's been long dead and has fallen over, but it still has a lot of spiritual power. If you pray to it, your wishes would be granted," Sherzodbek continued.

As we walked towards the tree, more Uzbek families joined us. Some of them - especially the women - bent under the trunk, where it stretched over the platform and created a lintel, and circled the tree thrice. Each time they bent, they mumbled a little prayer. "Praying for children," said Sherzodbek and I understood this as a wish for fertility.

As the sun began to set over the arched entrance, the call for maghrib, the evening prayer, went up from the minaret to my right. Leaving his wife still praying at the tree, Sherzodbek headed back to the mosque and I joined him.

Inside the mosque, Sherzodbek joined a few Uzbeks who sat on the floor, praying. Together they said a few rakats, or units of prayer, and did the dhikr, or recitation that the Shah had shown.

Although it was silent, one could make out their Adam's Apples shuttling ever so slightly up and down their throats as they recited the name of Allah. For the next few minutes, there was complete silence, then Sherzodbek got up and we filed out one after the other into the chill desert wind outside.

Journey of a lifetime

It was time to leave, so we shook hands. Sherzodbek's family bowed and prayed one last time to the complex; and then turned towards the gate. As they did so, I noticed both husband and wife pulling out handkerchiefs from their pockets. For them this had been a journey of a lifetime; who knows they might never again see their beloved Shah's tomb again... they were wiping their tears.

Getting There
By Road: To get to the Naqshabandi shrine, you have to first get to Bukhara and then take a Marshrutka, or shared taxi from there. The shrine is just outside the city.

By Train: Bukhara is a short train ride from Tashkent. There are two daily trains connecting Tashkent with Bukhara via Samarkand.

By Air: Tashkent is only about two-and-a-half hours by flight from Delhi. Uzbek Air operates regular flights regularly between Delhi and Tashkent.

The Conflict Could Widen

2011-12-28T00:01:00.020-05:00

By Hassan Ali, *SOMALIA: Somalis call for the arrest of Puntland leader as Fighting flares in central town* - Somalilandpress - Somalia; Monday, December 19, 2011

Somalis call for the arrest of Puntland leader as Fighting flares in central town

Las Anod: Fighting has erupted in a disputed town in central Somalia between two pro-government militias, with Ahlu Sunna militia claiming a strategic victory in its offensive against rebels loyal to TFG member.

Witnesses in the town of Abudwaq in Galgudud region told Somalilandpress the fighting began on Saturday night after militia loyal to Ahlu Sunna attacked forces led by Somali parliament member Abdifatah.

They added the offensive displaced hundreds, cut off communication services and is threatening to spread. They said more than five were killed and further fifteen injured from both sides. The town is currently under the control of the Sufi Ahlu Sunna group. The clerics imposed an overnight curfew in the town.

The Sufi group, often regarded as pro-government, accused the member of Parliament of destabilizing the town. They issued him a verbal warning to halt all activities but he refused to comply. Ahlu Sunna now says all government (TFG) members require permits to enter any territory under their control. They requested that all government members leave the town immediately.

Regional analyst warn the current conflict between the two pro-government militia could widen and disrupt the fragile treaty between the weak TFG and the Sufi militant. Ahlu Sunna now controls much of central Somalia and wants to establish its own semi-autonomous region similar to the dozens already active in the failed state.

The conflict in Abudwaq comes days after the semi-autonomous region of Puntland declared an open war on Gal-Mudug, another semi-autonomous in Somalia’s central region. Puntland leaders accused them of destabilizing the region in particular the border town of Galkayo.

Garowe said Galmudug kidnapped a ten year old boy and assassinated countless others. Galmudug administration ignored the accusations and went about its business.

Meanwhile Somali intellectuals in the Somali capital urged the TFG to arrest the leader of Puntland, Abdirahman Farole, insisting that he was undermining the country’s leadership and derailing the peace process. They said it was not his responsibility to implement the proposed peace plan but it was up to to the national leadership including the UN-backed parliament in Mogadishu.

They dismissed that the up coming meeting which will implement a political plan agreed in September known as the roadmap be held in Garowe, the capital of Puntland. They argued Mogadishu was the capital and the right venue for such dialogue.

The weak Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu and the Garowe administration have been at odds in recent times over a number of issues including aid money and foreign investment. The current conflict in central Somalia and the political infighting in Mogadishu will add more headache to the struggling TFG as it tries to tackle the country’s numerous problems.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since the ouster of one-time dictator Mohamed Siad Bare in 1991.

Enthusiasm

2011-12-27T00:01:00.033-05:00

By DNA Correspondent, *Now, All roads lead to Mumbai's Mahim Dargah fair* - Daily News and Analysis - Mumbai, India; Sunday, Dec 18, 2011

Now, all roads lead to Mumbai's Mahim Dargah fair

Changing times haven’t affected the enthusiasm with which the ten day-long Mahim fair is being held this year.

Held in the honour of the Sufi saint, Makhdoom Ali Mahimi (1372-1431) the Mahim fair at the dusty Mahim beach is full of people on giant wheels, toy trains and enjoying gravity-defying stunts in the ‘Maut Ka Kuan’.

The qawwali tradition is being celebrated by the locals, too. “Hindi songs are not sung because they can get boisterous. Each singer comes and gives their nazariayana (respect) to the God and Baba. They all speak about how different religion say the same thing,” said Mohammed Aslam, who organises qawwalis at Wajewadi.

“Listening to them is like paying your respects to Baba. You remember him and his teachings,” said Arvind Tambole, one of the people who attended a qawwali after going to the dargah.

The cops go easy even if the qawwalis go on till late into the night. The Mahim Fair is the only time when the police participate in an official capacity apart from providing security cover. It is a policeman who has the honour of applying sandalwood paste on the saint’s grave, and offering it a chadar.

There are three different versions of the story behind the involvement of the police. Ramrao Desai, senior police inspector of the Mahim police station, said, “A sepoy served water to the saint while he was dying. That is why the police have been putting the first sandal and the chadar on him.”

According to another version, Baba was very close to the investigative arm of the police. “He helped them crack a case and, out of respect, an assistant sub inspector offers the first sandalwood and chadar,” said L B Shaikh, advisor of the Sandal committee of Hazrat Maulana Makhdoon Ali Saheb Fateh Ali Shaha, the police wing that organises the first sandal that is offered.

Islamic scholar Asghar Ali Engineer says that, in 1891-92, the city witnessed a brutal riot. So, the then police commissioner began offering the first sandal as a call for communal harmony.

It takes seven hours for the sandal to reach the police station from the Dargah in the midst of the police band and other bands.

Another misconception amongst the people is that the festival marks the birth or the ‘Urs’. “It is only a mela in the honour of Makhdoom Shah Baba held every December. Many people call it Urs which is wrong as it means the death of a person,” said Sohail Khandwani, managing trustee of the Pir Makhdoom Shah Fakhi Charitable Trust, which takes care of the dargah.

People also arrange for community eating. “We provide rice mutton curry free to whoever comes,” said Salim Chaus who claimed to have fed 600 people.

[Picture: Dargah Sharif on 11/23/2011. Photo: Wiki.]

The Dignity and Equal Worth

2011-12-26T00:01:00.018-05:00

By Ishtiaq Ahmed, *VIEW: The humanist tradition of Punjab —Ishtiaq Ahmed* - Daily Times - Lahore, Pakistan; Sunday, December 18, 2011

The sages, sufis and gurus of Punjab tried in different ways to heal the wounded humanity of their times. It is a legacy we can all be proud of

In today’s column, I shall delineate the humanist tradition of Punjab as bequeathed to us by our sages, sufis and gurus. I define humanism simply as a worldview that recognises the equal worth of all human beings irrespective of the incidents of race, religion, sect, language and other such attributes.

Such a standpoint is premised on the assumption that empathy, compassion and solidarity among human beings are a superior basis for human relations both morally and practically. The simple proof of such an assertion is an ancient idea: I should treat others the way I want them to treat me. Yet, the history of humankind is replete with wars of race, religion and sect deriving primarily from tribalism. State-nationalism and religious dogma are both manifestations of tribalism. Humanism is therefore the counterpoint movement against the powers-that-be.

With regard to Punjab, one of the earliest sages to represent humanism was Gorakhnath. The exact year and place of his birth are not firmly established, but it is widely recognised by scholars that his influence was pervasive in what came to be known as Punjab, whatever his precise place of birth. The Gorakhnathi yogis or wandering sages retained features of the Shaivite Hindu cult while accepting Buddhist and Islamic influences.

The Gorakhnathis were able to form a bridge between Muslims and Hindus because of their opposition to caste distinctions and ritual purity. The symbiosis between Hinduism and Islam in the Gorakhnathi movement comes out strongly in the great Punjabi version of Romeo-Juliet, the epic Heer, as narrated by both Damodar (a Hindu) and Waris Shah (a Muslim), when Heer’s lover Ranjha joins the Gorakhnathi yogis to express rejection of a world full of intrigues, jealousies and oppressive customs and beliefs.

Another Hindu reform process that gained a foothold in the Punjab was the order of the sants, or itinerant sages often of humble status. The sants were associated with the Bhakti movement, which originated in South India among Hindus who were opposed to caste oppression. The Bhaktis made great headway into northern India and Punjab.

Later, the Muslims also joined it. Among them the name of Bhagat Kabir is the most well-known. Kabir was not from Punjab but his poetry is replete with the suffering of the ordinary people. His ideas made a great impact on the non-conformist traditions prevalent in Punjab at that time. Bhagti philosophy was premised on the assumption that there was one God and His creation was inseparable from Him. The Bhaktis professed a life vowed to poverty and purity of conduct.

The sufi brotherhoods that arrived in South Asia from either the Middle East or Central Asia had already incorporated the pantheistic traditions of South Asia, and in some cases the result was theist fusions or Unitarian views of God. Individual sufis sometimes evolved non-conformist positions that assumed that ultimately there is one Great Spirit or God holding together the cosmic and earthly systems.

Such a train of thinking reached its apogee under Bulleh Shah (1680-1758). Bulleh Shah’s guide and master, Shah Inayat, belonged to the Qadriyya Shattari school of Sufism, which readily borrowed Hindu philosophical ideas of reaching individual salvation and incorporated them into sufi beliefs. Bulleh Shah, however, surpassed his teacher and guide in terms of openly questioning religious dogmas. Just to quote a couplet:

“Gal samajh layee te raolaa keeh,

Eyh Raam, Raheem te Maula keeh.”

(Why this commotion if you claim you understand?

Why this fuss about calling Him Ram, Raheem or Maula?)

(Ram is a Hindu god; Raheem and Maula are designations for Allah).

The guru tradition based on devotion to an ideal teacher found its most innovative and enlightened expression in the teachings of Guru Nanak. He famously expressed the idea of a wounded humanity when he said, “Nanak dukkhia sabb sansaar” (Nanak, humanity everywhere is in pain).

Born as Nanak Chand (1469-1539), in a Khatri Hindu family in Talwandi (now Nankana Sahib, in the Pakistani Punjab), Guru Nanak initiated a reform movement to alleviate the pain he found afflicting humanity everywhere. He rejected untouchability and condemned the corruption rampant in the Muslim and Hindu religious and political establishments.

Founding a system of free community kitchens, he was able to persuade his followers, who came largely though not exclusively from Hindu ranks, to eat together. The brotherhood he founded was based on absolute respect for the personal faith of all human beings. Thus for example, the musician Bhai Mardana was a Muslim who accompanied him wherever he went all his life. At no stage was Mardana’s Islamic faith a problem for Guru Nanak to accept him among his closest companions. Guru Nanak thus established a principle and practice for moral persuasion which, in my opinion, is far superior to the use of force that has typified the spread of religions otherwise in the world.

On November 13, 2011, a well-known scholar of Islam, Professor Akbar S Ahmed, spoke on Guru Nanak’s 543rd birthday at a Sikh gathering in Rockville, Maryland, US. He remarked that through Guru Nanak’s life we learn “how he promoted the dialogue between the two great religions of India; Hinduism and Islam, which added to the beauty and birth of Sikhism”. That I believe was a very apt compliment by a devout and enlightened Muslim scholar.

One can add that Guru Nanak was able to promote a dialogue between Hinduism and Islam, because in his scheme of things it was the dignity and equal worth of all human beings that was important — not religious dogmas. Therefore, he chided the priests of both religions. In that sense, he was a challenger of the status quo that he saw served the interests of brute forces in society and those armed with the might of the state and the authority of scriptures.

In the light of the above discussion one can say that the sages, sufis and gurus of Punjab tried in different ways to heal the wounded humanity of their times. It is a legacy we can all be proud of. In our own times, the old issues and problems remain very much intact. Therefore, the struggle must go on. Universal human rights as inalienable entitlements of individuals are a sublimation of humanism that the sages, sufis and gurus set forth in another historical context. That point needs to be grasped.

The writer is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University. He is also Honorary Senior Fellow of the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. He can be reached at billumian@gmail.com

Amid the Birds' Feathers

2011-12-25T00:01:00.019-05:00

By Christopher Lord, *Lebanese artist explores the emirates on canvas* - The National - Abu Dhabi, UAE; Monday, December 19, 2011

The artist Mouna Bassili Sehnaoui talks about her solo exhibition at Salwa Zeidan Gallery in Abu Dhabi.

In the great Persian poet Farid ud-Din Attar's masterpiece The Conference of the Birds, the humble hoopoe is the wisest of all the feathered assembly. With black-tipped crest quivering on its head, the hoopoe plays the wise Sufi master in the poem, leading the birds back to clearsightedness.

"Come you lost atoms to your centre draw, and be the eternal mirror that you saw", is one of the book's most famous lines. "Rays that have wander'd into darkness wide, return and back into your sun subside."

This spirit of holding on or returning to one's essence is at the heart of the Lebanese artist Mouna Bassili Sehnaoui's solo exhibition at Salwa Zeidan Gallery in Abu Dhabi, continuing until December 30.

Sehnaoui spent two weeks travelling through the Emirates, absorbing the natural grandeur of Sir Bani Yas island while sketching and painting the birds that pass through that part of the country in a palette of soaring colours. One of the finest of those included in the exhibition is that of the hoopoe - Sehnaoui shows the boisterousness of the bird's call in v-shaped lips, and the fan of colours on its head seems to lilt like waving fingers.

But while her birds hint at some of the appealing, colourful boldness of American artist Ed Ruscha's robin, Sehnaoui explains that finding her own voice on canvas only came once she "threw out the window" everything she learnt during a spell at the University of Arizona, at a time when minimalism was at its apogee.

"I came back to Lebanon and just froze in front of the canvas. Eventually, I realised I needed to draw what I felt like drawing. Being in the States made me see the region differently, as a place with a lot of history to be inspired from."

This, she explains, is what has charged the flat-plane style she's gone for - taking precedents from early Levantine art, mosaic and flashes of Byzantine icon painting.

"Flat painting is in my genes," says Sehnaoui and she brings this to a representation of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi, giving the scene a harmonious, exhaling order.

But birds are recurrent images in Sehnaoui's work and she has included a vast number of these small canvases. "I'm very interested in archaeology in the Middle East," she says. "I have noticed that over the centuries the bird motif has been used over and over again in mosaics, silverwork and pottery from this part of the world.

"In the past, birds represented peace, spiritual life and freedom. For me as an artist, I notice that birds are free to cross borders without visas - almost like the global connection that the internet has today - and are a reminder that justice has to be the same for everyone." To reflect this, perhaps, both Latin and Arabic letters seem to mingle together amid the birds' feathers, suggesting a meeting of East and West in the wings that allow them to migrate.

Sehnaoui ascribes a silent personality to these birds, trying to capture their simple, inscrutable joy in being. Myna birds, egrets and a wonderfully chirpy portrait of the na'al, a cross between a nightingale and a canary, are all represented in these small canvases, as well as two facing peacocks. "I was fascinated in Yemen and the Dubai Museum by the rooms that resembled traditional bedrooms - I kept finding images of the double peacock, but wondering why it was placed in the bedroom? Then, I saw this inscription: 'God grants to those who have patience.'

"When I came back to Beirut, I met a man who had a huge collection of birds, including a pet peacock that answered to his call. The peacock's tail was missing, and he explained that these birds lose their tail in summer. I realised then that the peacock I'd seen in the images of bedrooms was a very old fertility symbol in the Middle East."

This feeds into Sehnaoui's representations of the birds. But elsewhere in the show, she's chosen to look at the purity of the desert landscape and reflect on the brilliance that it must have taken to adapt to this harshness.

"On the surface it looks so barren and arid, but once you give a bit of time to the desert you realise all the gifts it can give to man. It's no coincidence that the founders of the three monotheistic religions sought deserts for contemplation."

Abundant palm trees and carefree horses prance light-footed through a difficult terrain. The abundance of the desert, these works suggest, is something that must be found and arduously learnt. Sehnaoui says these works are a plea to those who've inherited this that they should not let it go. "I worry that if they lose touch with this tradition that they're all about, it will leave a great emptiness behind."

Mouna Bassili Sehnaoui: Arabian Roots continues at Salwa Zeidan Gallery in Abu Dhabi until December 30

To All Children

2011-12-24T00:01:00.033-05:00

By Azam Khan, *The way forward: Following the (Sufi) Piper* - The Express Tribune - Karachi, Pakistan; Thursday, December 15, 2011

The way forward: Following the (Sufi) Piper

Islamabad: Liberating shrines and mosques from the clutches of the government is vital for spreading public awareness about Sufic beliefs for peace and harmony, said participants of a conference on Wednesday.

Researchers and academics from across South Asia are taking part in the SDPI [Sustainable Development Policy Institute] conference on “Redefining Paradigm of Sustainable Development in South Asia”.

Speakers, divided on various aspects of Sufism, unanimously called for an end to the political exploitation of shrines by state institutions and top politicians. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Makhdoom Amin Faheem and Faisal Saleh Hayat were named for exploiting their relationship with Sufi saints.

When asked what the relevance of centuries old shrines had in the contemporary world, Dr Karamat Ali replied,

“There are many people who do not like socialism or ‘mullaism’, but we can promote Sufism to counter modern challenges.”

Ahmed Salim stated that the surge in militancy and terrorism is the direct result of ignoring the Sufic message of love and peace. Heinrich Boll Country Director Britta Petersen, however, insisted that it could be dangerous to follow Sufism as it could lead to a disconnect from everyday life.

During the session, documentaries written by Salim and Humaira Ashfaq on the role of shrines and Sufi saints were aired. Particular focus was on Dr Kamran Ahmed’s ‘Spiritual Heritage – The Hidden Face of Pakistan,’ which highlights the contributions of shrines in promoting social harmony and tolerance.

He also focused on the various elements of the Sufic way of life, including family and community relations, submission to God, tolerance towards others, beauty and creativity and the sacredness of all life.

Earlier, the conference addressed a redefinition of the South Asian region’s approach towards poverty reduction to enhance regional cooperation and integration. Oxford University’s Poverty and Human Development Initiative’s Dr Sabina Alkire said that according to the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2011, as much as half the Pakistani population is poor and the country must adopt a national poverty line that takes into account disparities in education, health and living standards.

Various solutions were proposed to improve standards of living and alleviate poverty in the region, from increased cooperation and partnership between India Pakistan and China, downplaying ethnic conflicts, using literature to create awareness and the use of information technology and communication.

In a discussion organised by ActionAid Pakistan in collaboration with SDPI, the importance of education was highlighted as the key to tackling security challenges, with speakers demanding an increased budget allocation for the sector. Speakers stressed the need to contextualise the issue and said extremism was seriously threatening educational institutions.

ActionAid Country Director Jamal Ahmed stressed for easy accessibility, affordability and acceptability of education for all to bring about a change in the lives of the poor.

Other recommendations included compliance with article 25A of the constitution which guarantees provision of free and compulsory education to all children between five and 16 years of age should be enforced. The session concluded on an emphasis to mobilise resources for promoting education.

Picture: Devotees singing Waee at Bhitai’s shrine. Photo: Saba Channa.

[Visit the SDPI website.]

A Path that One Could Travel

2011-12-23T00:01:00.020-05:00

By Staff Writer, *Mysticism in the Ottoman Empire* - Hürriyet Daily News - Istanbul, Turkey; Saturday, December 17, 2011

Mysticism in the Ottoman Empire

The Mevlevi Sufi order is probably the most famous mystical sect in Ottoman and Turkish history, especially because of Rumi, who is commemorated every Dec 17.

Mysticism, or Sufism as it was called among the Ottomans, was very much a part of Ottoman society in spite of a large, conservative religious establishment and an educational system that was based on the Quran and shariah law.

At its foundation was the idea that there was a path that one could travel to become a perfect human being or saint and, in many cases, achieve union with the divine truth or God. This of course differs from orthodox Islam in which God is the Creator and mankind the created and man could never reach him.

People who followed mystical paths were considered heretics at the beginning but over the centuries the teaching of the Sufis was accepted. Even members of the religious establishment joined these groups. Two schools arose – an Iranian mysticism based on ecstasy and divine love and an Iraqi school based on asceticism. Several sects followed the conquest of much of Anatolia by the Selçuk Turks and had established themselves there by 1299 when the Ottomans, under Osman, began expanding in force.

