Religious Brotherhood

By Express News Service, "Sufi saints on a mission to spread peace" - Express Buzz - Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

April, Sunday 12, 2009

Hyderabad: Setting an example of religious brotherhood, the members of World Sufi Council and Sanathan saints, joined hands to unitedly promote peace and love across the country.

The saints are from different parts of the country and members of various religious institutions. The members who were in Hyderabad as part of their tour spoke at length about the coming general elections which is due this month.

Md. Sufi Gilani, Chairman, World Sufi Council, Ajmersharif opines, “We are here to spread not only love but also remind people on choosing the right candidate for the elections. We oppose those parties and candidates who are communal and divide the country on religious basis for their selfish motives.”

He said, “When elections are fast approaching the parties are quick to divide Hindus and Muslims, thus, flaring up emotions. We, hereby, appeal to the people not to get carried away by politicians and instead vote for a secular candidate with credible record”.

Gilani feels that some politicians spread intolerance but an average citizen is by nature peaceful and law abiding.

He further adds that the members embark on a quest to know the problems of the people and find solutions, which is why, they have set out on this national tour.

Umakant Maharaj of Divine Shri Ram International, Haridwar, adds “We should remember that we can make the world a happy place. India has always been known to be a tolerant and united country. As saints of love, it is our responsibility to preach communal harmony and peace.”

The members advised the citizens not to vote on the basis of religion, caste or creed and shun violence.

The saints will continue their peace tour into Karnataka and later covering places like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Assam, Delhi and others.

The saints association vowed to work towards country’s prosperity even after the elections are over.

Using Religion for Political Gain

By IANS, "Hindu saint asks people not to vote for BJP" - The Thai Indian - Bangkok, Thailand
Monday, April 13, 2009

Patna: A Hindu saint Monday asked the people not to support or vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has raised the issue of the Ram temple at Ayodhya again.

“We have been cautioning people across the country that the BJP is eyeing to capture power at the centre by using the Ram temple issue again. It is another example of mixing or using religion for political gain at the cost of the people and nation,” Mahant Janamjey Sharanji, the president of the Sri Ram Janam Bhoomi Nirman Nyas, Ayodhya said here.

“The much awaited construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya is possible through common or mutual agreement,” he said.

The seer, who is leading the “Sanatan Sant Sufi Yatra”, said the nine member team - comprising four Muslim Sufi saints and five Hindu seers - will go around India to create awareness among the people to teach a lesson to those playing politics in the name of religion.

He made it clear that their campaign from Kashmir to Kanyakumari to spread the message of peace, love and communal harmony by countering hatred, has nothing to do with any political party.

“We have been requesting people to discard politicians if he or she is playing politics in the name of religion. They may belong to any political party,” he said. The seer also termed senior BJP leader L.K. Advani’s letter to Hindu saints last week as a “gimmick” to influence them before elections.

Sufi Mohd Geelani Kattan, the president of Ajmer unit of the World Sufi Council, said millions of people across the country were facing unemployment, starvation and poverty but none of the political parties had a clear stand on these issues.

“We are asking people to vote for those who promise to provide employment, food and fight against terror,” he said.

In Praise of Meeran Sahib

By Neha Bhatt, "Fakir fusion" - Business Standard - Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Sunday, April 12, 2009

Sufi singers from Tamil Nadu find fame and a wider audience

The Fakirs from Nagore Dargah in Tamil Nadu, who recently performed at several venues in Delhi, had a quiet, meditative presence on stage, which was enchanting.

At Bhakti Utsav, the music festival held every year at Nehru Park in Delhi, the Fakirs were just one of the many groups of artistes invited to perform. Other forms included gurbani, Vedic chanting, Rabindra Sangeet and the music of the Bauls.

The Fakirs held their own, singing in a popular music style to the accompaniment of rabahna or frame drums. Their lyrics conveyed praise of the Sufi saint Meeran Sahib, through the medium of stories.

At their native place in Tamil Nadu, the Fakirs are known for singing devotional songs in Tamil and Arabic dialects at religious and social occasions.

A well-travelled group, having performed in Australia, Israel and many other countries, they have dabbled in fusion music, whether that involves singing to the rhythm of the tabla and other percussion instruments, blending their voices with that of Carnatic singers, or chanting to the beat of the drums or the strains of the guitar.

The singers in the group — Abdul Ghani, Ajah Maideen and Saburmaideen Babha Sabeer — say that they especially enjoy jamming with instruments like the tabla and veena. Ajah Maideen says, “The exciting part is when we fuse our Sufi chants with distinct sounds. The rhythm of our music gets enhanced with such a combination. Each song symbolises love for the Almighty and fosters camaraderie between people of different cultures, religions and beliefs.”

Interestingly, it was their performance as part of a musical collective for Laya Project — a production that brought together folk traditions from the 2004 tsunami-affected regions in South-east Asia — that marked a new beginning for the group. EarthSync, the Chennai-based label that produced Laya Project, subsequently brought out an album exclusively featuring the Fakirs, called Nagore Sessions.

While the singers are pleased that their music is being documented, and that they are able to perform on different platforms, it is evident that not many will be able to step into their shoes.

“Our children have not taken up music professionally. They sing occasionally, in parallel with their occupations,” says one of the singers, Abdul Ghani, sadly.

[Visit the Bhakti Ustav Festival website and watch the Photo Gallery http://www.sehernow.in/index.html]

A Sufi by Inclination

By Ahmed Darwish, "'Enlightened by sight'" - Al-Ahram Weekly - Cairo, Egypt
9 - 15 April 2009 / Issue No. 942

Ahmed Darwish reviews the life of one of Egypt's most distinguished calligraphers

Khan Al-Maghrabi in Zamalek has put together an exhibition of the work of calligrapher Hamed El-Uweidi to mark the anniversary of his death last year at the age of 53. The exhibition, entitled "Love and Salute", drew crowds of art enthusiasts and calligraphy buffs.

Calligraphy may seem to be a luxury, as it requires a skill and takes too much time, especially at a time when most of us spend our days hunched over a keyboard, the nostalgia for beautiful writing is hard to resist.

I first met El-Uweidi at an exhibition of his work at the Higher Council for Culture (HCC). The exhibition was arranged for the 20th anniversary of the death of the poet Amal Dunqul, and the event was sponsored entirely by Gaber Asfour, then secretary-general of the HCC and an old friend of Dunqul's. At the Khan Al-Maghrabi, I felt that time had only added to the inspiration of his message.

Looking at El-Uweidi's work, one is gripped by a persistent sense of wonder. Most of the pieces fuse old and new approaches, since El-Uweidi remains faithful to the legacy of centuries past while experimenting with new approaches with the same freshness found in such works as those of Youssef Sayeda, Kamal El-Sarrag and Naga El-Mahdawi.

Poetry is his favourite theme. "If enamoured, it's because our faces are enlightened by sight." One of his pieces offers the line with such a melodic tenderness that one can almost hear it.
What sets El-Uweidi apart from other calligraphers is that he uses the background of his compositions as a basic component of the piece. It is as if one is prepared for the opus with a chorus of whispers, or perhaps eased into the melee with a nudge on the shoulder. Then an oversized letter, his trademark, brings the message home on a dramatic note, one that pushes the delicate harmony of the inimitable composition out of this world and into another level of visual expression altogether.

In another piece, he presents a fragment of poetry: "He who says no to the face of he who said yes, and teaches man to tear apart the emptiness, he who says no doesn't die, but becomes a soul in pain immortalised." He is using a three dimensional pattern here, offering Persian script interlaced with another script called Thuluth, the word "no" blown out of proportion, offering the canvass an audio quality of immense impact.

In all El-Uweidi's compositions there is a yearning for spirituality, a supplication to a higher power, a quest for a spiritual journey that takes him to the poetry of Ahmed Shawqi and Mahmoud Darwish and the sayings of Ibn Arabi and Omar Khayyam.

El-Uweidi, who held the post of art director at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic studies, was a Sufi by inclination, a poet by temperament, and a man of encyclopaedic knowledge. A keen collector of rare Quran recitals, he would spend hours listening to the great Quranic readers Mustafa Ismail and Mohamed Siddiq El-Minshawi.

He was close to his family, and used to spend most of his time at home either reading or talking to his daughter, Aida, who was 10 when he died. He was also a frequent visitor of old mosques, his favourite being the Sultan Hassan Mosque, a great place for admiring the fine examples of Mameluke calligraphy. El-Uweidi used to take his son Salah to mosques in Islamic Cairo, usually opting for the mosques with the best examples of calligraphy.

El-Uweidi owned a large collection of art, Sufi literature, and poetry, and had plans to write the whole Quran in calligraphy, but died before he could fulfil his wish. He died on 4 March 2008 and was buried in Qus village in Upper Egypt.