Each sect had differing paths by which one was to achieve perfection with different sets of rituals, practices and even wearing apparel including their headgear. Each sect, or “tariqa,” started from one teacher and usually had a permanent central location starting from where this particular person was. The main practitioners were men but women were also involved.

Several mystic sects were prominent in the Ottoman Empire, including the Bektaşi, Halveti, Mevlevi, Rifai, Qadiri, Naqshbandi and Bayrami. Of all of these, the Ottoman rulers were probably closest to the Mevlevis, undoubtedly from the time of Osman. It was the Mevlevi Sheik Edebali who girded him with a sword that became known as the Sword of Osman and every sultan after that had to be girded with it on his accession to the throne. The Mevlevi sheik who was leading the tariqa at the time would be summoned to Istanbul from Konya especially for that purpose.

Bektaşi order

The Mevlevis and the Bektaşis have their roots in 13th century Konya.

The Bektaşi order was founded on the teachings of Hacı Bektaş Veli, who was originally Persian. He drew followers in both rural areas in Anatolia and in the Ottoman military. In fact, the Bektaşis were the official sect of the Ottoman army’s famed Janissary corps. They also were popular in the southern Balkans where there are still followers.

The second important order was the Mevlevis whose founder, Mevlana Jalaladdin Rumi, taught “unlimited tolerance, positive reasoning, goodness, charity and awareness through love.” The day he died, Dec. 17, 1273, is still celebrated throughout the world as his wedding day, that is, the day he was united with God.

His followers are known for their whirling ceremony through which they attempt to reach union with the divine. In spite of the Turkish ban on Sufi sects in 1925, the Mevlevis were not persecuted to the extent that other sects were, and republican founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is thought to have been responsible for this.

For many years it was an open secret that they met in each other’s homes and held their whirling ceremonies; today they can carry this out in public.

The Naqshbandi order is the only Sufi sect that can trace its origins back to the first century of the Prophet Muhammad, making it the oldest tariqa. Today it still has followers in the millions around the world. As a sect it and the Halvetis were particularly popular among theologians and government officials.

During the years of conquest, Sufis, or dervishes as they were known, formed groups who fought in the numerous battles that occurred. Later the tariqas played an important role in the areas that were conquered, influencing the people there to accept Islam. One only has to glance through the vast literary output of the Ottomans to understand just how great the Sufi influence was; the concepts and vocabulary reflect the influence that it had on writers.

Picture: Each sect, or ‘tariqa,’ started from one teacher and usually had a permanent central location starting from where this particular person was. The main practitioners were men. Photo: HDN.

Mistik Sayfalar

2011-12-22T00:01:00.016-05:00

By Hatice Ahsen Utku *Mysticism takes stage in İstanbul* Today's Zaman - Istanbul, Turkey; Friday, December 16, 2011

Mysticism takes stage in İstanbul

“Love is love, faith is faith, and art is art everywhere. To art with love!” This is the motto of a festival unique and of its own kind.

As much as it is eclectic and stirring, it is controversial as well. The Third International Mystic Arts Festival kicks off on Dec. 16 with a wide range of activities -- from music and dance to theater, films and exhibitions -- this in addition to debates on the concept of “mysticism.”

Organized by the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality Department of Cultural and Social Affairs and Kültür A.Ş., the festival will take place at various locations on the city’s historical peninsula between Dec. 16 and 20, including the Aya İrini Museum, the Basilica Cistern, the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum and the Kızlarağası Medresesi.

Mystic vs. modern

“The idea for such a festival comes from the Department of Cultural and Social Affairs,” explains the head of the department, Hüseyin Öztürk, to Today’s Zaman.

“Our main motivation was the idea that İstanbul deserved such a festival. We thought that a festival looking back at various historical and mythical traditions from different cultures should be realized in a great historical city like İstanbul. Essentially we wanted the city to be able to host a diverse and unique collection of pieces of art from all over the world”

However, since the very beginning of the festival in 2009, debates and controversies have not ceased regarding the conceptual approach and content of the festival. There have been some disputes that confusing mystic elements of other religions with sufi elements could be controversial as well as arguments that such activities would make Sufism seem superficial. In response to these arguments, Öztürk says that the festival’s idea is far from being religious, but is a cultural one.

“Sufism is something different, mysticism is something different,” notes Öztürk. “Mysticism may include Sufism but it is not limited to that. We have some Sufi activities as well but we mainly focus on historical traditions which have been hidden or untouched for many years. We are trying to reveal these hidden elements and offer them to the people through concerts, films, performances and exhibitions,” he said.

Another aim of the festival is to try and safeguard historical traditions against modernization. “Many activities in terms of modern art have already been realized,” says Öztürk. “We want to show elements which merge the past with the future. We try to find works of art made by the people and display them again in a mystical ambiance. We wanted to present something different to our audiences, something different than what they have been used to.”

The festival carries another message as indicated in its motto. “Love is love, faith is faith, and art is art everywhere. To art with love!”

“We wanted to demonstrate that we could eliminate discrimination,” says Öztürk.

“Our point of departure was that we wanted to reveal the ideas addressing humanity and the essence of the human being through music, films, performances and other works of art.”

What’s there to be seen?

The festival kicks off today with three activities at two different locations with artist İsmail Acar’s exhibition “Sema” at the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, including more than 50 paintings of whirling dervishes.

The second activity will be the performance of Yunus Emre chants in the honor of Prophet Muhammad at the Aya İrini Museum. Another activity of the inauguration night will be the performance of Ensemle Galatia, again, at the Aya İrini Museum, where the group performs the banned songs of the Middle Ages with instruments of those times.

On Dec. 17, the theatre play “Dönemeç” (Turnout), written by Serhat Üstündağ and directed by Engin Kurt, will be staged at the Eminönü Public Education Center. The play depicts the journey of a poet living the life of a bohemian.

One of the significant performances of the festival will be that of the well-known dancer and choreograph Ziya Azazi. Azazi will greet the audience with his performance “Dervish in Progress” on Dec. 18 at the Aya İrini, where the artist depicts the zenith of the dervish’s love.

That same evening, Tengir Too, the band that derived its name from the “Holy Mountains” connecting Kyrgyzstan and China, will perform songs of legends, heroism and love in Turkish with traditional instruments at the same place.

The festival includes panel discussions and talks as well. The well-known director of Iranian cinema, Kemal Tebrizi will give a talk at the Eminönü Public Education Center on Dec. 19 while nine films of Tebrizi will be shown on dates between Dec. 18 and 20 at the same location.

The festival will also witness a first, the film “Mim Misli Mader” (Like My Mother). The film, directed by Resul Molla Kulipur and based on the life of Veysel Karani, will be shown at the Eminönü Public Education Center on Dec.19, which will be the film’s first screening in Turkey.

One of the last performances of the festival will be poem recitals at the Basilica Cistern. Harun Yöndem, Yusuf Ziya Özkan and Emin Baykırkık will read poems accompanied by the music of the Hayal Music Choir on Dec. 20.

Finally, the exhibition “Mistik Sayfalar” (Mystical Pages), where various books belonging to different religions and cultures will be exhibited, can be visited at the Kızlarağası Medresesi between Dec. 16 and 20. All the activities will be free; however, reservations may be necessary.

Picture: İsmail Acar’s exhibition “Sema” at the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum. Photo: TZ.

Like a Bridge to Nowhere

2011-12-21T00:01:00.027-05:00

By Staff Writer, *The Abode of the Message* Harvard Magazine - Cambridge, MA, USA; January/February 2012 Issue

The Abode of the Message

The Abode of the Message is a Sufi retreat center located just over the Massachusetts border, in New Lebanon, New York. Built in 1785 as the Mount Lebanon South Family Shaker Village, The Abode is now a community of the Sufi Order International.

Many original structures and furnishings are still in use and the campus sits on 400 acres that include an organic farm, a pond, and hilly trails into the Berkshires.

“There are many ways to be here depending on what you are looking for,” notes programs manager Amalae McCloud. There are individual silent retreats, done alone or with experienced Sufi guides (many of whom live at The Abode), that last anywhere from three to 40 days; retreats run by outside groups—Catholic, Jewish, Tibetan, for example; or guests may also create their own “rest and relaxation” retreats. Massages and other body treatments are available.

No prior knowledge of Sufism is necessary, nor do guests need to be exclusively interested in that practice. “Love, peace, and harmony are the three most important things here,” says McCloud.

Classes and workshops on Sufism and other religious and spiritual practices are offered daily; all, as well as the universal worship on Sundays, are open to everyone.

The main house has guest rooms, but there are also cabins and huts. Silent retreaters have simple, mostly vegetarian, meals delivered to them, while others eat together in the dining hall.

The local natural beauty alone may be enough for some to book a stay at The Abode. Wooded hikes and mountain climbs offer majestic views. There is even a bridge suspended over a cliff, affording a sense of “standing in mid-air,” McCloud reports.

“Some like it as a meditation spot. It’s like a bridge to nowhere. Others are too scared to go out there.”

Picture: The Abode of the Message's Meditation Room.

[Visit the Abode of the Message website.]

Anger is Disease

2011-12-20T00:01:00.031-05:00

By Staff Reporter, *‘For Bhittai, ritualism was not enough’* - Pakistan Today - Lahore, Pakistan; Thursday, December 15, 2011

Karachi: The poetry of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai is unique, and even after 250 years since his demise, his ideas of peace and love for humanity are thought-provoking and create magic, renowned writer, poet and feminist Fahmida Riaz said on Wednesday.

Riaz was delivering a lecture on Bhittai’s message of love and peace through Sufism at an event organised by the Strengthening Participatory Organisation.

“Pakistan is blessed with a rich heritage of Sufism that promotes the message of peace, tolerance and harmony. In today’s world, the ideals of peace and harmony cannot be achieved until we reflect and internalise the message of Sufis, who promoted this message for centuries,” she said.

Riaz said that Bhittai’s poetry is an elaboration of spiritual quest.

“Bhittai was a creator of music. Some of his surs were created in musical nodes. His followers are singing his famous Sur Kalyan for 250 years,” she added.

“He was a believer of spiritualism and used to say that ritualism is not enough.”

She said that Bhittai had a Sufi family background and was also interested in Maulana Rumi’s poetry.

“That is why people compared him to Maulana Rumi. However, Sufis do not believe in competition.”

Patience, humanity adopt,
For anger is disease
Forbearance bringeth joy and peace,
If you would understand.

Shah Latif’s message of peace in his Sur Kalyan.

“Apne aqeede ko mat choro..."

2011-12-19T00:01:00.003-05:00

By Anil Datta, *Need stressed to spread values of Sufism to end strife* - The News International - Karachi, Pakistan; Wedneday, December 14, 2011

Karachi: Love and tolerance, which forms the edifice of Sufism, was highlighted at a lecture titled, “Sufism in Islam”, at the Goethe-Institut on Tuesday by Prof Dr Jurgen Wasim Frembgen.

The lecture highlighted the mystical thoughts and values embedded in Sufi poetry, which serves to build bridges by spreading the message of love, harmony and tolerance.

In addition to the field of philosophy, practical tolerance is exemplified within the devotional religiosity at the shrines of Sufi saints in Punjab and Sindh.

Expressing concern over the danger faced by the cultural heritage of Pakistan owing to the current socio-political conditions, Frembgen said this Sufi heritage was worth conserving as it was the surest panacea for the religious and cultural strife that had engulfed society today.

He said that Sufi values of universal brotherhood, love and tolerance were enshrined in the Holy Quran. To consolidate his thesis, he said that Muslims of the subcontinent often drew on the mystical poetry which characterises Sufi Islam.

In ethical terms, he said, Sufism preached non-interference in the religious beliefs of others and acceptance of every viewpoint. In this context, he cited the oft-quoted axiom,

“Apne aqeede ko mat choro, doosron ke aqeede ko mat chero”

(Stick steadfastly to your beliefs, don’t comment on the beliefs of others).

Sufis in the subcontinent, Frembgen said, had all along promoted the saying,

“Mohabbat sab ke liye, nafrat kisi ke liye naheen”

(Love for everybody, hatred for none).

The Sufis, he said, believed that love was all that existed in the world and was the force that kept the world and mankind going. For them, he said, divine and human love was the edifice of religion.

Absolute unity and uniqueness of God, Frembgen said, was the key to the Sufi tradition. “For those who love, there are no Muslims, no Christians, but all are the equal sons and daughters of Allah Almighty, all of them equal masterpieces of His creation,” he said.

He said that Sufism in Islam was the exact antithesis of the rigid caste system of Hinduism. Sufis, he said, warn strictly against religious exclusivism as they firmly believe that whichever way one turns, there’s Allah.

Talking expressly on the Sufi tradition in the subcontinent, he frequently quoted Baba Farid, Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, Bulleh Shah and Odero Lal and their message of universal love transcending all religious differences and uniting mankind into one large homogenous family, all a creation of the loving Allah Almighty.

Frembgen is the curator of the Oriental Department at the Museum of Ethnology Munich, Germany, and a private lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Munich.

[Picture: Museum of Ethnology (SMV), Munich, Germany. Photo: SMV]

No Responsibility Claimed

2011-12-18T00:02:00.000-05:00

By Iftikhar Firdous, *Extremists pull down two shrines in Khyber* - The Express Tribune - Pakistan; Sunday, December 11, 2011

Peshawar: Religious extremists attacked two shrines of Sufi saints and killed the caretaker of another one in the Khyber Agency, an official confirmed on Saturday.

The official from the political administration told The Express Tribune that extremists destroyed two historical shrines in the Kam Shalman area, in the Landikotal subdivision of Khyber Agency, at around 10:30 pm on December 9.

“The shrines were those of Sufi saints Sheikh Bahadur Baba and Sheikh Nisa Baba,” he said. “Bahadar Baba’s shrine was dynamited, while Sheikh Nisa’s shrine was set on fire,” the official said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. But in the past the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) carried out similar attacks in the region.

Caretaker killed

A middle-aged man was killed by gunmen at the shrine of saint Baisai Baba on Saturday.

Local authorities could not immediately confirm the victim’s identity, but he was recognised as the “caretaker of the shrine”.

Sources said the Basai Baba shrine had earlier been shut down by the banned religious extremist group Lashkar-e-Islam.

More than 25 shrines across Pakistan have been attacked since 2005, resulting in the deaths of more than 200 people.

Picture: The shrine of revered Pashtu Sufi poet Abdul Rehman was blown up in March 2009 by suspected militants in Peshawar. Photo: File.

Two Shrines Attacked

2011-12-18T00:01:00.000-05:00

By PTI Staff Writer, *Pro-Taliban militants attack Sufi shrines in Pak* - Press Trust of India / Zee News - India; Sunday, December 11, 2011

Pro-Taliban militants attack Sufi shrines in Pakistan

Islamabad: Pro-Taliban militants attacked two Sufi shrines in Pakistan's restive tribal belt on Saturday though there were no reports of casualties, officials said.

The militants detonated a bomb inside the century-old shrine of Sheikhullah Baba near Landi Kotal in Khyber Agency early this morning, partially damaging the structure.

They also torched the shrine of Sheikh Bahadur Baba in Kam Shalman area. There were no reports of loss of life in the two incidents. No militant group claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The Taliban have targeted several Sufi shrines in northwest Pakistan in recent years. The militants claim the practice of visiting shrine is "un-Islamic".

Vuslat

2011-12-17T00:01:00.016-05:00

By TZ Reporter, *10-day Mevlana memorial celebrations near end* - Today's Zaman - Istanbul, Turkey; Thursday, December 15, 2011

10-day Mevlana memorial celebrations near end

Activities to commemorate the 738th anniversary of Mevlana Muhammad Jelaluddin Rumi’s passing, also know as the “Vuslat” (reunion with the Beloved), have been taking place in many cities, especially in Konya, where Mevlana is buried.

The celebrations that began on Dec. 7 with a magnificent show at the Konya Mevlana Cultural Center, with 2,700 spectators, will continue until the evening of Şeb-i Arus, or the “Wedding Evening,” which is held annually on December 17.

The main event during the 10 days was the sema (whirling dervish ceremony) presented by the whirling dervishes of the Konya Turkish Sufi Music Association.

The association’s art director, Yusuf Kaya, told the Anatolian news agency that the sema is performed twice a day during the 10-day commemoration by dervishes who worked hard to ensure there were no mistakes during in their performances and got their strength from their love of Mevlana.

According to Kaya, the association has been organizing sema performances for 20 years and every year they draw more spectators, including from foreign countries.

“We organize performances in other countries -- mostly European -- where we receive great interest from people. ... We believe that our mission is to introduce Mevlana and Turkey to the rest of the world and this mission gives us the strength to carry out hundreds of performances with a busy schedule throughout the year,” Kaya said, adding that by declaring 2007 “The Year of Mevlana,” the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) raised Mevlana’s popularity throughout the world.

Apart from the sema performances, roughly 150 events, including symposiums, conferences and plays on Mevlana and his teachings, and 29 exhibitions featuring photos, ceramics and ebrus, Turkish marbled paper, were organized.

This year’s concept for the 10-day celebrations is “heavenly light.” Last year “divine love” was the theme, which the events were centered around.

Unlike previous years, this year’s Şeb-i Arus ceremony will be hosted by the Galata Mevlevihanesi (Lodge House), which was recently reopened to visitors after a four-year restoration project.

Another significant Şeb-i Arus ceremony will be held in İstanbul’s Üsküdar district, where a sema performance is to take place against the backdrop of the Maiden’s Tower.

A Call to the Supreme

2011-12-16T00:01:00.036-05:00

By Priyadarshini Nandy, *Musicians who touch god through their devotion to music* - Daily News & Analysis - Bangalore, India; Friday, December 9, 2011

They don’t do it for fame or for money, nor do they have glamourous music videos to promote themselves. These are musicians who have probably touched God through their devotion to music.

Ruhaniyat, one of the largest All India Sufi and Mystic Music Festival, for the past 10 years has been giving the country a reason to touch base with its spiritual self.

Conceived by Mahesh Babu in 2001 in Mumbai, the festival has travelled to different cities, seven to be exact, with a spectacular line up of rare art forms.

The sixth edition of Ruhaniyat in Bangalore, on December 10, will feature Bharud and Abhang of Maharashtra, Sufiana Kalams from Kashmir, Sema from Turkey, Baul Songs from West Bengal to name a few.

Nandini Mahesh, director of Banyan Tree Events, organisers of the festival, says,

“More than ever before the messages of Sufi saints and mystics seem to be the need of the hour for they knew the secret of blissful existence amidst all kinds of turmoil.

Ruhaniyat is the platform through which their works, abounding in wisdom and unconditional love, are presented in the most dignified manner.

Each of these acts is like a soothing balm and a timely reminder of the human capacity to evolve, give love and live in harmony,”

What sets Ruhaniyat apart from any other music festival is that the performers are rarely seen because they are not commercial artists. For them, music is a call to the supreme.

“In fact, our endeavour has been to discover and give a platform to rare gems from the remote parts of the country; unheard of talents, masters of exotic instruments and orally transmitted repertoire of greatest of mystics of a by-gone era,”

says Nandini, adding,

“These are carriers of living traditions who bring alive the messages of the Sufi saints, mystics, healers, fakirs, monks, bauls, peers in the most enchanting manner, thereby fulfilling our purpose of spreading these age-old messages of love, peace and harmony across the country”.

The line up in Bangalore includes Whirling Dervishes from Turkey, Parvathy Baul of Bengal, Mystic Kalam by Indra and Shakur Khan and group from Rajasthan and Sufi qawwali by Shameem Nayeem and group from Jaipur, to name a few.

Visit the Ruhaniyat Website with Full Program and Entry Details.

Beauty to Enjoy

2011-12-15T00:01:00.063-05:00

By Jaideep Mukerji with Veeresh Malik, *Kashmir: Crossroads of Cultures* - Moneylife - India; Saturday, December 10, 2011

Kashmir: Crossroads of Cultures: Situated on the north-west of the Indian subcontinent, the picture-postcard beauty of Kashmir valley is breathtaking

Recent newspaper reports that over a million tourists from different parts of India visited the Kashmir valley this summer set me reminiscing about my travels to this amazingly beautiful part of the subcontinent.

The director of tourism in Kashmir, Farooq Shah, recently said, “This is the highest number of tourist arrivals recorded in the past 25 years. It has been a very good season for us. But Kashmir’s potential is unparalleled and we hope to do more work.”

Another optimistic official said, “There has been a lot of improvement in infrastructure and, with the new rail link, we hope to cross the 10 million mark (of tourists) by 2012.”

One hopes that the politicians can, after years of conflict, arrive at a lasting solution to the vexing ‘Kashmir issue’ and the peace-loving citizens can, once again, begin to enjoy the economic benefits of tourism.

The capital of Kashmir, the city of Srinagar, has a long history dating back to the 3rd century BC.

It has been known by different names over the centuries. It was founded by King Pravarasena II over 2,000 years ago and was then a part of the Maurya Empire, one of the largest empires of the Indian subcontinent. Ashoka introduced Buddhism to the Kashmir valley and the regions around the city became the centre of Buddhism.

In the 1st century AD, Kashmir was under the control of the Kushans and the rulers of this dynasty strengthened the Buddhist traditions. Vikramaditya (of Ujjain) and his successors probably ruled the area just before the city fell to the Huns in the 6th century.

Over the past few hundred years, the Kashmir region changed hands several times between the Mughals and the Sikhs (under Ranjeet Singh) before finally coming under the rule of the Hindu kings within British India.