Picture: El-Uweidi adding the final touches to one of his calligraphy masterpieces in Al-Ahram office [click to enlarge]. Photo: Al-Ahram

Of Beauty and Love

By Emily Snyder, "Carleton Humanities Center Sponsors Screening of Sufi Mystical Poem Interpretation" - Carleton College News - Carleton, MN, USA
Thursday, April 9, 2009

Northfield: Carleton College will screen a modern dance interpretation of Beauty and Love, a Sufi mystical poem on Wednesday, April 15, 2009 at 4:30 p.m. in Carleton's Gould Library Athenaeum.

The video screening will be followed by a discussion led by Carleton graduate and University of Washington professor and Ottoman scholar Walter Andrews.

A Mediterranean reception will immediately follow the discussion. This event is free and open to the public.

The modern dance interpretation of the Sufi mystical poem will be performed in the Mevlevi (Rumi) tradition, a Sufi order established in present-day Turkey.

The Mevlevi tradition uses dance performance as a form of remembrance of God, or dhikr. The dance represents an individual’s spiritual ascent through mind and love to reach “Perfect,” a journey that involves abandoning the ego to arrive at truth. Whirling is the most common type of dance to use as a form of dhikr, which earns the Mevlevi tradition its alternate identity as the “Whirling Dervishes.”

Andrews, a distinguished Ottoman scholar, specializes in Ottoman and Turkish literature. His most recent book, titled The Age of the Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society, was co-authored with Mehmet Kalpakli. The book explores the sex, spirituality, and politics of Ottoman historical culture through lyrical poetry, along with the extension of the “age of beloveds” into Western Europe through a closer examination of Venice, Rome, Florence, and London.

For more information regarding the screening, discussion, or library reception, please contact Mary Tatge at (507) 222-4252.

The Humanities Center and Carleton’s religion and theatre and dance departments sponsor this event.

Milk, Husks and Rose Petals

Culture Desk Editor, "Sidi Goma Performs exhilarating Sufi Devotional Music and Dance" - The Somerville News - Somerville, MA, USA
Thursday, April 9, 2009

Sidi Goma performs exhilarating Sufi devotional music and dance filled with intoxicating drum patterns, joyful praise dances and virtuosic feats of agility that gradually reach an ecstatic climax.

The wildly energetic ensemble of 12 drummers, dancers and singers provide a rare opportunity to discover the joyful and exuberant music and dance of the hidden community of Sidi from Gujarat, India.

The mysterious, little-known Sidis are the descendants of Africans who traveled from East Africa to India over the last 1000 years. The Sidis of Gujarat are a tribal Sufi community of East African origin which came to India eight centuries ago and made Gujarat their home.

As Sufi Muslim devotees to their African saint and symbolic ancestor, Bhava Gor, their sacred songs praise the gift of joy he brought from the waves of the sea. Sidi Goma is a loosely-knit, semi-hereditary Sufi organization, with a core group of performers that is rounded out with a rotating cast of other men from the village, depending on who is available at the time.

They perform in a group of twelve: four lead musicians (drummers/singers) and eight dancers.

Sidi Goma's program presents an overview of Sidi ritual performance, from the traditional muezzin call to prayer to a staged ritual performance of a damal. It centers on danced zikrs (prayers), consisting of joyful, satirical praise dances to their ancestral saint, Bhava Gor. In a distinctly African practice, the performers are "dressed" in fabric, made up with face paint and matching peacock-feather headdresses and skirts.

However, it is their musical instruments that provide the Sidis with their most vital link to Africa. They employ a variety of hand drums and hand percussion instruments in performance, among them coconut rattles, an under-arm drum, double-headed drums and a large foot drum. The most distinctive Sidi instrument is the malunga, a braced bow similar to the Brazilian berimbau.

Like all Sufi's, there is an ecstatic component to Sidi Goma's ritual, with its rhythmic chanting and hypnotic, ever-faster drumming.

Their performance, which starts with the a cappella muezzin, crescendos to a frenzy with increasingly virtuosic dance solos and singing. It finally climaxes in a coconut-breaking feat, in which coconuts are tossed high into the air and cracked open with a head butt, that leaves the stage a slippery but fragrant mess, littered with milk, shattered husks and rose petals.

Since the 1990's, Sidi Goma has been performing outside of their community to raise consciousness about the discrimination and poverty that Sidis face in India.

In recent years, Sidi Goma has been busy developing their international profile: touring the UK in 2002, East Africa in 2003 and North America and Europe ever since. In 2005, they released their first album, Black Sufis of Gujarat. They also recorded on Sidi Sufis: African India Mystics Of Gujarat, an album of unique field recordings by UCLA ethnomusicologists Amy and Nazir Jairazbhoy, made in collaboration with Abdul Hamid Sidi and the Sidi community during their survey of Sidi shrines in Gujarat in 1999-2002.

Proceeds benefit Sidi education projects in Gujarat.

Free preperformance talk with dance critic Debra Cash: 45 minutes prior to each show.

World Music/CRASHarts presents the Boston debut of Sidi Goma: The Black Sidis of Gujarat on Saturday, May 2, 8pm at Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Sq., Somerville. Tickets are $28. For tickets and information call World Music/CRASHarts (617) 876-4275 or buy online at http://www.WorldMusic.org/

[Picture from the Sidi Goma Website: http://www.kapa-productions.com/sididotcom/]

Drunk on God

By Claudia Rousseau, "Exhibit explores urban tales and spiritual journeys" - Business Gazette - Gaithersburg, MD, USA
Wednesday, April 8, 2009

The work of Montgomery County artists Tom Block and Michael Enn Sirvet is at the District's Hamiltonian Gallery as part of the fifth of its series of exhibits of Hamiltonian Fellowship winners, along with paintings by their "mentor artist" Lisa Montag Brotman of Bethesda.

Wrapping around the gallery's back walls are the 25 mixed media panels comprising Block's "Conference of the Birds." Each panel is 6 feet high, and together they measure 62.5 feet wide. Thus, Block's work, which, at these dimensions, becomes a kind of wall itself, fills the viewer's visual field with what at first may appear to be a chaotic jumble of brightly colored graffiti-like marks. In fact, it is a very carefully orchestrated series of images echoing the allegorical quest of 30 birds in the spiritual epic of the same name written by the Persian Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar in 1177.

Block has become something of a comparative theologian in the past decade or so, publishing scholarly articles on the relationship between Sufism and Jewish mysticism. He has delved extensively into Sufi thinking about the path to enlightenment, the obstacles along the way and its equivocal end where "drunk on God," the pilgrim finds that God is within. The idea of God within is an idea intrinsic to interpretations of Sufism dating back to the roots of Islam.

What Block has done here is reinterpret the poem in a pictorial sequence taking place in the urban setting, and featuring the artist. Executed on canvas, it exhibits an amazing density of painted and pasted elements, paper sketches in ink and pencil, and acrylic, gold and silver paint. These are layered, drawn and re-drawn. Sometimes, collaged elements are torn and reworked. Handwritten text, with references to everything from current events to the Kabbalah, appears everywhere, requiring the viewer to get up close to and get lost in the surface.

The translation of the spiritual journey, with its didactic stations, into contemporary street imagery takes it out of the exclusive religious context of its source and universalizes it. Thus, at the end (the work "reads" like a scroll from left to right), hands point back the other way — back into the world. For Block, the aim of classical mystical enlightenment is wrong. For him, rather than sit in perfect contemplation, the goal of knowledge is action. The meaning here is about returning to the world with the benefit of wisdom gained.

The transition from innocence to knowledge, if not enlightenment, is the theme of many of Brotman's paintings. In this exhibit, the best of them date from the early to mid-1990s when she painted images from photos of her adolescent daughters in leotards, set against suggestive backgrounds, to connote the budding of desire and self-consciousness.

Much of Sirvet's sculpture has taken on an increasingly painterly aesthetic by the use of colored elements of various kinds. A number of pieces include colored Plexiglas which the artist, a structural engineer, has discovered how to bend and bolt together with metal components of varied origins. Beyond his former use of aluminum, brass, copper and wood, Sirvet is also using rusted steel from found objects like junked kitchen cabinets that often retain their original painted colors. "Panopticon?," a nearly 8-foot tower form, is made of all these materials, its multicolor surface luring the viewer to examine its composition. Ironically, a "panopticon" is a tower permitting observation of a whole class of people, whether literally as in a prison (its first use), or virtually, as on the Internet. The interaction between observer and object is certainly among Sirvet's aims here.

A number of wall reliefs are in this exhibit, which are even more strikingly painterly, even evoking landscape. "My Blue Heaven" contains three distinct registers of smallish pieces: torch-cut rusted steel on the bottom, aluminum and copper plate in the center, and mechanically-cut blue Lucite on top, held together with stainless and alloy steel bolts. Unlike the impeccable precision and measured progress of an earlier work like "Birch Wall" (2003), also in this exhibit, "My Blue Heaven" displays a more intuitive approach, something more personally expressive of a longing for the sky, or the perfect life suggested in the old song of that name.

"Metroscape" is another wall piece in a series Sirvet calls his "metal quilts" because they are pieced together. This work, which the artist describes as having the "energy of a dense, evolving city," is made of "metals, wood and plastic; materials of a city." It makes a nice comparison with Block's walls, telling urban tales from a different vantagepoint. Still, I am drawn to the elegance of the more "engineered" pieces like "Ming's Flame" and "Crystalline Pod," with their flowing tails and sense of cometlike motion.