The charm of staying on a houseboat, which provides the unique experience of living on the water in a walnut and cedar wood-panelled elegant boat with all the conveniences of a luxury hotel, attracts travellers to Srinagar. Every houseboat has a balcony in front, a lounge and dining room, and three or more bedrooms with attached bathrooms.

Srinagar’s several hundred houseboats are moored along sections of the Dal and Nagin Lakes and along the River Jhelum that flows through the heart of the city. Each is richly decorated and romantically named.

All houseboats, regardless of category, have highly personalised service with the owner and his family usually in attendance.

Houseboats were introduced accidentally to Kashmir when members of the Indian Civil Service serving in the hot plains who went on regular vacations to Kashmir were not permitted to build permanent homes there because of the Maharaja’s suspicion of British presence in Srinagar.

The government officials chose to stay in houseboats. The first boat, named Victory, was designed by MT Kenhard in 1888.

Drive up the hill on the edge of Srinagar’s famous Dal Lake to visit the Shankaracharya temple regarded as the oldest shrine in the Kashmir valley. With commanding views of the city and its lakes, this is a must-do for all travellers.

Srinagar’s famous Dal Lake, with a shoreline of 15km, has a boulevard lined with Mughal era gardens, parks and hotels on one side and houseboats and floating kitchen gardens on the opposite shore.

The Lake covers an area of 18sq km and is part of a natural wetland which includes floating gardens known as ‘Rad’ in Kashmiri which bloom with lotus flowers in late summer.

At present, the Dal Lake and some of the Mughal gardens are undergoing extensive restoration. The gardens of Srinagar reflect the sense of beauty and the lavish styles of the Mughal era in India. One of them, the Nishat Bagh (garden), was laid by Asif Khan, the brother of Nur Jehan, in 1633. The Zabarwan Hills provide a spectacular backdrop to this beautiful garden located on the banks of the Dal Lake.

Opposite the Nishat Bagh, the shining white dome of Hazratbal Mosque stands on the north-western bank of the Dal Lake. With the backdrop of the snow-capped mountains, this is perhaps the holiest of Islamic shrines and preserves a strand of Prophet Mohammed’s sacred hair.

It is also where Sufism, a mystic tradition which believes in the brotherhood of man and preaches divine love, thrived.

Kashmir has been endowed with a rich Sufi tradition and the landscape is dotted by many Sufi shrines held in high esteem by people of all faiths.

Shalimar Garden, second in size among the Mughal gardens at Srinagar, was built by Emperor Jahangir for his wife, Nur Jahan. This Garden is marked by terraces that are separated by water channels.

Chashmashahi, the smallest amongst the Mughal gardens of Srinagar, is famous for its springs.

Ride the fancifully-named shikara boats used as water taxis by locals and visitors. The experience of gliding smoothly over the calm waters of Dal Lake as the boatman rows you along with the heart-shaped paddle is not to be missed.

While in the valley, make sure you try the aromatic Kashmiri cuisine, rich with the flavours of cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and saffron. Kashmiri food can be the simple family meal or a 36-course wedding banquet called the Wazwan.

Kahwah or Kashmiri tea, traditionally prepared in a brass kettle known as the samovar, is served in tiny, shallow cups. Kahwah is made by boiling green tea leaves with saffron, cinnamon and cardamom pods, sweetened with sugar and crushed almonds or walnuts added for flavour.

About 50km away, Gulmarg boasts Asia’s highest and longest cable-car project —the Gulmarg gondola— completed in 2004. In two stages, the cable car takes skiers and visitors to a height of 12,293ft (3,747metres) to a shoulder of Afarwat Mountain overlooking Gulmarg.

The flower-decorated meadows of Gulmarg transform into some of Asia’s best ski slopes in winter where you can either take lessons or ski with the regulars. The skiing season starts around Christmas and runs through to mid-March. Apart from the cost of the lessons, be prepared to pay Rs500 a day for ski/snowboard hire and another Rs1,250 for an unlimited use of the gondola day-pass.

The resort of Pahalgam, located in the Lidder valley 96km to the south-east and a pleasant three-hour drive from Srinagar, is another destination that is worth a few days’ visit.

One of the starting points of the pilgrim route to the holy cave of Amarnath.

Pahalgam is surrounded by forest-covered mountains where you can take pony rides, picnic on the banks of the Lidder River, lie in the sun next to your cottage with a book, play a game of cards with friends and, finally, stroll down to the main street to buy some exquisite Kashmiri handicrafts.

Twelve kilometres further up the valley is the tiny village of Aru with stone and wood houses, some built in the typical Gujjar-shepherd style. In this stunning Alpine setting, you can only marvel at the picture-postcard landscape.

Kashmiri handicrafts are prized for their craftsmanship. Kashmir carpets, knitted in wool and silk with Persian designs, are a lifetime investment; they range from the simple to the most extraordinarily intricate patterns handed down several generations.

There are papier-mâché items from jewellery boxes to mirror frames, intricately carved walnut-wood furniture and accessories, stone jewellery boxes, beautiful pashmina shawls, crewel embroidery on furnishing material and so much more.

With such beauty to enjoy just a short journey away from wherever you are in India, there is every reason to book your travel to Kashmir.

When Go There: A visit to this visually stunning part of India is best made after the summer crowds have left and tranquillity returns to the valley. Spring and autumn are best, particularly October, when Kashmir’s famed chinar trees are clothed in their rich golden foliage.

Getting There: The easiest route is to fly to Srinagar; most airlines offer several flights every day. Alternatively, Jammu Tawi, a major railway junction, and Udhampur, Srinagar’s nearest railhead (302km), have several trains coming from most parts of India. From Jammu Tawi and Udhampur, luxury coaches, buses, shared and regular taxis are available.

Where To Stay: Hotel and houseboat accommodation and local travel arrangements are best arranged through a reliable tour operator. A list of hotels and houseboats is available on the official www.jktourism.org and www.houseboatowners.org. Local transport can easily be booked either through your hotel or from the local central taxi-stand.

[Picture: Hazratbal Mosque, Srinagar. Photo: Wiki.]

500 Most Influential Muslims 2011

2011-12-14T00:01:00.069-05:00

By RISSC Editor, *Announcing the 2011 Edition of The Muslim 500* - The Royal Islamic Strategic Study Centre [MABDA] - Amman, Jordan; Tuesday, December 6, 2011

The 2011 edition of the must-own book about the movers and shakers in the Muslim World is now available.

Which Muslims actually influence the Muslim community? If you relied on the general media for this answer you just might walk away with an understanding that the only Muslims with influence are those on the extreme fringe. Studies have shown that although they make up less than 1% of the Muslim population they dominate the nearly 95% negative coverage of Muslims in the media.

We asked ourselves if it was entirely their fault for not researching more or was there something we could do to help this situation. It's easy to sit back and blame the media but it takes quite a bit of effort to figure out what information do journalists need in order to cover the Muslim world more objectively.

We needed to come up with a book that would give everyone reporting on, or dealing with, the Muslim World about who is actually shaping this vast nation of disparate people at their fingertips.

Until 2 years ago there was no clear place to turn to in order to find answers to these questions.

Now there is.

In 2009 we launched the first edition of the 500 Most Influential Muslims. With a small team and a short amount of time we were able to publish it hoping that it would be get at least a few thousand readers. We were not expecting what followed. It was an absolutely huge success with tens of thousands of downloads.

Last year we gathered all the feedback we got, did some more research, and came out with the 2010 edition, which again was a huge success with tens of thousands of more downloads and increased media coverage.

With a year and a half under our belt we decided that we would raise the bar far higher in 2011.

2011 Edition

Although the publications have been a huge success online we still did not reach the places we want it to get to with our print edition.

We want this publication to be in every library and school in the English speaking world so that every single student will have access to it. We want it on the desk of every journalist so that they will have a reference to turn to when writing about Muslims. We want it to be in every non-profit organization that does work in the Muslim world. In short we want to spreach it's benefit to every person that may find benefit in it.

For this to happen we needed to do more with the print edition to make it more accessible, lighter, engaging, and jammed-packed with up-to-date information.

So in order to do this we set a few concrete goals for the 2011 Edition, which we are excited to have fulfilled:

•Updated Bios: We spent months going through all the bios, digging for updates where ever we could find it. As the Arab Spring and other news events unfolded we constantly updated the book to reflect changes.

•Expanded Introduction: A new introduction by S Abdullah Schleifer about the book and the Arab spring.

•New Format: We analyzed the book size and layout and came up with a new format that allows much more information in fewer pages with a 14% increase in the amount of information including, for the first time, dozens of quotes and stats, despite reducing the amount of pages by 20% and decreased the weight by roughly 25%, making it lighter on the hands.

•Beauty: Besides the format allowing for more information it also allowed for a more elegant design with a near doubling in the amount of images, including award-winning photography and calligraphy, making it both light enough to hold and a sight to behold.

•Arab Spring Box: An "Arab Spring" box was added for the top 50 that highlights each person's response to it and how it has affected their influence.

•Maps: Expanded from just a single map highlighting only Muslim majority countries to 2 maps highlighting the world's Muslim population providing new ways to look at the Muslim World.

•An Obituary section: This year we added a section for the deaths that occurred in the past year of top influential Muslims, adding to the uniqueness of each year's edition.

This year's edition is completely unlike previous years. It has taken from all the previous work and has improved it dramatically with the print edition a clear improvement from previous editions. We just printed our first sample batch and handed them out at a conference and found that many couldn't put it down once it was in their hands. We are confident that you will feel the same way.

How Much?

Although we put much effort into making the print version greater than before, we still offer off the same exact content on a FREE pdf version at http://themuslim500.com/download.php
which you can download this very minute.

However, there is still something to be said about holding a print version of the book in your hands and reading it in the comfort of your own home which is why we continue to carry both.

Pricing

Make an order this week and save $10! Each book retails for $39.95 but you can get your copy now for only $29.95, or order 5 books for your family, friends or interfaith community for just $20 each. Please email us first at info@rissc.jo to get the discount.

Wholesale options available (retailers and institutes). Email us at info@rissc.jo to make a wholesale order.

The 500 Most Influential Muslims

This publication is part of an annual series that provides a window into the movers and shakers of the Muslim world. It gives valuable insight into the different ways that Muslims impact the world, and also shows the diversity of how people are living as Muslims today.

Visit the web site dedicated to the Muslim 500 publication at www.themuslim500.com

Contact Us Form

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PO BOX 950361
Amman 11195, Jordan
00 962.65.341.168

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The Natural Beauty

2011-12-13T00:01:00.003-05:00

By HT Correspondent, *‘No need for liquor in land of sufi saints’* - Hindustan Times - Srinagar, India; Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Srinagar: A day after he advocated opening of cinema and liquor shops in the Valley, Union minister for new and renewable energy Farooq Abdullah faced flak from hardline Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani and independent MLA Engineer Rashid for “hurting Muslim sensibilities”.

"Kashmir valley is an abode of saints and seers. There is no place for liquor shops and cinema halls here...The Abdullah family is responsible for waywardness and several social evils in Kashmir," said Geelani on Tuesday.

“It was the National Conference who in 1978 provided a constitutional cover to liquor in the state assembly...Liquor is prohibited in Islam and saints in the valley have been fighting the evil all their lives,” he added.

Addressing a gathering in Srinagar on Monday, Abdullah had said re-opening of cinema halls and liquor shops would “give a boost to the tourism industry which is the backbone of the local economy".

Independent MLA from north Kashmir’s Langate Constituency Engineer Rashid said, “Tourists do not come to Kashmir to drink liquor and visit cinemas halls; they come to enjoy the natural beauty of this place.”

[Picture: Shalimar Gardens. Photo: Wiki.]

Physicians of the Heart

2011-12-12T00:01:00.131-05:00

By Pir Shabda Khan, *Physicians of the Heart: A Sufi View of the 99 Names of Allah* - The Sound Journal - USA; December 2011 Issue

Physicians of the Heart: A Sufi View of the 99 Names of Allah

By Murshid Wali Ali Meyer, Imam Bilal Hyde, Faisal Muqaddam, and Pir Shabda Kahn; Publisher: Sufi Ruhaniat International (September 1, 2011).

The following are excerpts from the introduction and the chapter on Divine Forgiveness. To order the book click HERE (International) or HERE (U.S. only).

How the Wazifah Project Began

In 1969, I received my first wazifah recitation practice from my Sufi teacher, Murshid Samuel Lewis. Since then, daily wazifah recitation and contemplation have been part of the rhythm of my life.

In February 2001, I was appointed spiritual lineage holder (pir) of our Sufi family, the Sufi Ruhaniat International, in the stream of the great mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan and his disciple, Murshid Samuel Lewis.

For years, I searched for texts to illuminate these millennia-old ways of opening the heart, but I never felt satisfied with available texts on wazifah in the English language. In late 2001, I approached my friend and colleague, Faisal Muqaddam, asking if he would join me in bringing through a contemporary, sophisticated guidebook on the 99 Beautiful Names of God, the Sifat-i-Allah.

Faisal is one of the founders of the Diamond Approach to awakening, a native-born Arabic speaker, and a mystic deeply versed in uncovering and healing the wounds of the human condition. He agreed!

Very shortly after that I was invited to teach and perform at the Sound and Spirit music festival in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, with another friend and colleague, Imam Bilal Hyde. Imam Bilal is a unique blend of Arabic and Quranic scholar, Muslim and Sufi seeker. As we walked on the beach during a break, I shared with him my enthusiasm for the Wazifah Project. He immediately was inspired to join our concentration.

The three of us met for 3-hour sessions year after year. Each session was recorded and faithfully transcribed by our Sufi friend Vakil Cary Polevoy. I had hoped to make time to turn the transcriptions into a readable manuscript, but my responsibilities as pir, as well as my inexperience as a writer, kept me from the opportunity.

In 2005, one of my oldest friends and mentors, Murshid Wali Ali Meyer, shared an office with me. In 1969, he was Murshid Sam’s esoteric secretary, and lived with him at the Mentorgarden. He was one of the people who led me to my teacher. During our time in the shared office, Wali Ali – who had become the head of the esoteric school of the Ruhaniat – listened with great interest as I shared the discoveries of our wazaif sessions.

Familiar with his writing skills and mystic heart, I was moved to invite Wali Ali to join our ongoing conversation, and to write our text. He joyfully entered our group, and this guidebook is the glowing result. We are indebted to him for so masterfully giving written voice to 8 years of meetings and research.

May the feelings,ideas and words on the following pages find their way into your hearts and minds. May the practices suggested help you unfold your life’s purpose and become streams of blessing, happiness and generosity.

The Divine Forgiveness Cluster
–- a way to address layers of self-isolation and disconnection

The subject of forgiveness, and what forgiveness means to human beings, immediately brings up the issue of our sense of self-worth.

This is a crux psychological issue, which is important to find a way to approach effectively.

By examining the cluster of divine Names that comprise the forgiveness family, we have a unique opportunity to address crippling human problems such as self-loathing, guilt, and shame.

The four Names in the forgiveness family offer an excellent way to describe and understand the different gradations of Divine Forgiveness and provide an effective avenue for spiritual growth.

Ya Ghaffar, Ya Ghafur, Ya Tawwab, Ya ‘Afuw

Al-Ghaffar, al-Ghafur, at-Tawwab, and al-‘Afuw have a very intimate relationship with one another. By exploring each Name’s meaning, as well as the interrelationships of the Names, different layers in the human psyche are exposed.

Contemplation of these emanations of divine forgiveness leads directly to a process for remedying deep psychological wounds.

It is interesting how we were first guided to look into the forgiveness family. We were considering the moral and psychological problems connected with revenge that could be seen around al-Muntaqim, a Name often mistranslated as “the avenger.” Something in this Name was calling out for balance.

We noticed that on the list of 99 Names, al-‘Afuw appears right before al-Muntaqim, and it is a true opposite to al-Muntaqim. Al-‘Afuw then became very important in our discussion of how the dynamic of divine opposites works. This directed us toward our present focus on the inner relationships in the forgiveness family.

Divine Names can have a meaningful relationship with each other both as opposites and as similars.

As opposites they create balance, and this leads to integration and transcendence (see the chapter on the divine opposites). In dealing with similars, as we are in this discussion, we often come to see how gradations of essentially the same divine quality may reveal developmental stages of growth.

Ya Ghaffar, Ya Ghafur
(yaa ɡ̣ḥaf-FAAR, yaa ɡ̣ḥa-FOOR)

The ground floor in the forgiveness cluster of Names, the starting point, is al-Ghaffar. It is appropriate to begin with this divine quality as it relates to a low point in the human process.

People at this stage are usually unable to even consider the possibility of forgiveness. They are caught up in disbelief, grief, and judgment —often self-judgment.

There is a progression of forgiveness implied in the Qur’an. Do the big forgiveness, and if you can’t do that, do a lesser forgiveness, and if you can’t do that, do a still lesser forgiveness.

This is similar to the progression we are presenting in this chapter, but we are starting with the most basic level of forgiveness and working up to the most profound.

In the concluding part of this chapter we will focus on applying the healing properties of the forgiveness family to the human condition, and in particular to our emotional and mental health.

Before we can properly do this, we will first focus on the layers of meaning in each divine Name in this family. Then we can turn our attention to each Name’s application in the various layers of the human psyche and in our psychological states.

The form of al-Ghaffar in the sound-code of Arabic grammar gives it a quality that is both continuous and repetitive. You may make the same mistake over and over again, a hundred or a thousand times a day. Every day. But such repeated errors never place you outside the realm of divine forgiveness.

Repetitiveness is no problem for al-Ghaffar. Its nature makes it repetitive. Al-Ghaffar’s forgiveness is continuous and repetitive.

There is a memorable hadith where a Bedouin says to the Prophet, “What if I do this really bad thing?” And the answer is, “Allah forgives.” “But what if I do it again and again and again?” “Allah continues to forgive.” Then the Bedouin says, “Doesn’t Allah ever get tired of forgiving?” And the Prophet Muhammad says, “No, but you might get tired of doing that same thing over and over again.”

It must have been a great moment. At such a time you can see a simple mind becoming enlightened. This tradition of the Prophet beautifully shows the quality of al-Ghaffar. It is not simply an act of forgiveness, but continuous, repetitive acts of forgiveness.

It puts in mind the thought inscribed on Mevlana Rumi’s tomb ––that even if you have broken your vows a thousand times, you should always feel the invitation to return again.

God’s forgiveness is inexhaustible, and it is continuous.

But we cannot properly introduce al-Ghaffar without introducing its partner, al-Ghafur. They share the same root and are basically emanations of the same divine forgiveness. Not only are they cognates, and thus naturally close in meaning, but they complement each other in another most fulfilling and wholesome way.

Earlier we saw that the sound code of Arabic makes al-Ghaffar repetitive and unending. Now we see that the sound code places al-Ghafur in the group that carries the meaning of “penetrating right into the essence of a thing.” It goes right into the deepest place in the heart.

Therefore al-Ghafur goes right to the worst crime we have ever committed in our lives. It goes right to the worst thing that has ever been done to us.

Whether it is a grudge of self-loathing or a grudge held against another, the depth of feeling is the same. Allah’s forgiveness reaches that deepest place. From a medical point of view we might say that al-Ghaffar is a remedy for a chronic condition and Al-Ghafur is for an acute condition.

Contemplation on al-Ghafur is a profound and healing practice for anyone.

It is even recommended for prisoners on death row. It reaches the deepest wound. It goes right to the heart of the matter. It penetrates to the essence. Divine forgiveness reaches that which we imagined was unforgiveable. That is the quality of al-Ghafur.

The very concept of forgiveness, even in English usage, is to give up the grudge, to let go of that revenge fantasy. Forgiveness comes by giving that away.

So at this first stage in the process of learning to forgive, you need to learn to give up the revenging impulse that arises many times a day. And you also need to give up the grudge you hold about the inner wound you believe to be unforgiveable.

At this beginning stage in the process, you notice the fault either in other people or in your own self.

Again and again you are asked to give up the grudge you are holding, and to invite in al-Ghaffar and al-Ghafur. You can then awaken to a kind of compassion that actually reaches the wound and covers over the fault in a soothing way.

Both al-Ghaffar and al-Ghafur have this same root meaning of covering over in a healing kind of way.

One of the physical plane variations of the root of these Names refers to covering over the cracks in a leather water skin using the sticky substance that bees use to repair their hives.

In a desert culture, a whole tribe could die of thirst from a leaky waterskin. This is a very earthy image that helps us understand the importance of this basic kind of forgiveness.

By calling on these two sacred Names we can actively moisturize and heal the cracks in our being that allow the water of life to dissipate and our hearts to dry up.

Repetition of Ya Ghaffar, Ya Ghafur brings a pliability that allows us to overcome brittleness of character. It is a soothing balm to our woundedness. It begins to ease the pain that has caused us to isolate ourselves in our relationships in life.

Ya Tawwab
(yaa tow-WAAB)

Going beyond this, there an inner stage called tawba. Now you actually become able to turn away from perceived defects and shadows and face directly towards the divine perfection.

At-Tawwab is both the divine reality that you turn to in such a way and the activity of turning.

The form in Arabic is wa taaba ilallaah. We literally turn from the defect and toward Allah. “From” and “toward” are expressed simultaneously by the same verb in Arabic.

Tawba has a Hebrew equivalent of tauba, which is the same as teshuva. In Judaism, between Rosh Hashanah (the New Year), and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are the ten days of teshuva. These ten days are a time that is set aside to turn within, to turn to God, and to turn away from the point of view of the ego.

What does it mean to say we turn from a defect and turn towards Allah? We are turning towards, or are returning to, at-Tawwab. Because of the sound code embedded in Arabic grammar, we know that at-Tawwab must have a quality that manifests continuously, without beginning, end, or interruption. This allows us to see Allah is always turning toward us, always returning to us.

When we give God bad words, God gives us good words. That is God’s way of turning.

At-Tawwab is always turning towards you without interruption. This is very important to understand! It allows us to overcome certain theological confusions that can arise in relation to our usual understanding of the English word ”repentance.”

With the invocation of Ya Tawwab, you turn from the defect that you perceive to the face of Allah, who always is facing you. It allows you to let go of the grudge you have been holding onto and to face toward the light.

Tawba ada literally means to forgive someone by facing away from the defect towards Allah who is always forgiving.

That is a very high stage of forgiveness. You are not stuck in the rights and wrongs of your personal relationships.

What is quite remarkable is that it is by noticing the faults in the first place that you are impelled towards Allah, towards the One. The process of truly invoking Ya Tawwab is deeply healing, because negativity is transformed into its opposite. This is spiritual alchemy.

A hadith says, “If you make a mistake and ask for forgiveness, Allah will immediately turn your grief and sorrow into joy and gladness. God will give you sustenance from an unknown source and will deliver you from all difficulties and hardship into ease.” That is at-Tawwab in action.

When, through the realization of at-Tawwab, the student on the path has learned to use every particular event as an opportunity to become aware of the face of Allah, surely it is not out of place to ask what more could there possibly be?

Ya ‘Afuw
(yaa ‘A-foow)

The ultimate stage of forgiveness is expressed by al-‘Afuw. Let’s begin with a physical metaphor that is part of the word’s root meaning: Afu til … (Arabic?). This is an image of the wind blowing across the desert vastness and completely erasing all the tracks in the sand. It is as if no one had ever walked there.

Such a fundamental image in the root of the word shows us that with al-‘Afuw, you do not even notice the fault.

In the first stages of forgiveness you definitely do notice the fault, but you feel there is a possibility for forgiveness, a chance for some healing salve to reach your wounded places.

Then you find the strength to overlook it.

Eventually you are moved to turn away from the fault towards Allah whenever awareness of the fault arises, thus transforming negativity into a vision of the divine face.

Finally we come to al-‘Afuw, which means to completely forgive, with no trace of the fault even subtly retained. There is not even a trace of resentment or memory. There are no footprints in the sand. There are no impressions. Your awareness is clean and incapable of being stained.

Such is the highest stage of divine forgiveness.

We want to strongly emphasize that the state of “not seeing” we are referring to here should not in any way be considered to be unconsciousness or lack of awareness. Rather, it is that your consciousness has been raised to the level of seeing in accordance with the divine reality.

There’s a story of a teacher who goes to a town, and when he comes back to his students they ask him what he saw. He says, “It is beautiful, but I don’t want any of you going there.”

Nonetheless, one of them goes to the town; however, he experiences it to be utterly ugly. He comes back and says, “It’s a horrible place. What were you talking about?” The teacher replies, “Well, you’d have to be able to see it through my eyes.”

With al-Ghaffar and al-Ghafur, you see the shadows. You even see the worst ugliness when you look at the “unforgiveable place” into which al-Ghafur penetrates.

In at-Tawwab we notice patches of light and shade, so to speak, because there is still awareness of that fault you are turning from. But with al-‘Afuw, there is none of that. You no longer have any negative connotation about whatever events have happened to you.

We want to make it emphatically clear to our readers that this is not a stage that you should try and rush into. It is the culmination of a lengthy inner process. If the negative conditions are not respected sufficiently, they become masked and remain active in the unconscious.

Al-‘Afuw is the doorway in the heart where all attachment to hurt and pain, and memories regarding hurt and pain, are absolved from within.

In that station, such impressions are gone like the footprints in the desert after the wind. It is like they were never there. There is no sense of a mistake that needs to be corrected.

If you are graced to have this realization, you are with humanity, but you are not caught up in it, because you are beyond being touched in a reactive way. You leave the relative perspective, which evaluates people and their limitations. You merge in al-‘Afuw in the absolute state of the Divine heart.

There is forgetfulness of duality and of separation. There is no such thing as poison anymore. Divine Forgiveness has come.

The phrase astafir’allah, often repeated by Sufis, shares the same root as both al-Ghaffar and al-Ghafur.

Its meaning is both penetrating and continuous. The “ah” sound at the end of the word adds a sense of yearning or longing. The phrase includes the sense of an “I” that yearns. It is the separated “I” that is the persona of the longing lover.

That is why the great Saint Rabia of Basra said, “Astafir’allah to Allah, for having to say astafir’allah.” She wanted forgiveness for still needing to overcome that “I” of separation.

With al-‘Afuw there are no gradations any more. There is the erasing of the “I.” No more is there the feeling, “I got hurt yesterday.”

There simply is a state of Being itself, a being that is continually flowing. No more is there the ego’s wound-engendered self-identification that causes people to hold on to their grudges and experience themselves as something separate.

People often repress memories. They say that they don’t remember some event, and then they imagine that they have actually forgiven the parties involved because they don’t remember an incident any more. But when a counselor shakes them up a little bit, all their memories come out. This is very different from the state we have been discussing.

In the spiritual state, there is no barrier between you and al-‘Afuw itself, and it is flowing gently all the time. Nothing is repressed. Every system is released and there is just the continual emanation of that presence.

Such a person is very much awake, not asleep and forgetful. They are awake, but they are not carrying the past.

---
Physicians of the Heart: A Sufi View of the 99 Names of Allah

By Murshid Wali Ali Meyer, Imam Bilal Hyde, Faisal Muqaddam, and Pir Shabda Kahn

Publisher: Sufi Ruhaniat International (September 1, 2011).

To order the book click HERE (International) or HERE (U.S. only).

Visit Sufi Ruhaniat International Website

Habibi Rasak Kharban

2011-12-11T00:01:00.026-05:00

By Hala Khalaf, *Habibi demonstrates a major new talent in Arab cinema* - The National - Dubai, UAE; Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Habibi demonstrates a major new talent in Arab cinema

Susan Youssef's film Habibi is inspired by the 7th-century Sufi parable Majnun Layla, a story of forbidden love. Youssef has updated the poem, it's now a story about two students in the West Bank who are forced to return home to Gaza, and whose love for each other defies tradition.

The full Arabic title is Habibi Rasak Kharban, which translates as "Darling, your head is broken". It's easy to see why the title has been changed to the more catchy Habibi, but the beauty of the full translation is that it captures the essence of the female director, who when we meet to discuss the film, is fun, gregarious and full of laughter.

Youssef has previously made an animation film, a documentary about American Catholics who go to Guantanamo Bay and also two narrative shorts.

The jump in genres and change in styles means that it is difficult to put her into a box. The same could be said of her eclectic life story; she was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up on Staten Island.

"The amazing feeling of growing up Arab American is that there were two sides to life. There was the home life, the community centre, my Lebanese friends on the one side and then there was life at school. I went to a strict Catholic school and that was extremely isolating and strange, and in a 90-girl class, I didn't have a single Arab classmate."

The 34-year-old didn't go to Lebanon until she was 22, when she moved to Beirut to become a schoolteacher as a summer job.

In addition to teaching, she also worked for a local paper: The Daily Star. While she was there, she met a lot of filmmakers and learnt more about Palestinian refugee camps in the south of the country.

Her life as a filmmaker had begun.

Originally she wanted to be an actor, but by her own admittance, she was "a horrible actress". She began writing stage plays and was accepted into the Tisch School of Arts in New York. Unfortunately, she couldn't afford the tuition and went to public university instead.

"I made a short film about my grandparents at home," she recalls. "My father was furious that I submitted the film to film schools as it was about his parents and I was showing it to outsiders. I got into the University of Texas in Austin, and decided to go there as it was cheap and a good school."

She received a masters in fine art, was a Presidential Scholar and is a Fulbright Fellow.

She was living in Texas when the attacks on the World Trade Centre took place. "I was working as a cocktail waitress at the time in a dive bar and they turned on the TV and it was very weird and my whole family was in New York and I was in Texas. There was a lot of hate crime at the time. And then that summer of 2002 was when I went to Palestine for the first time."

Inspired by the Middle East, she began making films about the region. The short film she made at university won several awards and the decision to become a director was made. Her short film Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf was one of the first fiction films in the US to feature a veiled protagonist. It screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006.

Habibi seems to be a culmination of all her interests: a story about the Middle East, rooted in academic history and centring around love.

Youssef says: "I'm really interested in research. It's wonderful to be able to go back to an original text and being an Arab American filmmaker I feel very conscious of all the odds that are against us. For this film, I didn't just go to the poetry because it gave credibility to the film; the main reason I used it was because the poetry is so phenomenally beautiful that I felt everyone should read it. The next projects that I plan to work on all refer to texts."

She insists that the film, despite it's setting and a riveting scene in which the protagonists are searched by Israeli guards as they try to flee Palestine, is not a political film and wants people to watch without preconceptions.

"It's a film about a couple who have obstacles to their love."

As for her own ever-changing biography, Youssef currently lives in Amsterdam with her south-east Asian husband, whom she met while waiting for a train. Nothing is ordinary in the life of one of the major new talents of Arab cinema.

Habibi is showing at the Mall of the Emirates cinema 12 on Saturday at 6pm; it will show again at the Mall of the Emirates cinema 1 on Monday at 8pm.

For more information, visit www.dubaifilmfest.com

Discourses on Sufism

2011-12-10T00:01:00.026-05:00

By Sushant Kulkarni, *On Road for Music* -Indian Express - India; Tuesday, December 6, 2011

On Road for Music

Some journeys start and end exactly as chalked out in one’s itinerary. But sometimes, the learning and experience is more than expected.

This is what happened to Sarah Ewald, Max Kramer and Eliane Ettmueller, three students from the University of Heidelberg in Germany, who have just completed shooting an hour-long documentary on Sufism in India.

The interaction with a group of Egyptian musicians performing in India forms the basis of the film titled Discourses on Sufism.

The Egyptians were in Ajmer to perform at an international Sufi festival held in October, this year.

“We spent time with the group. We also travelled to Delhi, Srinagar, and Mahim Durgah and Haji Ali in Mumbai,” says Kramer, 28, who has done his MA in Modern Indian Languages and Social Anthropology from University of Heidelberg.

At the university, Kramer met Ettmueller, who has completed her PhD in Islamic studies. They were joined by Ewald, who has done her MA in Social Anthropology.

“There is a very simplistic image of Islam in the minds of people. In Germany, it is portrayed as a religion with strict rules. This film is an attempt to change this image,” says Kramer.

Ettmueller adds that the political references in the film are subtle.

“Performing Sufi music is not allowed in dargahs in Kashmir. It was allowed in the past. The film talks about such changes,” says Ettmueller.

[Visit the University of Heidelberg.]

Withdrawal

2011-12-09T00:01:00.017-05:00

By Osama el-Mahdy / EE staff, *Sufis withdraw from Tahrir Square sit-in* - Al-Masri Al-Youm - Cairo, Egypt; Sunday, December 4, 2011

Sufis withdraw from Tahrir Square sit-in

The ongoing sit-in at Tahrir Square suffered a setback as it entered its 16th day on Sunday after Sufi parties and coalitions announced their withdrawal in order to assess the effectiveness of their protest.

Sheikh Mostafa Zayed, the coordinator of the Sufi Orders Coalition, said that the Sufis had decided to withdraw from the sit-in in order to give a chance for the square to be opened to traffic once more.

The Sufis were among various political forces and movements who have been protesting in Tahrir Square, the hub of the anti-Mubarak uprising, for 16 days, demanding that the military council step down and hand over power to a civil presidential council.

As of Sunday, only a few hundred protesters remained in Tahrir, although with the sit-in continuing, traffic is still prevented from moving through much of square.

Some protestors had called for a boycott of the parliamentary elections. However, according to commentators, the high turnout in the first phase of elections was a major setback for the sit-in.

Protestors in Tahrir have also announced their rejection of the appointment of Kamal al-Ganzouri as prime minister of a new government.

Ganzouri, who was asked by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to form a "national salvation government," aims to complete the transitional period.

On Friday, a few thousand demonstrators rallied in Tahrir to honor the 42 martyrs who were killed by police in the bloodiest clashes since Hosni Mubarak stepped down on 11 February.

Meanwhile, a sit-in outside the cabinet building entered its ninth day on Sunday, with protesters making similar demands to those in nearby Tahrir.

Many fear that the army and police will forcefully expel the protestors from the square, as they did in August.

Picture: Sit-in at Tahrir Square. Photo: Mahmoud Khaled.

Myths about Madrasas

2011-12-08T00:01:00.041-05:00

By Rakhi Chakrabarty, *'They want to delink Islam from India'* - The Times of India - India; Sunday, December 4, 2011

Arshad Alam, who teaches at Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia, in his recent book 'Inside A Madrasa: Knowledge, Power and Islamic Identity in India' offers insight into the diversity of Indian Islam and attempts to dispel myths about madrasas.

He talks to Sunday Times about the ongoing Wahabi vs Sufi debate

What do you make of this debate?

Wahabism is used pejoratively in India and refers to Islamic revival movements such as the Deoband.

It's better to understand the current polemic as Barelwi vs Deobandi conflict. It is a contest of power within Indian Islam.

What is the background of this debate?

In India, the British first used the term Wahabi for Muslims who declared jihad against them.

The Deobandis were alleged to be Wahabis because they were against syncretic practices such as visiting the shrine. Defending some of these practices was Ahmad Riza Khan, who justified the importance of shrines and pirs.

The Barelwi identity crystallized around the writings of Khan.

Sunni Sufis claim Deobandis are trying to import petrodollar-Islam ...

The promotion 'petrodollar' Islam is part of the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia. Their funds have gone into building mosques and promoting Islamic education in many countries.

Muslim groups have tried to get a slice of this pie by positioning themselves close to Wahabism, which alienates them from their specific cultural location.

We can see attempts to "purge" Islam of Indian influences...

Islamic reform is primarily about 'purging' indigenous influences, taking Muslims away from the Indian cultural landscape towards an Arabian cultural model.

De-coupling Islam with its Indian environs has consequences for cultural pluralism.

The challenge is daunting as the project of Islamic reform is common to both Deobandis and Barelwis.

[Picture: *Inside a Madrasa: Knowledge, Power and Islamic Identity in India*
By Arshad Alam
Publisher: Routledge India; 1 edition (May 27, 2011)
Photo: Amazon.]

Amazing Rhythms

2011-12-07T00:01:00.036-05:00

By Culture Desk Writer, *Classic Verse* - The Hindu - India; Saturday, December 3, 2011

The love poems by the great 13th century Persian poet, Jelaluddin Rumi, founder of the Whirling Dervishes of Sufism, encompass the universe and are metaphors of love in its physical form reinforced by amazing rhythms.

A special calligraphed collectible edition.

Essential Rumi, Calligraphy by Lassaâd Metoui, Hachette, Rs. 399.

Khalil Gibran's love poems evoke a special joy and excitement in the newness of love and the desire it awakens in you.

But he is also realistic in describing love's often painful and difficult path before it reaches maturity or the sorrows of parting.

A special calligraphed collectible edition.

Essential Gibran; Calligraphy by Lassaâd Metoui, Hachette, Rs. 399.

Kabir's songs remain alive in the folk traditions of North India. His work is resolutely undogmatic and often debunks the idea of religion.

Of all the bhakti poets, Kabir was the most outspoken.

A special bilingual collectible edition.

Essential Kabir; Translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra; Hachette, Rs. 399.

Delay in the Renovation Work

2011-12-06T00:01:00.024-05:00

By Staff Reporter, *Saving the Sufi: Iranian expert to help with renovation of Lal Shahbaz Qalander’s shrine* - The Express Tribune - Karachi, Pakistan; Saturday, December 3, 2011

Karachi: The Sindh government has formed a two-member committee to monitor the renovation work at the shrine of Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan.

The decision to set up the committee was taken at a meeting at Chief Minister House on Thursday. The provincial minister for Auqaf, Muhammad Rafiq Banbhan, and the provincial minister for finance, Syed Murad Ali Shah, are the two members of the committee.

They will hold fortnightly meetings with the chief minister and inform him of the progress that has been made.

Banbhan told The Express Tribune that the frequent transfers of project directors working on the renovation of the shrine is a major reason behind the delays.

“The project directors kept changing on a quarterly basis. I still can not understand who was responsible for the transfers,” he said.

The project runs under the supervision of the Works and Services Department.

“In a meeting which took place about a month ago, the country’s president voiced his displeasure at the delay in the renovation work and asked us rather forcefully why it had occured. He has given us until December 31, 2012 to complete the first phase,” said the Auqaf minister.

Banbhan said that an Iranian consultant had been taken on board. The consultant will provide technical assistance related to the redesigning of the shrine.

The minister for Auqaf also said that a team of experts was taken to Sehwan to be guided by the Iranian expert.

The cost of the renovation, which includes the construction of new dome, is Rs315 million. A consultant has been appointed and the designs have been approved.

The formal inauguration of project will take place on June 30, 2012.

Picture: The cost of the renovation, which includes the construction of new dome, is Rs315 million [USD 3.484.750]. Photo: TET

Workshop on Sufi Art

2011-12-05T00:01:00.026-05:00

By APP Staff Reporter, *Kuch Khaas hosts workshop on Sufi art in Islamabad* - Dawn.Com - Karachi, Pakistan; Friday, December 2, 2011

Kuch Khaas hosts workshop on Sufi art in Islamabad

Islamabad: A month long art workshop organized to highlight various attributes of Persian Miniature is at full swing in Islamabad, providing entertainment and aesthetical knowledge to the local residents.

The workshop is being held at Kuch Khaas -the Center for Arts, Culture and Dialogue- for amateur artists and students, with a primary aim to create awareness regarding Persian miniature.

Kuch Khaas is a not-for-profit organisation working for youth empowerment, education and quality entertainment in the city of Islamabad.

Qasir Zaman Khan, art teacher at the Islamic Center and Relations Organisation (ICRO) Lahore will be responsible for conducting the ceremony in order to share his expertise and teach techniques to experiment with vibrant colours used in Persian art.

Picture: Persian art. Photo: Reuters.

Visit Kuch Khaas.

An Integral Part

2011-12-04T00:01:00.034-05:00

By A. G. Noorani, *Sufism in Kashmir* - Frontline / The Hindu - India; Volume 28 Issue 25, Dec. 03-16, 2011

Two substantial works on the rich Sufi tradition in the “cradle of Sufism in South Asia”

A few years ago an overly articulate Islamic “scholar” lectured to a seminar in Srinagar on “Sufi Islam”, with implied digs at the militancy in Jammu and Kashmir. He got deserved reprimands.

Sufis in Kashmir very much share the people's aspirations, and militancy enjoys popular support. Hence the mammoth funeral processions of slain militants.

Undoubtedly, there are elements who do not share the Kashmiri ethos, especially the “guest militants”.

In the entire subcontinent, Jammu and Kashmir has the richest reservoir of the Sufi tradition, a tradition which is an integral part of the people's ethos and which informs their lives.

Dr Mohammad Ishaq Khan is a highly respected academic with substantial works to his credit. His book is a most informative compilation of biographical notes on the Sufis of Kashmir, arranged in alphabetical order. Each entry provides information of their antecedents, site of burial and the tradition and the school to which they belonged.

“Kashmir has been the cradle of Sufism in South Asia.” An introduction describes the growth of Sufism in Islam.

At least two Sufi Orders (silsilahs) — Kubrawiyya and Naqshbandiyya — first took their roots in the Valley.

Sufism in Kashmir imbibed Hindu and Buddhist influences. This is particularly true of “the indigenous order of the Muslim Reshis”.

Tombs of Sufi saints draw devotees of all faiths. The author aptly characterises it as “a unique form of devotional culture in Kashmir within the bosom of Islam”.

Badruddin Muqeem's work covers “The City of Temples” (Jammu), “The land of the Gompas” (Ladakh) as well as the “Dargahs” in the Valley.

Those in Jammu are not overlooked, nor are the ancient temples of Kashmir. What is particularly interesting is his description of the caves and temples in the mountain area.

There is an excellent bibliography. One hopes the next edition will have illustrations as well. They will enrich the work.

Holy Sites of Jammu and Kashmir: In the surroundings of Mighty Himalayas
by Badruddin Muqeem;
Gulshan Books, Srinagar
pages 258; Rs. 1,250.

Sufis of Kashmir
by Mohammad Ishaq Khan;
Gulshan Books, Srinagar;
pages 469; Rs. 1,695.

The Zeniths of Sufism

2011-12-03T00:01:00.016-05:00

By Staff Reporter, *Abida Parveen gave a heart wrenching performance* - International News Network Online - Karachi, Pakistan; Sunday November 27, 2011

Karachi: The living legend, Abida Parveen gave a heart wrenching performance for the first time after her angioplasty.

The venue was Royal Rodale Club, which always holds such events with utter professionalism and the result is an evening full of unprecedented entertainment. Abida Parveen has once again proved the fact that she is capable of performing non stop.

Man kunto maula, fahaazaa aliun maula……. Her infinite belief in her peer murshid got her back on stage to give expression to Sufism and to reach new heights of musical expression.

Live on stage. Her “chaapat tilak…” was unparalleled, then of course. The many ghazals during the night touched everyone’s hearts especially the one “mein janu meyraa khuda janey….”

“Maahi ……mein har dum rab rab kardee had the youngsters up on their feet and there was an aura of reverence, respect and standing ovation for the renowned singer during the performances.

The grand finale was the “Dhamal “performed by Abida Parveen, and it was something that has as yet never been witnessed and the audience performed with the legend.

Indeed Abida Parveen you are our precious “asasa” and May God give you a long life to perform and reach the zeniths of Sufism.

This grand event has been organized by The Royal Rodale Club in collaboration with Studio Maxx Presentations.

[Picture from Amazon.]

A Sufi Study Centre

2011-12-02T00:01:00.018-05:00

By Staff Writer, *Sufi centre to come up in Hyderabad* - Deccan Chronicle - Hyderabad, India; Sunday, November 27, 2011

A Sufi study centre will be set up in Hyderabad to promote the principles of brotherhood and humanity, according to Shaik Hashimuddin Gilani, the caretaker of the shrine of the revered Sufi saint Hazrat Shaik Abdul Qadir Jilani of Baghdad.

Shaik Hashim was in the city on Saturday as a part of the 12-day tour of India to spread the teachings of Sufism.

Talking to mediapersons here on Saturday, Shaik Hashim said, “India and Baghdad enjoy a very close relationship. During the time of my great-grandfather, Shaik Abdul Qadir Jilani, many sheiks were sent to Indian cities like Hyderabad. Sufism has been in this country since then with its diverse culture and tradition.”

“The very concept of Sufism is to show love and affection for fellow human beings and to spread it among all of humanity. Sufism can resolve all modern day social dilemmas,” Shaik Hashim added.

Shaik Hashim is running a centre for the study of Sufism in Baghdad, the ‘Ghousia Centre for Sufism.’ He said that he will set up a similar centre here in the city.

This is Shaik Hashim’s first trip to Hyderabad after he was selected as the caretaker of Shaik Abdul Qadir Jilani’s shrine. Prior to this, he had visited Hyderabad 10 years ago with his father.

After Hyderabad, Shaik Hashim will visit Mumbai, Mangalore, Chennai and finally Thiruvananthapuram.

[Picture: Tomb of Shaykh 'Abd al-Qadir Jilani in Baghdad. Photo: Qadiriya.]

A Mediator

2011-12-01T00:01:00.003-05:00

By David Tresilian, *Robert Irwin: anti anti-orientalist* - Al-Ahram - Cairo, Egypt; 24-30 November 2011 / Issue No. 1073

Robert Irwin: anti anti-orientalist: The author of many books on the Arab world and of a defense of European orientalism, the British writer Robert Irwin has recently published an intriguing autobiography. He spoke to David Tresilian in Paris

At an age when many people are beginning to think about writing their memoirs, the British writer on the Arab world Robert Irwin, who is also a well-known journalist, academic and novelist, still keeps a very full schedule. Though Irwin's memoirs, entitled Memoirs of a Dervish and a record of his early life, spent, among other places, in Algeria, in fact appeared earlier this year, he must surely have enough material for many other volumes.

Irwin has published a number of other books over recent years, most relating to the Arab world, his field of study and a subject on which he has achieved considerable expertise. He is regularly called upon as a reviewer and commentator on Arab literature and culture for various international publications, and his characteristic mix of scholarship and hard-won clarity tend to make his writings first ports of call for English-speaking readers looking for guidance on topics as diverse as the Arabian Nights, the subject of a book-length introduction published in 1994, classical Arabic literature, a 1999 anthology of extracts in translation, and the modern history of Islam.

Such has Irwin's success been in introducing Arab culture to general audiences in the English-speaking world that it has been almost possible to forget his previous, and second, career as an academic. Volume Four of the New Cambridge History of Islam, covering Islamic cultures and societies to the end of the 18th century and edited by Irwin, appeared late last year. Before that there was Irwin's own Early Mamluke Sultanate, 1250-1382, a scholarly investigation first published in 1977 and still in print.

In addition to being an accomplished academic, journalist and novelist, Irwin has recently emerged as a polemicist, notably on the thorny subject of European orientalism. Ever since the publication of the late Palestinian- American writer and academic Edward Said's book on the subject, entitled simply Orientalism, over three decades ago, many people, perhaps particularly in the Arab world, have been prepared to accept Said's characterisation of the work of the European orientalists -- past European writers, scholars and commentators on Islam and the Arab world -- as having been vitiated by colonialist attitudes and complicity in the European colonisation of Arab societies.

This is an argument that Irwin strenuously rejected in his own book on the history of European orientalism, entitled For Lust of Knowing: the Orientalists and their Enemies and published in 2006. In part designed as a rebuttal of Said's views, the book argued that European orientalism, pace Said, cannot be seen as a kind of blanket discourse that falsely represented its field of study. Far from being a sinister or monolithic affair connected to power and domination, it could in fact just as accurately be characterised for at least portions of its history as the harmless pastime of other- worldly clergyman.

Somewhere near the beginning of his book, Irwin warns that those coming to For Lust of Knowing in search of some general thesis on the historical relations between east and west may well be disappointed. Orientalism, in Irwin's view, bears more relation to academic disciplines like classics than it does to US- style geopolitics or area studies, and as a result much of it consists of worthy, if unexciting, activities such as "cataloguing the coins of Fatimid Egypt, or establishing the chronology of Harun al-Rashid's military campaigns against Byzantium." These are undoubtedly fascinating endeavours, but they do not seem obviously related to European colonialism.

Speaking to the Ahram Weekly on his way to give a lecture on the "true discourse of orientalism" in Paris recently, Irwin elaborated on his disagreements with Said, explaining why he, at least, is happy to be called an orientalist in the original, pre-Saidian sense of the word.

What Said did in Orientalism, Irwin says, was "consistently to misrepresent and effectively libel people, putting forward an essentially false picture of the study of the Middle East and Islam as it was conducted in the 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe. Even from a more positive point of view, Said's book does not open up an area of enquiry. What it does is to narrow the area of enquiry, such that we miss important aspects of how the West in fact interpreted the Middle East, including in terms of issues such as class and money -- terribly important when we are considering who traveled in the Middle East and what they saw when they went there."

For Lust of Knowing might more accurately be described as a history of European orientalists than of European orientalism, and Irwin's book contains many details of the research programmes, and sometimes of the personal habits, of most of its leading figures. The "sombre, severe and polemical figure" of the Frenchman Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, for example ("founder of modern orientalism"), is described in detail, de Sacy having been the first professor of Arabic at the Ecole spéciale des langues orientales vivantes when it was founded in Paris in 1795, as are later figures such as the Hungarian Ignaz Goldziher ("greatest of the orientalists") and, from the last century, well- known French orientalists like Louis Massignon (a "holy madman"), Jacques Berque ("fanatically francophone") and Maxime Rodinson ("reacting against Massignon's flamboyant spirituality," he published "a series of articles on mediaeval Arab cookery"), among others.

This emphasis on individual figures rather than on the field of study to which they belonged also characterises Irwin's spoken discourse, and in person he is eager to explain how Said, in "back-projecting from the concerns of contemporary academia," often missed what in fact motivated the European orientalists. For these people, often clergyman, always members of the educated elite, and, especially in the English case, usually dependent on leisured or aristocratic patrons, the East was very far from being "a career," as the epigraph, quoted by Said, to one of the 19th- century British novelist, and later prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli's novels puts it.

Far from looking to advance European political or economic control of the Middle East in their investigations of Arab and Middle Eastern culture or advance their own careers, Europeans who traveled in the Arab world in past centuries could often more accurately be described as having been in the grip of an all-consuming hobby. Most often, they were interested in "adventure, romance and colour," Irwin says. Academic orientalists may very well have had peculiar interests of their own, even obsessions in the case of the early 20th-century British orientalist David Margoliouth, "who treated everything in Arabic studies as a kind of Times crossword," but these interests were not necessarily related to advancing the political or other interests of the countries from which they came.

"Some people went out to the Middle East, it could even have been true of me, in search of material for a good book," Irwin comments. "One's always looking for a pretext for a book that will read interestingly. One's looking for material that people will want to read."

While Irwin's writings on Arab culture may have become familiar to the English-speaking public over only the past two decades or so, his autobiography shows that he has been involved in Arab studies and the Middle East for far longer than that. In Memoirs of a Dervish, Irwin describes studying Arabic at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies in the early 1970s, where his thesis on Egypt's mediaeval Mamluke sultanate was supervised by the well-known Anglo-American academic Bernard Lewis, a target of Said's criticisms in Orientalism.

Irwin's descriptions of university and student life, first at Oxford in the late 1960s and then in London in the 1970s, are likely to strike contemporary readers as almost pre-lapsarian in character, with students, not burdened by the prospect of enormous debt, studying subjects that interested them, as opposed to what they had to study in order to establish themselves in a career, and professors, apparently not pressed to "publish or perish," having the time to interest themselves in the work of students.

Commenting on how public attitudes to the Arab world and Middle East have developed since then, Irwin says that one of the greatest changes has been in the expansion of possibilities for serious study of the Arab world. "When I published my book on the Mamlukes, people asked why we needed another book on the subject, as there was already a book in German from the 1860s," he says.

"Mine was the first proper history of the Mamlukes in English, but now Mamluke studies have exploded at universities worldwide. They are very big in the United States, where Chicago is a centre. There's been an explosion in this area, and the same has been true to a lesser extent for Abbasid studies, Fatimid studies, Qajar studies and so on. There are now academic journals and regular conferences. The situation has been totally transformed from what it was, when there was just one scholar dealing with the subject in any given country."

Irwin also sees increases in the knowledge the wider European public has of the Arab world, as well as in Arab efforts to draw closer to Europe, notably through increased translation. "There has been a lot of effort to get Arabic novels translated, and publishers are enquiring what modern works they should be translating, as well as what classical Arabic works should appear in modern translations. However, at the moment there may be more interest among publishers than among the reading public, as sales can be disappointing: with the exception of Naguib Mahfouz, few Arab authors have done well in English translation, though Alaa al-Aswany did very well indeed [with the English translation of The Yacoubian Building ]."

"There is no doubt -- the statistics are there -- that more Arabic titles are being translated into English every year than used to be the case," Irwin continues. "But one of the problems the British reading public may have with Arabic fiction is that so much of it is heavily politicised: so much of it is veiled or open criticism of despotic Arab regimes, or of the oppression of women in the Middle East, or of the Palestine problem. On the whole, British fiction is not political. The British public likes a good plot, and what is being offered instead by Arab writers is disguised polemic."

One exception to this trend may be in classical Arabic literature, and particularly the Arabian Nights, where the interest of western readers has "come on wonderfully from what it was only two decades ago," Irwin says, partly as a result of improved translations. "I keep telling publishers they should do Jahiz," the polymath Abbasid writer, as "he's so witty and so interesting, or the pre-Islamic poets -- wonderful, bleak landscapes -- but they are not very receptive. They are interested in Sufi writers, but otherwise I think they don't really know where to start as far as the classical Arab writers are concerned. When I suggest Jahiz, people look blank."

"Some of the existing translations are also amazingly archaic, which doesn't help. When I did my anthology of classical Arabic literature for Penguin Books, my remit was to bring together extracts from existing translations -- I had no money to commission new translations, apart from those I did myself."

Of his recent memoir, which describes an undergraduate life spent between studying history at Oxford and vacations at a Sufi lodge in eastern Algeria, Irwin comments that "I wanted to recapture my youth and the period for people who weren't there. I'd got rather fed up of memoirs by people who were at the centre of the hippy scene in the 1960s, and I thought I'd like to do a memoir that wasn't purely secular. I became aware that what I was doing was a memoir of spiritual failure, a mystical quest that came unstuck."

Whatever it was that Irwin may have been looking for among the Sufis in Algeria, it was not necessarily the same as what other western young people of his generation were looking for elsewhere at the same time, spurred on by the counter-culture of the period and what Irwin describes in his book as "ghastly iconic sixties people" like Yoko Ono, Herbert Marcuse and R.D. Laing.

"The Arabs didn't stand for anything very much for European young people in the sixties. The truth was that almost everyone was going to India, and very few people chose the Arab option. To go down the Sufi line was rare. Also, the Arab world was very different in the 1960s to what it is today. Those were the days of nationalism and secularism and of Nasser and Bourguiba. It was a different world. Islam was marginalised, and Sufis were persecuted in Algeria by the ruling FLN," the Front de libération nationale which had successfully fought the country's war of independence against French colonial rule.

"Muslims were not in the news in the 1960s in western countries, as they are now, sometimes negatively," Irwin comments, adding that in his view in Britain today there is "no serious Islamophobia, no serious anti-Islamic movement, as there may be in European countries like Holland, Switzerland, or France, where even some mainstream politicians have taken stands against Islam."

Irwin is supportive of the Arab Spring ("I'm looking forward to it"), though he is worried that its progress, at least in some countries, may have become stalled. He is planning to continue his career as a mediator between the Arab and the English-speaking worlds through further lectures, books and articles. A lecture course on western views of the Arab world is planned for the prestigious Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, a graduate school, in Paris in the spring, to be followed by a book- length second installment of his account of orientalism.

The first volume, For Lust of Knowing, only dealt with academic orientalism. The second volume, planned for 2013, will take in the history of the dealings of European artists, writers, filmmakers and poets with the Arab world. It is sure to be eagerly awaited.

On Air

2011-11-30T00:01:00.020-05:00

By Staff Writer, *Somalia: Radio Galgadud resumes operation* - Raxanreeb Online - Somalia; Thursday, November 24, 2011

Somalia: Radio Galgadud resumes operation

Mogadishu: The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) welcomes the recommencement of the radio station’s activities recently shut down by the Ahlu Sunna Waljama, Moderate Sufi administration in Central Somalia town of Guri’el.

The Radio station was allowed to resume its operations on Wednesday, around 01:00pm local time, after the Moderate Sufi Administration in the town of Guri’el silenced sent heavily armed security personnel who entered the promises of the Radio station on Monday afternoon November 21, 2011 and ordered the radio to go off air.

“I am glad; we are allowed to go on air today around 1:00pm.” Ahmed Osman Abdi, director of the radio told NUSOJ over the phone.

Radio Galgadud is an independent radio station which was founded in September 3, 2011 by an independent entity and the resumption of the radio was vital as it was the only radio listened widely in and around the town of Guri’el and its closure effected the community which do not have any other alternative to get the news updates and other entertainment related programs.

The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) welcomes the recommencement of the radio station and call for the Ahlu Sunna Waljama Administration to respect the freedom of the expression.

“We are pleased that radio Galgadud resumed operations and we call the Ahlu Sunna Waljama Administrations in Central Somalia to preserve the freedom of the expression.” Mohamed Ibrahim, NUSOJ Secretary General said.

[Picture: Current political situation in Somalia. Photo: Wiki.]

Paths to the Kaabah

2011-11-29T00:01:00.019-05:00

By Zafar Alam Khan, *There are different paths to the Kaabah: Cemalnur Sargat* - The Pioneer - Delhi, India; Friday, November 25, 2011

Cemalnur Sargut, a living saint from Turkey who was in Bhopal from November 18 to 20 to participate in the International Conference on Sufism held at Bharat Bhawan spoke to Team Viva about the different aspects of Sufism, reports Zafar Alam Khan

Cemalnur Sargut, a living saint from Turkey with worldwide following was in the Madhya Pradesh capital Bhopal for three days from November 18 to 20 to participate in the International Conference on Sufism held at Bharat Bhawan.

Cemalnur Sargut is the president of the Turkish Women's Cultural Association, Istanbul (TURKKAD), founded by her teacher, Samiha Ayverdi in 1966. Under her leadership TURKKAD works to organise international symposiums and address a wide range of people who would like to apply solutions to today's problems in the Sufi view that knowledge is a state to be practiced and worship is a journey toward love.

'Viva City' talked in detail with Cemalnur, a former chemistry teacher who is widely popular among the young in Turkey and other parts of the world. Her teachings focus on the application of Sufi principles and ethics in daily life. She has her disciples in all parts of the globe and the number is continuously increasing.

She spoke in length on different aspects of Sufism.

Viva City: How did you reconcile your study of modern science and philosophy with the Sufi way?

Cemalnur: I was born into a Sufi family. In order to find things out for myself, I rejected my family's ideas and studied philosophy and chemical engineering. I examined philosophers' lives to see what I could learn from them, but saw that none of them was happy. Nietzsche became mad; Schopenhauer predicted the end of the world. I turned to Samiha Ayverdi, my Sufi teacher, and asked her to show me somebody who was actually living what he or she was saying. She showed me Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273 A.D.). Some years later, she asked me to teach the young. I said I knew nothing. She said, it is then you can teach. You cannot teach when you claim to know something. You are actually learning when you are teaching.

Viva City: There are many schools of Sufism. How would you characterise yours?

Cemalnur: There are different paths to the Kaabah, one chooses this and another chooses that. My teacher's teacher, Kenan Rifai, combined the four main Sufi paths, which stand for humbleness, knowledge, love and praying while living in the world fully. We are trying to bring these together.

Viva City: Was this a new Sufi path?

Cemalnur: Yes. Kenan Rifai was a revolutionary, as was Prophet Mohammed who broke the idols which are actually the ideas that bar our intellect, our mind. I try to do the same thing. I am lucky because many people accept me. Perhaps it is because I don't want to show myself, but the beautiful face of religion. The Sufi way is of love. Love is so precious, it is our weapon. Our jihad weapon is love.

Viva City: Have you ever had to face controversy because of your beliefs?

Cemalnur: It happens all the time. My teacher said that if everybody loves you, you are not a real murshid (Sufi teacher). Some people must not understand you, because wholeness is very difficult to understand.

People like to make war, to take one side. If you belong to all sides, then they don't want to accept you.

There is increasing tension between secularists and fundamentalists in Turkey.

Problems are created by a handful of people, and they seem huge because they have big voices. In terms of the headscarf controversy, covering actually means to cover our bad habits.

Viva City: What is your way of teaching?

Cemalnur: We try to live what we learn. When i went to the US 10 years ago, one man said: If I just listen to you, I will think of you for a few days. But because I saw all of you (Cemalnur and her students), I saw how to behave, how to be what you say. That is very important.

***

About Cemalnur Sargut

In 2009, Cemalnur initiated a chair of Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she has been giving lectures since 2000. A similar initiative is to be launched at Peking University, China.

The desired outcome of these academic efforts is to build a spiritual bridge between the east and the west and to teach Sufism, through daily practice in addition to scholarly study.

Cemalnur was born in Istanbul in 1952. After receiving her BSc in Chemical Engineering, she taught Chemistry for 20 years.

Born into a Sufi family, she was interested in philosophy and examined the lives of great philosophers when she was young. Upon her teacher, Samiha Ayverdi's request, she started to work on the Quran, conducted a comparative study on Rumi's Masnavi and started giving Masnavi lessons to young people when she was 24. Since then she has reached millions of people.

Apart from her studies on Sufism, Cemalnur publishes books of commentaries on the Quran chapters compiled through the commentaries of such great Sufi masters as Kenan Rifai, Rumi, Ahmed-er Rifai, Abdulkadir Jilani, Ibn-i Arabi, Misri Niyazi, Jili, Shams and Sultan Veled.

She continuously serves people by giving spiritual discourses and teachings on Rumi's Masnavi and Ibn Arabi's Fususu'l Hikem.

[Picture: Cemal-Nur Sargut. Photo: Baraka Institute.]

Passio-Compassio

2011-11-28T00:01:00.016-05:00

By Allan Kozinn, *Wresting Bach’s Music From Its Western Moorings* - The New York Times - New York, NY, USA; Monday, November 21, 2011

Wresting Bach’s Music From Its Western Moorings

Lincoln Center has been exploring the idea of transcendence in its White Light Festival this year by way of early and modern works from the classical music canon, as well as several theatrical offerings in which music was a central component.

Whether each performance proved a portal to transcendence is a matter for individual listeners to decide; the ones I heard succeeded more often than not.

And you could hardly have hoped for a finale better suited to the theme than “Passio-Compassio,” the Ensemble Sarband concert that closed the festival on Saturday evening at Alice Tully Hall.

Ensemble Sarband is a German group in which European and Middle Eastern musicians collaborate, using the music, instruments and vocal styles of both worlds to perform sacred and secular music from the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions. The Jewish part of its repertory was addressed on Friday evening: not the most thoughtful scheduling, since observant Jews could not attend because of the Sabbath.

For the Saturday evening program, the ensemble was joined by the Modern String Quartet, Vocanima Köln and five whirling Mevlevi dervishes for arias and choruses from Bach’s sacred music, along with Syrian Orthodox and Byzantine (Christian) chant and Sufi meditations from the mystical side of Islam.

The Sarband approach is elegant, though not timid in its wresting of Bach’s music from its Western moorings, but Vladimir Ivanoff, the group’s director and arranger, has an unfailing instinct for finding musical ground where his transformations seem natural.

“Können Tränen meiner Wangen nichts erlangen” (“If the tears on my cheeks achieve nothing”), from Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion,” for example, begins with a repeating figure in which ascending melodic leaps and dotted rhythms are set against a descending chord progression to create a tension that magnifies the text. But when played by the strange combination of an Arabic fiddle, saxophone, frame drums, zithers, cello and harpsichord, Bach’s melody sounds decidedly Turkish.

Fadia el-Hage’s ornamented vocal line, sung in Arabic with a throaty timbre, pushed the piece further eastward, as did the free-spirited instrumental improvisations that followed. Yet if you knew the Bach original, you heard it clearly within the virtuosic filigree.

In other “St. Matthew” excerpts later in the program — in “Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden” (“When once I must depart”) and “Erbarme dich” (“Have mercy”) — Ms. el-Hage began in a Western style, singing in the upper range of her contralto voice, with a touch of vibrato, and in German. As the arrangements unfolded, she switched to Arabic, and her earthier style, using a combination of Baroque and Arabic embellishments.

Mustafa Dogan Dikmen, the male vocalist, did not venture into Western style but was a powerful interpreter in both Bach and Middle Eastern pieces. The ensembles collaborating with Sarband made decisive contributions as well. When Mr. Ivanoff wanted to pull the Bach pieces back into the Western world, the Modern String Quartet provided the right sounds, but its players also offered inventively jazz-tinged solos, as did Sarband’s two saxophonists, Tim Martin and Hugo Siegmeth.

The ecstatic whirling of the dervishes — white-robed initiates into Sufism who dance with their heads inclined to one side and their arms extended as a form of devotion — was an enlightening touch during a pair of Turkish traditional pieces and the program’s finale, Ms. el-Hage’s moving account of Bach’s “Erbarme Dich”.

Tapestry of Music

2011-11-27T00:01:00.035-05:00

By Shreya Badola, *Surfing through Sufism* - Daily News & Analysis - Mumbai, India; Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Gear up for some soulful music as the eleventh edition of Ruhaniyat — one of the biggest Sufi music festival in Asia — comes to the city.

Known to bring on the stage the remote and rural tunes, the two-day long festival is truly a celebration of the folk artists — the actual practitioners of mystic traditions who express complex and deep thoughts in the most enchanting manner.

Says founder, organiser Nandini Mahesh, "For us 2011 is very special as now Ruhaniyat has entered the second decade. It has been a long journey and a very demanding one, with the festival travelling to seven cities of India. But, it has also been a deeply satisfying one too and, it is far from complete. There are so many forms which are amazingly powerful, orally passed down from generation to generation across centuries, hidden in various parts of our country. The carriers of these living traditions create an absolutely enchanting tapestry of music."

This time around, the Mumbai version of the festival will feature some unique and unheard of forms of rural rhythms.

"We are forms like Devaram hymns by Nayanmars from Tamil Nadu; these are ancient hymns that date back to seventh century. Another highlight is Waee from Kutch, a one of its kind stylised rendition of Shah Latif's works. Mystic Shabads, Kabirbani and Zikr are the other brilliant forms that will be featured this year," explains Nandini.

And that's not all. Also performing at the event will be guest artists Whirling Dervishes from Turkey.

Another highlight is the first ever performance of Polyphony, which will be presented on both the days.

The festival that opens at the historic Purana Qila in Delhi, will be held in Mumbai on the weekend, and will then travel to Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune.

When & where?
Saturday and Sunday. 6.30 pm at Horniman Circle Gardens

Picture: Kabir Bani by Mukhtiyar Ali

Beauty Over and Above

2011-11-26T00:01:00.000-05:00

By Mahtab Bashir, *View camera photography unveiled at Rohtas Gallery* - Pakistan Today - Lahore, Pakistan; Monday, November 21, 2011

Islamabad: A collection of photographs by Lukas Werth, featuring the socio-cultural lifestyle of two great countries, Pakistan and Germany, was unveiled here on Monday at the Rohtas Gallery.

Through his lens, the German artist has presented a comparison of the two countries with the “East meets West” theme.

The classic photography cache titled ‘Twilight’ has been produced by using the century-old technical gadget called ‘view camera’. The large size photographs showcasing cultural heritage and social-economic life of cities including Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore, Munich, Berlin and others.

Since December 2008, Lukas Werth has been teaching anthropology at LUMS. Having received his PhD in 1992 from the Free University of Berlin for an ethnography about the Vagri, a peripatetic group in South India. Deeply involved in photography both as an anthropological endeavor and as an art form.

He regards photography as an independent form of visual art capable of making statements relevant to the contemporary world. He combines this with his anthropological interests, that is, he explores an artistic vision inspired by anthropological perspectives.

One main topic of this combination is the exploration of cultural contexts in Pakistan which he tries to present in a personal vision, leading away from common Western prejudices, and also appealing to a spectator familiar with the contexts depicted.

His theoretical interests include meaning, self, ethics and aesthetics in Anthropological thought; different aspects of religion as such, Islam, including Sufism and fundamentalism, Hinduism, kinship, rituals, concepts of modernity and Western thought, and peripatetic societies.

Areas of his ethnographic interests are South Asia, most notably Pakistan and India, Western contexts, as the development of Western visual arts and the place of photography in this context.

Talking to Pakistan Today, Lukas Werth said he wanted to develop an expressive vision of his work on Sufism, a vision which should somehow reflect the beauty involved in this concept, the beauty over and above every flaw, every imperfection, every distortion or manipulation which might be found, and that he wanted to be able to communicate this to audiences familiar as well as foreign to the scenes shown.

“Secondly, in recent years, the Western perspective on the Islamic world has become more and more antagonistic. I use a consciously subjective perspective which amounts, or so I hope, to a personal vision of a tradition which evokes feelings of homeliness and beauty for those who are willing to see,” he added.

Lukas said the reality was interpreted in such a way that allowed the spectator, whether she or he was part of that tradition or not, to get a glimpse of all those details and associations which made people feel at home.

Generally, photographic representations of South Asia tend to concentrate on the colourful and the exotic, socially or culturally exciting or disquieting: the bazaar, traders, temples, peasants, faqirs, castles, landscapes with palm trees, camels, bullet carts, cows in the countryside, slums, beggars, and all this in bright, “natural” colours.

“The pictures were taken all with analogue methods, in fact with an old-fashioned wooden view camera which is slow and cumbersome. I got my first camera of this sort here in Pakistan many years ago. This way of taking pictures continues to enhance photographic vision, even if it takes about 30 minutes to expose an image. I also like to use not only modern, but also antique lenses for the special image quality they are able to produce”, the German artist maintained.

Lukas said the prints which were available for Rs 26,000 each- were printed through laborious, old-fashioned photographic processes. He said most of them were so-called casein prints, while others were cyanotypes blue prints.

“The need for a big negative was the primary reason why all these processes went out of fashion and became finally obsolete,” the artist said.

The exhibition will continue at the Rohtas Gallery (House No. 57-B, Street No. 26, F-6/2) until 30 November.

The Voice of Inner Self

2011-11-25T00:01:00.039-05:00

By Pervez Bari, *Sufism: the voice of one's inner self: MP Governor* - Two Circles Net - Cambridge, MA, USA; Saturday, November 19, 2011

Bhopal: Delivering inaugural speech at the three-day 40th International Conference on Sufism here at Bharat Bhavan on Friday, Madhya Pradesh Governor Mr. Ram Naresh Yadav said that Sufism propounds love for entire nature by construing it as love for God.

He said that at the spiritual level, Sufism is the voice of human being's inner self. The basis of Sufism is the quest of soul to attain God and the rituals are undertaken to achieve this goal.

Its main principles include lofty spiritualism, peace of mind and soul, secularism and equality among human beings. Sufism does not encourage religious hypocrisy, caste distinctions, racism etc.

He said that with respect to Sufi philosophy, universalism casts a deep impact on human existence.

Earlier, the Governor inaugurated the conference by offering petals of flowers to water as per the Sufi traditions.

About 56 scholars from Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Tajikistan, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nepal were attending the international conference.

The conference is being organised by the Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature (FOSWAL), New Delhi; a SAARC apex body in collaboration with Public Diplomacy Division, Ministry of External Affairs- Government of India, Arpana Cour; Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and Bharat Bhawan.

Murshed Cemal Nur Sargut of Turkey, who was the chief guest of the inaugural function, addressed them in Turkish language being translated in to English simultaneously.

Her inaugural address repeatedly stressed the need for love, compassion and mercy; the attributes of Allah Almighty. Her speech was listened to by the assemblage in pin drop silence.

She said that the world becomes a place with undefined beauty, through the spiritual love. Everything starts with love and one who is in love with Allah will worship nothing else but Allah. Allah's real face can be seen only by getting rid of hatred and negative thoughts, she added emotionally.

"We should be in a state to forgive and love others, then Allah will not be leaving us alone and he will shower his choicest blessings on us", Cemal Nur said.

She ended her address by appealing "Let us unite and let us be the one committed to spread the message of Allah; of his love, compassion, peace and tranquillity to humanity at large which is now reeling under hatred, violence, wickedness".

Delivering the presidential address, Dr. Abid Hussain said that this is the age of hate, terrorism and separatism. People are opposing each other in the name of religion. The terrorism of politics with fundamentalism of religion has created havoc in the world and the irony is that those who are witness to these aberrations in society too are busy joining the fundamentalists, he averred.

He expressed his passionate feeling on Sufism, to be the most appropriate solution to these problems during these testing times of mankind.

He reiterated Sufism as the song of the soul. He said that Sufism is not a religion and it doesn’t dismantle a religion. It has the ability to opens windows and shows that there is oneness in multiplicity.

He said Sufism as a way of thinking could remove inequality from the society.

“We have to keep people united despite diversity like a bouquet of flowers of different colour and smell”, he added.

"When the soul is dead, the music is dead inside. When the soul is alive, we open our hearts to all human beings", he remarked.

Earlier, in her welcome address, the organisational committee president Mrs. Ajeet Cour threw light on the objectives of the conference. She said Sufism is a great philosophy of deep and infinite feelings, but not a religion.

“One can be a Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Christian or a Jew and besides being one among them a Sufi too; because Sufism is an exalted state of mind where love and peace resound like a soft melody, it echoes and re-echoes in the depth of one's soul. It creates a new ideological state of mind overflowing with love. The message of Sufism transcends all boundaries, and not only it goes across, but negates racism and religious fundamentalism" she said.

Mrs. Cour said: "In this age of rat-race for self-gratification and our thousands of never-appeased hungers for accumulating wealth, cars, posh bungalows and land much beyond our need. In this age of globalization and consumerism, the lyricism of Sufism brings us peace; because it takes us across to the nowhere land where peace, love and selflessness reign supreme."

Continuing she said that it is only through love that we can reach the heights of self-evolvement and enlightenment; love with the Creator of this Universe, with the universe he has created, and with all the living beings which are ordained to share the bounties of this Universe.

The Universe where the planet Earth and millions of planets in eternal rotation in their infinite void, moves without any accidents; the days then merges into nights, and nights gives way to glorious, sun-drenched days, in an eternal cycle of merging and re-emerging, like the cycle of Death and Life.

"This is the Universe we human beings were placed in, to comprehend the meaning of Love and Compassion, not only with other human beings, but with all his Creations too!” she opined.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Cour welcomed the guests by honouring them with shawls.

One of the major attractions of the inaugural function was the dance performance by Baul dancer Ms Parvati Baul based on Bhakti music.

Governor Mr. Ram Naresh Yadav was honoured by representatives of Dargah Shareef Ajmer who tied a turban to his head and presented him with a Chadar of Dargah.

Dr. Madkour of Egypt, Dr. Karim Najafi of Iran, Dr. Ovezov Annaguly of Turkmenistan, Dr. Saleem Agha of Pakistan, Mr. Samant Ilangakoon of Sri Lanka, Prof. Abhi Subedi of Nepal and Syed Ahmad Chisti of Afghanistan were all present for the function among others. They were all felicitated and presented with shawls by the representatives of Ajmer Dargah Shareef, who as a part of honouring them, tied pink coloured turbans on their heads.

Mr. Manmohan Singh Mitwa proposed vote of thanks.

Picture: Madhya Pradesh Governor Mr. Ram Naresh Yadav delivering inaugural address at the three-day International conference on Sufism at Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal on Friday. Photo: TCN.

In Prose and Poetry

2011-11-24T00:01:00.022-05:00

By Staff Reporter, *Sufis to bring message of love to the city* - Pakistan Today - Lahore, Pakistan; Friday, November 18, 2011

Sufis to bring message of love to the city

Lahore: ‘International Conference on Sufism and Peace’ will be held in Lahore towards end of next month.

The international moot is being organised by the International Sufi Council, headquarters of which are located in Lahore and the Central Secretariat of which is being also established in the provincial metropolis.

The ISC was established at the end of the first ‘International Conference on Sufism and Peace’ which was held in Islamabad in March last year under the auspices of the Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) on an initiative of its chairman, well-known writer and intellectual Fakhar Zaman. But this time, it is being organized by the newly-established International Sufi Council.

The moot was attended by 90 high profile literary figures from 40 countries as delegates who had decided to form the International Sufi Conference and Fakhar Zaman was elected its chairman unanimously.

Zaman told a group of journalists at his Model Town residence on Thursday that a large number of international literary and cultural personalities including those who were reputed internationally for their expertise on mysticism from all over the world will be attending the moot.

He said more than 150 such eminent figures had been invited from all over the world adding that most of them were likely to participate in the conference and exchange their views with national and international delegates to the conference.

Zaman said the conference would deliberate on different aspects of Sufism, highlight of the message of love, brotherhood, tolerance and fraternity which all Sufis have been giving over the centuries.

He said in the face of extremism, it was the dire need of the hour that people revert to Sufism and the moot will help the people understand and appreciate what Sufism was all about and how it can usher in peace in the world by adhering to the teachings of the Sufis which they have been giving in prose and poetry.

He said the conference will continue for three days and detailed programme and final dates will be announced in due course of time after all arrangements have been finalised. However, it has already been decided that a cultural programme will be organised during the conference and more importantly some documentaries in English on the Sufi Poets of Pakistan will be shown.

In response to queries, he said that the conference programme is being finalised in consultation with the foreign delegates of the first International Conference on Sufism and Peace held in Islamabad in March last year.

Delegates from the participating countries were elected then as the presidents of the Council for their respective countries.

He said this would help in chalking out a comprehensive programme for the moot to make it meaningful, objective and result-oriented in all respects.

Shah Ghazi Urs

2011-11-23T00:01:00.013-05:00

By Staff Reporter, *Shah Ghazi Urs: 3-day celebrations start amid security concerns* - The Express Tribune - Karachi, Pakistan; Friday, November 18, 2011

Shah Ghazi Urs: 3-day celebrations start amid security concerns

Karachi: Three-day long Urs celebrations honouring the ninth-century Sufi saint Abdullah Shah Ghazi will start today (Thursday) in Karachi amid tightened security.

Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s grave was washed by the custodians of the shrine last night.

A large number of devotees are expected to visit the shrine during the celebrations, which will conclude on Saturday.

At the direction of Inspector General of Sindh (IG) Mushtaq Ahmed Shah, the city police have deployed teams and bomb disposal squad officers.

Walk-through security gates have also been installed at the shrine’s entrance.

Last year, twin blasts killed at least 10 people and injured more than 60 in an attack on the shrine. The blasts went off at the entrance as people were queuing up to enter the building.

Picture: Abdullah Shah Ghazi's grave washed by the custodians of the shrine last night. Photo: Athar Khan/Express

Islam 101

2011-11-22T00:01:00.036-05:00

By Ken Bullock, *Around and About Theater* - The Berkeley Daily Planet - Berkeley, CA, USA; Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Translations of the medieval Persian poet and Sufi figure Jalaluddin Rumi have rivaled the record of Edward Fitzgerald's translation of 'The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam' as the most popular book of poetry published in English.

Rumi's longest poem, 'The Masnavi,' is told in great part by stories, illustrating what spiritual points he wanted to get across with secular folkloric color, often wry humor.

Golden Thread Productions —whose annual ReOrient festival of one act plays on the Middle East has been produceded in Berkeley— has joined forces with the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California in Oakland to stage seven of Rumi's tales, like "The Elephant in the Dark" and "The Grammarian and the Boatman," in modern theatrical styles.

Featuring clown and Commedia shtick by Hafiz Karmali, a splendid director, as the first in a series of programs he'll direct over the coming three years, entitled Islam 101.

This Friday night at 7:30, Saturday at 3:30 and 7:30, at the Center, near the Main Library in downtown Oakland, staged in the sumptuous ceremonial hall of this old Masonic building, all in Moorish Revival style, just over a century old.

1433 Madison at 14th—kitty-corner from the Main Library —downtown Oakland. $10-$20. 832-7600

There's also an exhibit of Rumi-related artwork at the Cultural Center.

[Picture: Rumix7 = Tales from the Masnavi. Photo: Golden Thread Middle East Center Stage.]

Uncertain

2011-11-21T00:01:00.022-05:00

By Christopher Stephen et al., *Libya’s Islamists Ransack Mosque Graves in Power Struggle* - Bloomberg Businessweek - New York, NY, USA - Friday, November 18, 2011

Libya’s Islamists Ransack Mosque Graves in Power Struggle

Libyan gunmen broke into the Saif al-Nasr mosque in Tripoli early on Nov. 8, smashed open a wooden sarcophagus and removed the remains of Saif al-Nasr, a scholar who died 155 years ago, and a former imam, Hammad Zwai.

“These bodies have been moved to a Muslim cemetery,” announced graffiti on the walls, explaining the disapproval by some Islamists of the Sufi Muslim tradition of burying scholars and teachers in mosques to honor them.

Muslims pushing for a strict intepretation of Islamic law are jostling for power in the chaos that has gripped Libya since the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi, the third North African leader after those in Egypt and Tunisia to fall in the Arab Spring.

Last month protesters holding signs proclaiming “We Are Here to Purify the Honor of Tripoli” forced the early closure of the capital’s first fashion show since Qaddafi’s 42-year rule in Tripoli ended in August.

“I was scared; I wiped off my makeup and went home,” said Jasmin Abdul Aziz, a 22-year-old student who was one of five models at the event and once paraded a $5,000 dress studded with diamonds in a Qaddafi-era fashion show. “Before, we would wear shorts in the streets. Now, look around you, nobody does.”

The man responsible for maintaining security in the city is Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the head of the Tripoli Military Council and former Guantanamo Bay inmate. The council doesn’t regard the mosque break-ins as a crime and is awaiting the formation of a religious council to rule on the matter, according to his deputy, Mohammed Goaider.

‘Not A Crime’

“It is not a crime, but it is not the right time for the bodies to be removed,” Goaider said in an interview. If the religious council issues a fatwa, an Islamic religious edict, demanding the removal of the bodies, security units will do the work, he said.

Belhaj was the leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which opposed Qaddafi in the 1990s and is listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. After joining the Taliban in Aghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, he was captured and held by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 before being sent to Libya, where he spent seven years in a prison until his release last year.

“We are 99 percent Muslim,” said Emhemmed Ghula of the February 17th Coalition, a prominent political group that supports Belhaj. “Our country is a conservative country.”

‘Troubling Signs’

Tripoli is still controlled by a patchwork of militias, with the National Transitional Council unable to impose its authority over regional military bodies such as the Tripoli Military Council.

“These are all troubling signs for all those who wanted a secular Libya,” Shashank Joshi, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said in a phone interview. “Libya is a conservative country, so some amount of that is to be expected, but desecrating graves and closing down fashion shows encroaches on freedoms.”

The NTC says a new constitution, which will be drafted by a panel elected by June, must have Islamic law, or Sharia, as its “principal” source.

Acting Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib is due to present his Cabinet on Nov. 20 to the NTC. Among the groups vying for posts are the Freedom, Justice and Development party, which says it is modelled on the moderate Islamic AKP party that has governed Turkey since November 2002, and the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, which says it is secular.

Women Fearful

“The civil state that we yearn for, there is no conflict with that and Sharia as the source of legislation,” NTC spokesman Abdel Hafez Ghoga told reporters on Nov. 15.

How Sharia will be interpreted remains uncertain until the constitution is drafted, and in the meantime tensions between secular and Islamist groups are surfacing in all spheres.

“We are still in the midst of Libya thrashing out its new institutions,” Joshi said. “There will be a long period of instability in which these things will continue. As long as it can remain peaceful, it’s OK.”

At a five-day conference being held in Tripoli’s Radisson Blu Al Mahary Hotel, women’s groups from across the country voiced fears about their rights.

“If they apply Sharia, everything will be good. It is a system to organize society,” Aya Blaou, a Tripoli medical student, said in an interview. “What I am afraid about is that Sharia rules are used against us.”

Civilian Administration

Belhaj’s supporters insist that Islam must be respected, and say that they support democracy.

“Belhaj wields power on the streets, but he also feels marginalized by the NTC,” Joshi said. “Even if the NTC doesn’t control the streets of Tripoli, they are still in charge. He wants to be part of that.”

The Tripoli Council, the city’s civilian administration, opposes the vandalism at the mosques, according to council leader Abdulrezaq Abuhjaar. Yet it’s powerless to act because it doesn’t control security forces, he said.

“We are not happy about this, it is not right,” Abuhjaar said in an interview. “Disturbing the dead is harming the living. It is a crime that the law punishes.”

Sufi militiamen are now guarding the remaining mosques in Tripoli, including the Sha’b Mosque, home to the body of a revered scholar, Abdul Sahfi, which is interred in a large stone sarcophagus.

Threat of Violence

“Those who break these stones, they are following al- Qaeda,” said Mohammed Abdulla, one of several armed uniformed fighters guarding the mosque. “We will not let them in.”

Women in Tripoli are feeling the heaviest burden to conform. They have been under pressure to dress conservatively since Qaddafi’s downfall, Abdul Aziz said.

She blamed Belhaj and his insistence on a strict interpretation of Islam, and warned that violence may break out if he continued the policy.

“The young people will not allow it,” she said. “We have to have a new revolution.”

[Picture: Historic map of Tripoli by Piri Reis. Photo: Wiki.]

Ties

2011-11-20T00:01:00.002-05:00

By IRNA Staff Writer, *Salehi confers with Egyptian Sufis* - Islamic Republic News Agency - Tehran, Iran; Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Salehi confers with Egyptian Sufis: Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Wednesday that Iran and Egypt will promote their ties in near future.

In a meeting with a delegation of Egyptian Sufis, he referred to the country’s cultural and civilizational affinities and said that both nations are keen on developing bilateral ties.

Pointing to the role of Egypt in the Muslim World as well as depth of its cultural status, he said that Sufism has a long history in Egypt.

The Sufis hailed the Iranians for their respect and hospitability. They also said that they esteem Prophet Mohammad Household (PBUH).

Iran severed ties with Egypt in 1980 after Cairo signed the 1978 Camp David Accord with Israel and offered asylum to Iran’s deposed shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

In April 2011, then Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil al-Arabi called for normalization of ties with Iran, saying Cairo was committed to improving long-frozen relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The First Percussion

2011-11-19T00:01:00.022-05:00

By Michael Dwyer, *Spin doctor of Sufism* - The Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney, Australia; Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Sound artist Mercan Dede builds music on heartbeats and ancient wisdom.

Arkin Allen is a glass-half-full kind of guy. As dark as recent days have been in his homeland of Turkey, the artist known by some as Mercan Dede looks towards the light.

''The whole world is facing very difficult times: earthquakes, wars, economic meltdown. It's these days that make you understand how music, art and culture [are] so important,'' he says.

''Since the earthquake there are all the time concerts for fund-raising. If you have a concert tomorrow, 15,000 people will go there. Music art is showing us the way we have to go on.''

Mercan Dede is one of nine names under which Allen makes his music, which sits at a crossroads between the ancient traditions, reed flutes and hand drums of the East and the turntables and high-tech modernity of the West.

Not even his family or management know all of his identities, he claims, because ''nothing should stand between sound and the ear, including the artist himself''.

It might sound like a glib soundbite to an ear accustomed to the gimmicks of the prefab pop world, but the ebbing and swirling sound of Mercan Dede has a weird way of disarming the mind and making the body heavy in surrender.

''In Turkish we call this 'music of heart','' says the 45-year-old composer, DJ and player of several hypnotic Middle Eastern instruments.

''It's not too intellectual and we would like to keep it that way because sometimes we give too much importance to mind.''

Yeah, yeah, but what's the trance code? Surely there's some mathematical tempo plus frequency formula that makes his spiralling drones and slow twanging gut-strings get under your ribs like that?

''There are certain things,'' he concedes. ''One of them is mathematical, in a way. In all my albums there is a heartbeat. I don't mean synthetic digital heartbeats. I mean the heart, literally.

''And in every album, we have the sound of nature. Same thing, we will go out and record that sound. Rain, wind, fire.

''These things are part of us. The heartbeat is the first percussion. It doesn't matter who we are. Before we are born, we know it.''

Allen was immersed in Sufi philosophy and music as a child in Bursa, north-west Turkey. He moved to Istanbul to study journalism in his teens, then to Canada as an exhibiting photographer and student of multimedia.

There, working in a bar in the late 1980s, he realised a profound parallel between the ascending culture of electronic music and the traditions of his ancestry. This counterpoint would inform seven highly regarded albums as Mercan Dede.

''The Turks come from central Asia, from shamanic tradition and [there is] also the whole influence of Islam, so there is this incredible tradition of healing with the music,'' he explains.

''In Sufism we have different meditations and there is one person who is like the head of the symphony, the maestro of the ceremony. I became fascinated with the similar way the DJ can move the energy of the crowd: he can drop it, he can change it.

''Then I became also fascinated by the idea of mixing songs together in electronic music. That, for me, is what Sufism is about: a meeting point, like Istanbul; something between East and West, something very ancient and something very modern.''

Mercan Dede sold out the Forum on his last visit here in 2008, following a number one album on the UK world music charts: 800 was an 800th birthday dedication to the Sufi mystic, Rumi.

His new Istanbul Quartet promises a more traditional experience this time, complete with whirling dervish to aid communion with the universe. And yes, there's a kind of maths involved there, too.

''The dervish dances in one single point, then he starts to turn, and the turning is in harmony with the whole universe,'' Allen explains. ''The little electrons in our atoms keep spinning, and the universe keeps spinning. So we have a journey all together with the universe.''

Mercan Dede performs at the Playhouse at 7.30pm on Sunday, the closing night of the Australasian World Music Expo.

theartscentre.com.au

awme.com.au

Picture: Sound artist Mercan Dede builds music on heartbeats and ancient rhythms. Photo: Masiar Pasquali.

The Gist of Sacrificing

2011-11-18T00:01:00.055-05:00

By Kerim Balci, *Feast of Proximity* - Today's Zaman - Istanbul, Turkey; Wednedsay, November 9, 2011

English-speaking Muslims prefer to use Arabic names for Muslim rituals and feasts. Turks have from the very beginning preferred to use Persian equivalents.

Arabs and English speaking Muslims use “salat” for daily prayer, whereas Turks and Persians use “namaz.” The Arabic Eid al-Adha is translated into English as the Feast of the Sacrifice. Turks, Persians, Urdu-speaking nations, and Balkan Muslims on the other hand call this feast Kurban Bayramı (this final vowel missing in some locations), which can be translated as Feast of Proximity.

This is not a simple issue of nomenclature. Different names used for the same meaning attest to different worldviews, in this case, to a difference between the Orthodox Islam of the Arab core and the Sufi Islam of the peripheral Muslim nations.

Generally speaking, the Arabic names of Muslim rituals and feasts are names of acts themselves. They name “what is being done.”

On the other hand the Turko-Persian naming relates rather to the question “why.” A good example is the Eid al-Adha and Kurban Bayramı pair.

Eid and Bayram both mean a feast, festival or holiday. Adha is the plural of the Arabic Dahiya and is the name of the sacrificial animal that is acceptable religiously to be sacrificed. Dahiya is an animal with special qualities sacrificed on the days of Eid al-Adha by a free, non-travelling, well-to-do Muslim with the intention of fulfilling the duty of sacrifice.

The qualities of the Dahiya are such a sophisticated issue that downgrading the issue to the level of animal rights can sound disgusting to a Muslim. Anyhow, the Arabic naming of the feast revolves around the kind of animal that can be sacrificed, the intention of slaughtering as a sacrifice to Allah, and the economic and political situation of the Muslim person who will sacrifice the animal.

In the Turkish case Kurban Bayramı is rather about “Kurbiyet” with meanings related to proximity in feeling, approaching, appealing, affinity, and befriending.

Thus, the Feast of Proximity is a feast when Muslims try to realize and feel the closeness of their Creator through their devotion proved by the symbolism of sacrificing animals.

For peripheral Sufi Muslim traditions the gist of sacrificing is not about the animal but about the relationship between Allah and man. For this reason Turkish Muslims stress the memory of Patriarch Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his son Ishmael (or Isaac as the Judeo-Christian tradition says, or both) to Allah.

For this reason Turkish Muslims attach more importance to feast visits between relatives and neighbors as the proximity between the believers connotes a proximity to Allah.

For this reason also Turkish Muslims have added dimensions of candy distribution, giving pocket money to children, buying presents for close friends and paying visits to the houses of otherwise neglected poor families during Kurban Bayramı.

Since in the Turkish understanding proximity is not restricted to those who sacrifice an animal, Turks are ready to share their feelings of closeness and affinity with their non-performing Muslim and non-Muslim neighbors also.

The feast is a Feast of Proximity for all, and sacrifice is only one particular dimension of that proximity. It is indispensable; but it is not all.

The issue of proximity is a major part of the Muslim cosmology. In fact all states of the human condition in this world are measured according to proximity and remoteness (kurb-bu’d) from Allah.

The psychological states corresponding to these two poles are openness and eclipse (bast-kabz).

During times of proximity, as in the days of the Feast of Proximity, we are open to inspirations, we are happy, and our souls are satisfied, wheras on days of remoteness we are lost in the wilderness of this world with our unsatisfied souls looking for a port of tranquility.

All of the Beautiful Names of Allah correspond to these two cosmological conditions: Cemil (beautiful) looks to proximity, whereas Celil (glorious) looks to remoteness; Ahad (one) looks to proximity and Wahid (sole one) looks to remoteness and so on.

Gravitational force relates to the proximity and centrifugal force relates to remoteness. Love connotes proximity, and hatred connotes remoteness.

Hence we feel countless levels of proximities during the Feast of Proximity ranging from the level of most intimate human feelings to supernatural cosmological events.

[Picture: The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio (1590-1610; Oil on canvas; Uffizi, Florence, Italy). Photo: Wiki]

‘An-al-Haq’

2011-11-17T00:01:00.037-05:00

By Staff Writer, *The story of Hallaj* - Dawn.Com - Karachi, Pakistan; Thursday, November 10, 2011

‘An-al-Haq’ (I am the truth) – this statement would be the death of Mansur Al-Hallaj.

A Sufi poet, teacher and philosopher, Hallaj was executed on the orders of an Abbasside caliph for uttering these words, taken to mean Hallaj as claiming himself to be God. After more than a decade of imprisonment, Hallaj was eventually executed publically in Baghdad in the year 922 [309 AH].

He is seen by many as a revolutionary writer and teacher of his time, when practices of mysticism were not meant to be shared publically. Yet he remains a controversial figure, revered by Rumi, hated by many, he was labeled an intoxicated Sufi and is still read today.

Soon, Modern Times Stage Company in Toronto will be presenting the last night Hallaj spends in prison.

The play is written by Peter Farbridge and Soheil Parsa and directed by the latter. “He is given a choice to recant his beliefs or be executed. We try to work out his dilemma,” explains Farbridge.

The play will explore Hallaj’s quest. “Was he inspired by a spiritual notion or was he more of a mad man?” asks Farbridge, a question he says is never answered in the play.

[Click on the title to the original article with the Video by Modern Times Stage Company (ed.)]

***
From the Modern Times Stage Company Website:

A modern re-telling of a true story from 9th century Baghdad. Hallaj was a legendary Sufi poet, teacher and philosopher whose teachings won the adoration of the public and rage of the political system.

Orthodox leaders seize their opportunity when one reckless act becomes Hallaj's indictable offense, and he is given one last choice: to recant and save his life or stand by his convictions and dance to his death.

As he spends a final night in prison awaiting execution, Hallaj's memories paint a portrait of a man conflicted by love for his family and a consuming search for spiritual truth.

Picture: Hallaj, the Playbill. Photo: Modern Times Stage Company, Toronto, Canada.

No Bar in Islam

2011-11-16T00:01:00.015-05:00

By Vidya Subrahmaniam, *Deoband's fatwa against birthday bashes raises Sufi hackles* - The Hindu - India; Thursday, November 10, 2011

Deoband's fatwa against birthday bashes raises Sufi hackles. Sufi strand points out that the Prophet's birth anniversary is celebrated world over

New Delhi: The Deobandi and Sufi sects of Islam are again on a collision course — this time on holding birthday bashes. In response to a specific question last week, Darul Uloom Deoband issued a fatwa against celebrating birthdays, saying it was a western practice that had no sanction in Islam. Darul Uloom Vice-Chancellor Abul Qasim Naumani pointed out that the seminary did not celebrate even the Prophet's birth anniversary.

Reacting sharply to the fatwa, the All-India Ulama & Mashaikh Board (AIUMB) — a Sufi strand that recently took on the Deobandi branch, accusing it of propagating hard-line Wahabism — said there was no bar in Islam on celebrating birthdays. Indeed, the Prophet's birth anniversary was celebrated the world over with as many as 54 countries, including India, observing the day as a national holiday. The two notable exceptions were Saudi Arabia and Israel, the AIUMB said.

“The fatwa is proof that Deoband would like to impose the foreign ideology of Saudi Arabia and Wahabism on India,” said AIUMB general secretary Maulana Syed Mohammad Ashraf Kichauchhawi.

Far from seeing it as un-Islamic, Indian Muslims had always celebrated the birth of the Prophet by taking out “‘Julus-e-Mohammadi' (processions), lighting candles and celebrating Milaad across the country,” the Maulana said.

The celebrations were valid, because the “birth of the Holy Prophet is the greatest favour of Allah Almighty on humanity. That is why the Muslim community celebrates the birth anniversary of the Holy Prophet with traditional zeal and zest on the 12th of Rabi-ul-Awwal,” he said.

Maulana Kichaucchawi cited chapter and verse from the Koran and ‘Sunnah' to buttress his claim. “The Holy Koran singles out the birthday as an important event. In ‘Surah Maryam,' Allah tala [God] commands us to send salaam on the day Sayyidina Yahya was born.”

Opinion divided

Muslim intellectual opinion seemed divided on the issue, though by and large there was no support for the ‘fatwa'. Ateeque Ansari, coordinator of the Varanasi-based Committee of Arabic Madrassas, said Islam was emphatic in defining ‘farz' (duty) and ‘haraam' (wrong). “‘Farz' has to be observed at all times and ‘haraam' has to be avoided at all times.”

However, a birthday came in neither category, and had to do more with culture than religion: “It is definitely not anti-Islamic but it is clear from the life and times of the Prophet that he himself never participated in any birthday celebrations.”

Mr. Ansari saw the issue as an “unnecessary complication arising from people asking for ‘fatwas' and Deoband deciding to give ‘fatwas.' Is this important? Why are they creating confusion?”

Deoband resident Badr Kazmi was caustic. “This is a complete non-issue. People didn't wear stitched clothes 1400 years ago. So do we go back to doing that? The idea behind celebrating the Prophet's birthday is to remind people to see him as a role model. This is not wrong. But it has nothing to do with religion or fatwas.”

Editor of Nai Duniya Shahid Siddiqui refused to be drawn into the Deoband-Sufi discussion, arguing that both strands were of comparatively recent origin. While a large section of Muslims did celebrate the Prophet's birth anniversary, for Muslims in general the death anniversary was far more important. “What is really celebrated is Urs — the day of one's reunion with God.” Mr. Siddiqui said he was not against birthday celebrations but he did see the practice “as a very recent, western-inspired phenomenon.”

‘Yeh kon log hain’

2011-11-15T00:01:00.017-05:00

By Staff Writer, *Training seeks to promote pluralism through indigenous wisdom* - The Express Tribune - Karachi, Pakistan; Suday, November 6, 2011

A two-day training workshop conducted by Mehergarh on ‘Interventions for Promoting Pluralism’ concluded on Saturday. Members from various youth organisations participated in the training, said a press release issued by Mehergarh.

The facilitators included Dr Fouzia Saeed, Director Mehergarh, Khadim Hussain, who has researched the discourse of extremist forces in Pakistan and Dr Kamran Ahmad,the author of *Roots of Religious Tolerance in Pakistan, India*.

Saeed started the session by a talk on identities, followed by a short history of the Taliban. A film ‘Yeh kon log hain’ (who are these people) was showed to explain how extremism and talibanisation spread in the society. Hussain also talked about extremist forces and how they led the youth astray.

In the end, Saeed gave a presentation on the ‘Pluralistic Discourse’ to the participants, so that the parameters within which the youth-related platforms seek to work on peace and pluralism can be defined. The session concluded with a questions and answers session.

On the second day, Ahmad took the participants on a spiritual journey in which he discussed seven elements of living Sufism in Pakistan,Ishq, Rawabit, Tawakkul, Aks-i-muqaddas, Rawadari, Wahdat-ul-wujud and Jamaliat, giving examples of the South Asian mystics. He emphasised the spirituality we experience everyday and stressed the need to protect it from the extremist forces prevailing all around us. He said the sufis experienced spirituality in their daily lives, not by living in isolation or by deviating from the society.

In light of the arguments given, the participants vouched to reinforce a pluralistic culture through indigenous wisdom. The participants included representatives of Aware Girls, Seeds of Peace Network, Progressive Youth Forum, Neengar Society, Y-Peer Network, Bacha Khan Education Trust Foundation, and Human Rights Commission for Social Justice & Peace and Youth Together for Human Rights Education.

The Mehergarh Youth Consortium invited these organisations to attend the training in order to educate them on the “situation in the country with regards to extremism”.

Visit Mehergarh.org

Picture: Participants attend a session at a two day training workshop ‘Interventions for promoting pluralism’, organised by Mehergarh. Photo: The Express Tribune.

The Spirit of Mawlawiyah

2011-11-14T00:01:00.027-05:00

By Diya Chowdhury, *Rhythm motion* - Tehelka - New Delhi, India; Saturday, November 5, 2011

New Delhi: Amer El Tony put his hand to his chest and said, “It’s a search that lead me here. Singing is praying, and being a Mawlawai is a medium in soul and spirit to achieve that connection with my God.”

Amer is credited with the preservation and continuance of the tradition of the Egyptian Mawlawiyah (more popularly known as Whirling Dervish), when in 1994 he took upon himself the task of rejuvenating the dance form started during the pharaohnic times.

Since then, Amer has regaled the world to this exciting form of dance that rests on the tenets of sufism. Mawlawiyah starts with an ode to God on subtle musical notes produced through three percussion instruments and a flute.

It accelerates to a crescendo of whirling exhilaration and singing that combined together produces that perfect picture of rhythm in motion. To witness such euphoria, where any onlooking crowd cheers and applauds, is truly surrendering oneself to the pleasures of music.

But the journey wasn’t easy for Amer. Coming from a family of city dwellers (his father was a teacher, mother a homemaker), Amer took to Mawlawiyah during his twenties, just as a start to his personal search of a higher order.

“I was looking for something that made me truly happy, a form of meditation that could end my search,” he recalls.

“It was around this time that I discovered Mawlawiyah, which was still in tradition in Egypt, but on a very small scale being conducted by unknown singers and dancers in the villages of Egypt,” he elucidates.

Amer says, as his interest in Mawlawiyah grew, so did his hunger to learn more of its origin. He read through ancient texts and understood the ethos and logic behind the art form. It was several years of painstaking learning that he formed his troupe in 1994.

Amer very soon realised that for this art form to survive, he had to take it to the world outside. Thus, began his tryst with improvising with the Whirling Dervish.

He incorporated the 'tanoura', or the colour element in these dances that reflect in the dresses and skirts that the dancers wear. Traditionally, in the Turkish Dervish, the clothes are subdued, with off-white the preferred tone.

Amer also incorporated changes in music, adding a distinct note to his form. The instruments like the tabla and dohalla are used in repeated forms. So is the flute, which combines the longing the individual wishes to quell through the singing and whirling.

The dances can go one for hours, culminating in a heady mix of drum beats and aggressive singing.

Like our home-grown baul which also emanates from the doctrine of Sufism, the music and dance culminates into a space of its own.

Amer expresses the fondness for the art form. He says, “Mawlawiyah is played out in such a way, that the singer is the centre of attraction, and he acts as the thread between the whirling dancers and himself. With each song he delivers the spirit and speed of music and notes to the dancers in such a way that he is the sun in the a solar system. Once this symbiotic relationship is formed, it creates a divine composition.”

Amer and his troupe has performed the world over. But they have recently started performing in India, with a show in Kolkata earlier this year. “We were thrilled! A performance of an hour rolled out beyond that, and the audience wanted more! Such is the spirit of Mawlawiyah!” Amer says.

In New Delhi, for the Delhi International Arts Festival 2011, the troupe is set to return to the capital in February 2012 with the intention of conducting workshops.

“People want to know more on Mawlawiyah, its origin and what it encapsulates. So we decided to take this ahead,” he says.

Amer is currently employed with the Academy of Art, Cairo and has a PhD in Mawlawiyah, probably the only person with an expertise in the discipline.

From Orthodoxy to Sufism.

2011-11-13T00:01:00.021-05:00

By TAN Editor, *Muslims’ Worlds* - The Art Newspaper - London, UK; Wednesday, November 2, 2011

“Muslims’ Worlds” is due to open in Berlin’s Ethnological Museum in Dahlem this month [Saturday, November 12], exploring the theme of gender segregation in traditional Islamic societies and Muslim diversity, from orthodoxy to Sufism.

In four rooms, measuring 850 sq. m, about 300 objects mainly from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia dating from the 18th century to the mid 20th century, have been organised to show, for example, how men traditionally dominate public life while Muslim women are associated with the home.

Highlights include a carved and decorated wall from an Afghan guest house and a 19th-century coat of a wandering Sufi dervish from Persia.

Visit the exhibition at the Dahlem Museum website

Picture: 19th-century coat of a wandering Sufi dervish from Persia. Photo: Dahlem Museum/TAN.

Known and Accepted

2011-11-12T00:00:00.024-05:00

By TZ Editor, *Court declares reasons behind rejection of cemevi closure case* - Today's Zaman - Istanbul, Turkey; Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Court declares reasons behind rejection of cemevi closure case

The Ankara 16th Court of First Instance announced on Tuesday its reasoning behind its dismissal of a closure case against the Çankaya Cemevi Building Association filed by the Ankara Governor’s Office against the association for defining a cemevi -- where Alevis gather to pray -- as a “house of worship” in its bylaws.

The decision handed down on Oct. 4 by Judge Yaşar Eren to reject the case stated that “Alevi cemevis or cem houses have been socially known and accepted as places of worship for centuries. The provision that cemevis are places of worship, which was included in the association’s bylaws, is not in conflict with Article 2 of the Turkish Constitution and there is not a law that prohibits this in the Turkish Constitution.”

Pointing out that there is a basic, fundamental right to freedom of religion or belief for all people, communities and organizations that is protected under international human rights treaties and Article 24 of the Turkish Constitution -- in which it is referred to as “freedom of religion and conscience” -- the court decision included a statement that “we cannot say Alevism is a faith, but it is a belief system like Sufism, Hanafism, Malikism, Shafi’ism and Bektashism.”

Because of the court’s decision, cemevis can now be legally defined as places of worship, lawyers said with regards to the precedent established by the rejection of the closure case.

The non-recognition of cemevi as places of worship is based on an opinion held by the Religious Affairs Directorate that is not legally binding in Turkish law.

A memo sent by the Religious Affairs Directorate to the Interior Ministry on Dec. 17, 2004 stated that “it is not possible to consider cemevis and other [such] places as places of worship because Alevism, which is a sub-group of Islam, cannot have a place of worship other than mosques or mescit that are common places of worship within Islam.”

The Associations Directorate of the Interior Ministry on March 30, 2005 sent a letter to the Ankara Governor’s Office referring to this opinion. The Interior Ministry asked for the association to remove references to cemevis as places of worship from its bylaws.

The association refused to comply, stating that for all Alevis, cemevis are accepted as places of worship. The governor’s office then filed a case with the Ankara Prosecutor’s Office to close down the association. Prosecutors wanted to shut down the association, arguing that a cemevi cannot legally be deemed a house of worship.

However, the right to establish, own and maintain places of worship is a fundamental part of the right to freedom of religion or belief that is included in the Turkish Constitution under the Article 24 as well as international human rights afforded everyone, such as by Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Turkey is a party.

However, religious communities in Turkey face serious obstacles -- both formal and informal -- that prevent them from fully exercising this right.

In Turkey, the Directorate of Religious Affairs has the right to open mosques and administer them. Alevi or any other religious communities can only build other places of worship, such as cemevis, privately. They cannot legally own buildings of this type.

***

Alevism included in UK school curriculum

Alevism has been introduced to the curriculum of British primary schools through the efforts of the Alevi Cultural Centre and Cemevi.

The first lesson on Alevism began on Tuesday with a ceremony at Enfield Princess Wales Primary School in north London. The lesson was given to children aged between 5 and 11.

Attending the ceremony was Dr. Celia M. Jenkins from the department of social sciences at the University of Westminster, who said it was a first in the history of Britain.

Alevi Cultural Centre and Cemevi Chairman İsrafil Erbil said he was very happy that Alevism would be taught in a school that includes students of 72 nationalities.

He added that awareness of Alevism would be raised and that they hope the Alevi children would feel more comfortable expressing themselves.

A Special Influence

2011-11-11T00:01:00.037-05:00

By Mahtab Bashir, *Nomad showcases paintings of Iranian artist* - Pakistan Today - Lahore, Pakistan; Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

Mohsen Keiany, an Iranian-born artist, showcased on Monday his collection of 19 paintings at the Nomad Gallery with a focus on the western art movements such as Expressionism and Surrealism.

Islamabad: A quick glance at his contemporary amalgamated art pieces would show that Mohsen’s inspiration comes from Iranian paintings, archaeology, Persian mythology, Islamic art; particularly traditional Persian miniature painting and the landscape of Iran. In addition to that the Sufi mysticism is a special influence on his work.

It is fascinating to see as to how his work reflects his Persian roots and the cultural and spiritual influences on him.

Hailing from the city of Shiraz, which is regarded as the capital of Persian culture, and home to several famous poets and Sufi masters including Hafez Shirazi, Sheikh Saadi, Mansoor al-Hallaj and others, Dr Keiany is also known for meditating in front of the canvas and then painting from the intensely vivid images from his memory.

His work is inspired from Divan (a collection of Hafez’s poetry), which gives him inspiration.

The city of Shiraz is itself an inspiration for the painter. This city is abundant with gardens and fruit trees and has its own individual school of miniature art, colourful crafts, inlaid mosaic, decorative tiles and magnificent carpets, beautiful architecture and rare stained glass windows.

“I use Divan of Hafez as the prophecy, which guides my in finding answers to my questions and gives me direction,” observed the artist in his press statement issued here.

Talking to Pakistan Today, Nomad Gallery Director Nageen Hyat said that all his works are bright, colourful and interwoven with the Persian poetry of Hafez.

“The images are bright and colourful and immediately draw the viewer towards them. Nearly all his paintings seem to be telling a story. A particularly beautiful painting by Dr Keiany is called ‘Spiritual Discourse’. The painting depicts a group of Sufis and a woman sitting around a bonfire. Most of the figures in the painting are looking at one another busy in some discussion,” she said.

So the Persian poetry with the city of Shiraz as its background is a mesmerising experience for a viewer.

Mohsen’s paintings are mainly oil-on-canvas and they depict men and women playing Daff, Tar, Setar and flute. The colours used are rich and reveal a detail of expressionism.

An equally beautiful painting is “Narges”, done in orange, red and yellow hues.

Another noteworthy aspect of Dr Keiany’s works is his depiction of some musical instrument in nearly every painting. Some paintings make the instrument apparent, as in the “Nienavazan”.

“While some paintings show love, music, peace and tranquillity, others show action like “Choogan” (polo). The characters are depicted while in the midst of a game. The painting is dominated by rich colours perhaps show the rush of facial expressions that come with sports, and the energy that the game requires and generates,”

Nageen explained, adding the paintings have a heavy use of blue and other lighter colours that have a calming effect on the viewer, which is possibly what the painter is aiming for.

Born in 1970 in Iran, Mohsen Keiany having shown a talent for art, completed his secondary education, became a teacher and gained a scholarship to study art at the Esfahan University. He secured a Master’s degree and then lectured at Shiraz University.

An award-winning artist, Keiany has exhibited over 50 times internationally. He has exhibited 35 times in the UK, recently at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and his work has been reviewed by the BBC and many newspapers.

He now lives in the USA and has completed his PhD thesis. His exhibition at Nomad will continue until November 12.

[Visit Mohsen Keiany website]

Involving Sufi Values

2011-11-10T00:01:00.035-05:00

By Hana Abdul Hai, *I Ranked First in the Exhibition of Khartoum as Capital of Arab Culture, Interview* - Sudan Vision Daily - Khartoum, Sudan; Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

Sudanese plastic arts movement has passed different stages of development towards crystallizing its national identity since 1950s when first graduates of Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts joined social mobility aimed at liberating from colonialism as well as cultural alienation.

The graduates of the faculty exerted tangible efforts to find aesthetical values derived from the heart of the local community to cope with the national scheme of Sudanization adopted by Sudanese intelligence at time.

The artistic art then was relevant to social development took place not only in Sudan but also across the region since its beginning.

It is remarkable that number of Sudanese artists has increased tangibly throughout recent period. The increase has contributed negatively to change traditional visions adopted by considerable number of people accusing plastic art of uncertainty as well as ambiguity.

The remarkable turnout to galleries nowadays proves that the long journey paced by Sudanese artistic movement has finally reached a destination where plastic art can find a room in a society once gazed on it suspiciously.

Sudan Vision Daily interviewed the painter Adam Ali al Radi to enlighten readers about recent and current developments of plastic art movement in the country.

Q: When did your relation with art kick off?
A: Since early childhood I used to paint and use clay to make different shapes. When I went to primary school my talent began to draw others' attention and a number of teachers encouraged me.

Q: Has your family support you? Haven't they tried to make you change your mind?
A: I can say that I am part of democratic family. My elder brother is a good painter and my family prepared good environment for my talent to develop naturally.

Q: How did you join Faculty of Fine Arts?
A: I was admitted at Juba University-Faculty of Fine Arts. When we finished our first year at university there were no more than four fine arts students. The university asked either to join other faculties or joining Sudan University Faculty of Fine Arts. I chose to join Sudan University and my family encouraged me to do so.

Q: There are number of artistic currents in Sudan. Which one of them affected your artistic work?
A: During the 1950s a number of artistic currents emerged in Sudan. Khartoum School concentrated on reconsidering Sudanese artistic heritage while One School, established by late Ahmad Abdul Aa'al, concentrated on involving Sufi values in artistic work.

I think One School has contributed tangibly to the development of Sudanese plastic art movement.

Q: Can you remember your first gallery?
A: My first gallery was relevant to the event of Khartoum center of Arab culture conducted in 2005. I was the representative of Khartoum state at that gallery and I won the first prize allocated for the best contribution.

Later I took part in a gallery called "Secretary of the Unknown Streets" which allocated to portrait experiences of homeless children. The gallery was based on innovative vision as it didn't follow traditional rules systemizing galleries. We display our paints in the open air.

Q: What other galleries have you taken part in?
A: I am a member of a group of artists organizing annual gallery based on partnership between number of artists work together to produce artistic works belong to the a group not to individual. I also took part in "Black and White Gallery" and "What else?" in addition to various galleries.

Q: What the message that the gallery titled "What else?" tries to convey?
A: It is my current gallery conducted in Al Rabei Center for Youth. The gallery has been named in the name of one of the paintings bearing the same name.

The gallery simply points out that there are many questions in our life need for answers.

Q: What are your favorite materials when you paint?
A: I almost use all materials including pencils, water and oil colors. I also use all types of cloth and wood used for painting.

Q: Who is responsible for misunderstanding of paintings among the members of public?
A: In general understanding of abstract paintings depends on one's culture however misunderstanding of artistic works can be attributed to lack of artistic culture as well little knowledge of artistic rules. I think negligence of arts by government is one of the important factors contributing to misunderstanding.

Q: To what do you ascribe high prices of particular paintings?
A: I think it is better that painting can be afforded by all citizens the thing facilitates spread of artistic culture.

Q: Can you tell us about the most adorable painting that has left strong effect on you?
A: I love the paintings of Renoir and Cézanne. The two in addition to other artists left striking paintings still enjoying incredible admiration.

An Electronic Battlefield

2011-11-09T00:01:00.001-05:00

By Osama el-Mahdy and Hany ElWaziry, *Brotherhood, Salafis and Sufis wage electronic war ahead of elections* - Al Masry Al Youm - Cairo, Egypt; Monday, October 31, 2011

Brotherhood, Salafis and Sufis wage electronic war ahead of elections

Facebook has turned into an electronic battlefield for the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafis and Sufis campaigning for seats in the upcoming parliamentary elections, as they increasingly criticize each other and promote their own candidates on the popular social network.

Sufis have quoted fatwas (religious edicts) by Salafis denouncing demonstrations and prohibiting women from being members of parliament, shown video clips about Salafi militant wings and promoted Sufi candidates, whom they call “relatives of the Prophet.”

The Brotherhood, on the other hand, has been posting the slogans it has been using in its parliamentary campaign, including “Islam Is the Solution” and “We Bear Good for Egypt.”

The group has also posted maps of Egypt's electoral districts and used illustrations to educate citizens on how to vote.

The Brotherhood has focused on spreading its party platform, which emphasizes social justice and combating corruption.

Translated from the Arabic Edition

A Peaceful Feeling

2011-11-08T00:01:00.003-05:00

By TT Culture Desk, *Nematollah Vali, the 14th century Sufi* - Tehran Times - Tehran, Iran; Monday, October 31, 2011

Nematollah Vali, the 14th century Sufi

Thirty five kilometers south of the city of Kerman, in the small town of Mahan, stands the beautiful pilgrimage shrine of the Sufi saint Shah Nur-ed-Din Nematollah Vali who was an Islamic scholar and a Sufi poet from the 14th and 15th centuries.

Nematollah was born in Aleppo (now in northern Syria), spent much of his early life in Iraq, including seven years in Mecca, and then traveled to Samarkand, Herat and Yazd before finally settling in Mahan in 1406.

He is said to have lived for one hundred years, from 1331 to 1431, and is the founder of the Nematollahi order of Sufi dervishes who still gather at the sanctuary in Mahan.

The shrine complex comprises three courtyards, a reflecting pool, minarets and a mosque. The earliest construction is attributed to the Bahmanid ruler Ahmed I Vali who erected the sanctuary chamber in 1436. Shah Abbas I undertook extensions and renovations in 1601, including reconstruction of the tiled blue dome, one of the most magnificent architectural masterpieces in old Persia.

During the Qajar period the site was particularly popular, necessitating the construction of additional courtyards to accommodate increased numbers of pilgrims. The minarets also date from this period.

The small room where Nematollah Vali prayed and meditated contains beautiful tile decorations and has a wonderfully peaceful feeling.

Source: Sacred Sites

Wisdom and Piety

2011-11-07T00:01:00.001-05:00

By Staff Reporter, *Sufi Sheikh Assassinated In Southern Russia* - Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty - Prague, Czech Republic; Saturday, October 29, 2011

A Sufi sheikh has been shot dead at his home in a village in southeastern part of the Russian republic of Daghestan, RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service reports.

Sirajudin Israfilov, 56, was imam of a Sufi mosque in the town of Derbent and reportedly had between 5,000-10,000 supporters. He was not recognized as a sheikh by Daghestan's official Muslim clergy.

Israfilov's brother said he was shot dead at close range on October 27 in the village of Khurik by two men in camouflage clothes who entered the yard of his home.

In a joint statement, Daghestani President Magomedsalam Magomedov and the republican parliament and government paid tribute to Israfilov's "wisdom and piety" and underscored his rejection of "extremism and terrorism."

The authorities said they believe Israfilov was murdered by members of the Islamic insurgency, which has killed a dozen local imams over the past two years.

But those killings were all in the northern and central districts of Daghestan. Khurik is in the southeastern Tabasaran district, close to the border with Azerbaijan.

Daghestan's Muslims are divided between adherents of canonical Sunni Islam represented by the Shafii legal school; a local form of Sufism; and the Salafi ("wahhabi") Islam professed by members of the North Caucasus insurgency.

Of Daghestan's 19 Sufi sheikhs, the official Spiritual Board of Muslims of Daghestan (DUMD) recognizes only four.

The DUMD website was inaccessible at the time of this report. RFE/RL was unable to contact the DUMD for comment on Israfilov's death.

‘Artefacts of Devotion’

2011-11-06T00:01:00.022-04:00

By Staff Reporter, *Jhoolay Lal: Mystic beauty of Sehwan inspires Frenchman to compile book (Karachi city)* - The Express Tribune - Karachi, Pakistan; Sunday, October 30, 2011

Jhoolay Lal: Mystic beauty of Sehwan inspires Frenchman to compile book (Karachi city). How can an interest in Sufism lead someone to write a book? Well, just ask Dr Michel Boivin.

Karachi: Seated in a crowd of around 70 people, dressed casually in a pair of blue jeans and open ended shoes, Sufi enthusiast Michel Boivin sat next to a student, raring to talk about his book on Sehwan titled ‘Artefacts of Devotion’.

The French author, who is currently heading an international and interdisciplinary study group on Sindh, sat humbly at Alliance Francaise, Karachi, on Friday to discuss the Red Saint, his shrine and his new book.

All heads turned towards Boivin, who was standing in a corner of the room, the audience was waiting quite eagerly for Boivin to step up and talk about ‘Artefacts of Devotion’ and Sehwan.

He walked up to the podium with a slight grin on his face. It caused quite a stir in the audience as people fidgeted and craned their necks trying to catch a glimpse of the good-looking Frenchman. Once the crowd settled down, Boivin had everyone’s undivided attention.

He started off with a presentation which included some photos and extracts from the book. The author also talked about how some Frenchmen and women had visited Pakistan in 1958 and were fascinated by the remains of the 1947 partition.

According to Boivin, a lot of work has been done on Gandhara art and civilisation. “I visited Sehwan once and it just caught my attention,” he said with an intense look on his face. “It is fascinating because it deals with Sufism, shrines, devotees and rituals.”

The main topic of the book, he explained, was the shrine of the unconventional qalandar, the Red Saint. He mentioned that his interest was mainly in Sehwan because of his fascination with Sufism.

To show the audience how much Sehwan had developed, he showed them photos from the early 19th century. The author made the audiences imaginations run wild with details from the four main chapters which talk about the history and significance of each aspect of the shrines in Sindh. The last chapter focuses on everyday objects of devotion.

While responding to a question, he said that he had always been fascinated by the tangled and complexity of the culture practised in this small town of Sindh.

Visit Dr Michel Boivin website

Remembering the Ustad

2011-11-05T00:01:00.036-04:00

By Padmaja Challakere, *Tribute - Nusrat's legacy* - The Hindu - India; Saturday, October 29, 2011

Tribute - Nusrat's legacy. Remembering the Ustad in the month of his birth anniversary.

Did Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan take too many liberties with the qawwali in order to popularise it?

Given how awash we are with copies of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's music, given that Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, his nephew, has bagged so many popular music awards, it seems fitting to examine the legacy of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (October 13, 1948 – August 16, 1997) who made the traditional Sufi qawwali yield stunningly new melodies.

I wish I could do with words what those sketches of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan by Japanese artists have done with just one or two precise broad strokes: Reveal the exceptional qualities gathered in him, the kindness of his face, his powerfully intelligent mind, and his vocal prowess.

Nusrat Sahib is known mainly for his jaunty fusion music, fast-paced sargam improvisations and disco-beat songs that Peter Gabriel introduced to the Western world through “Shahbaaz Qalandar” (1990).

But to know Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan only through the Peter Gabriel collaborations or the Bally Sagoo remixes is to know only a comic strip travesty of a tremendous singer.

Listen to his classical Sufi qawwalis — especially Hazrat Khwaja Sang Kheliye Damaar, “Shamso Doha Badaroo Kuja”, “Allah Hoo”, “Data Tera Darbar hai”, “Aaj Rang Harima”, “Mera Piya Ghar Aaya”, “Ya Haiyo Ya Quayuum” — to reach the true musical magic of his expressiveness.

His voice marshalled levels and kinds of piety, beauty, energy, and musical ingenuity that went beyond anything I had heard before. The music was majestic, demanding, exciting, and deeply joyful, and it threw classical music into totally unexpected corners.

I felt the need for a book which explained the structure of the classical qawwali — jikr (verbal invocation) and zarb (stroke of the drum or clap) and this I found distilled in Regula Burckhardt Qureshi's book entitled Sufi Music of India and Pakistan: Sound, Context and Meaning in Qawwali.

But mainly I was curious about his subjectivity and I wanted to read a biography of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, one that linked the musician to the man, and this I found in the 1992 biography of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, written by Ahmed Aqeel Ruby, translated by Sajjad Haider Malik, published in Pakistan.

Scarcity of material

What is odd is that there is no other biography or book devoted to this extraordinary musician.

The Aqeel Ruby biography tells us that Nusrat Sahib absented himself from “the business” of music. He let people trouble him and use him. He opened himself up to commotion.

Biographical evidence shows Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to be a singularly kind man, one completely uninhibited about his kindness. We are told he was a Sufi at heart, a non-conformist in what we call “pragmatic matters”; that he divided his income into 21 equal parts and each member of his group got paid the same amount that he took himself, and the same amount was set aside for charity and for family.

It is my belief that this Sufi self-unconcern is what kept Nusrat's traditional qawwali innocent of corruption and obsoleteness although he opened himself up the musical corruptions of pop and improvisations like no other classical artist.

Improvisation in classical music is not about the artist spinning out of traditional legacies with the goal of outstripping his/her forerunners but rather about imagining a different sort of affinity with tradition and with teachers of the past. There is no feverish competition with the forerunners; the improvisation is the surprise of something gathered in response to the moment.

Improvisation is more than newness and ingenuity; it is the process by which the truth of tradition becomes an active principle in the mind.

But these days, improvisation bows to commercial pressures, and the commercial, in all times, has always destroyed art and communities. Maybe it is fitting to recall that the two fundamental conceptual poles of qawaali are: sama (to listen) and jikr (to mention), and listening here goes beyond consumption or enjoyment.

Listening here signifies listening in order to empathise with others and to merge with the sacred in order to relinquish the ego.

There is no doubt that Nusrat gave a significant place to fusion perhaps out of a sense of responsibility to popularise qawwali among the youth. But it seems to me that the innovator Nusrat and the traditionalist Nusrat cannot be divided.

He was tremendously good in both these irreconcilable realms but he did not try to have it both ways. I see Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan as a traditionalist who saw tradition in terms of an active struggle; in other words, as making room for improvisation.

Picture: Magical moments... Photo: The Hindu Photo Archives.