The exquisite technique of a work like "What the Shifting Sands Reveal," another tower form in aluminum and brass, conveys a natural sense of growth or evolution. Rising from the brass bottom, this round tower begins with squared aluminum parts carefully linked together. Near the top, the form becomes irregular and lacelike, with holes cut into the metal suggesting a metaphor of a tree canopy, or perhaps clouds; the culmination is satisfying formally but subjectively provocative.

As a person who loves the outdoors as much as the city, Sirvet asks questions with his work about the connection between the natural and the manmade, about human existence and our place in nature.

Picture: Tom Block's "Conference of the Birds" refers to a medieval Sufi poem in an urban street language of letters and symbols. Photo: Courtesy of the artist.

Key Features of the Faiths

By Andrew Nelson, "Interfaith Speakers Share, Explain Faith Rituals" - The Georgia Bulletin - Atlanta, GA, USA

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Atlanta: Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory joined an interfaith panel of scholars and clergy as they shared insights on the rituals of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths.

Touching on issues of language, communal prayer, and the essence of liturgy, the speakers revealed key features of the faiths, including distinctions between Catholic and Protestant Christian traditions.

Some practices in different faiths have similarities. The Catholic liturgy is rooted in Jewish table fellowship. Islam and Judaism value individual prayers in the homes of believers. Some Protestant traditions are adopting Catholic disciplines, such as fasting, that church reformers who began the denominations did away with in the 16th century.

Georgia is overwhelmingly a Protestant state, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Some 70 percent of people here worship in the Protestant tradition, followed by Catholics, with 12 percent. The Jewish and Muslim faiths make up 1 percent or less of the population.

Close to 350 women attended the 10th annual interfaith luncheon. The Atlanta chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women hosted it at The Temple, the oldest synagogue in Atlanta.
The guests were Archbishop Gregory; Rabbi Peter Berg, senior rabbi at The Temple; Alan Godlas, an associate professor of religion at the University of Georgia; Martha Moore-Keish, an assistant professor of theology at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur; Laurie Patton, a Candler professor of religions at Emory University.

The speakers fielded questions from Judy Marx, the executive director of the American Jewish Committee.

From the Catholic point of view, Archbishop Gregory said the church borrows much from Jewish worship. From the communal table meal to the proclamation of the Scripture, these are necessary and important components of Catholic prayer life, he said.
“As Catholics, we are deeply aware of our rootedness in Jewish ancestry,” he said.

Jewish liturgy has an outward focus, Rabbi Berg said. When people leave the service, their mission is to help make the world a better place, he said. Its theology recognizes God’s ongoing creative acts, the revelation of God’s word in the Torah and God’s redemption of all people by freeing the Jews out of Egypt, he said.

For a Muslim service, the faithful must face toward Mecca, according to Godlas, a scholar on Islamic and Arabic studies. God is “the sustainer of everything in existence” according to Muslim belief, he said. And gratitude is the key human quality of people toward God, he said. Muslim postures of bowing and prostrating are a reminder that without God’s constant sustenance, nothing is possible, he said.

Protestant liturgy—a broad term which covers mainstream to evangelical churches—generally favors proclaiming readings from the Bible, sacraments and “prayers in the name of Jesus,” said Moore-Keish. The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are key parts of a Protestant liturgy, although they may not be celebrated weekly, she said.

On the issue of language, faith traditions wrestle with whether followers hold to ancient languages or use the contemporary.

Godlas said Muslims pray together in Arabic and it binds people together no matter their culture. But individuals pray on their own in their own language, he said.

For Jews, it isn’t required to pray together in Hebrew. In fact, the Reform branch of Judaism in the 19th century started as a way for Jews who didn’t speak Hebrew to worship in a common language, Rabbi Berg said. But now, Hebrew is becoming a bigger part of the service, he said.

For Catholics, Latin was the language of prayer for some 500 years, said the archbishop. The church’s prayer language evolved from Jesus’ Aramaic to Greek, a universal language in the ancient world, to Latin, which was the language of commerce, he said. There is a “serious debate” among Catholics about language and worship, he said. Since the Second Vatican Council, the custom has been people should have access to the language of worship, he said. The challenge is to translate the ideas expressed in the fixed language of Latin into contemporary language, he said. The archbishop compared the work to putting Shakespeare’s Elizabethan English into current day Japanese.

Panelists also shared the favorite ritual in their faith tradition.

Moore-Keish said the eucharistic celebration moves her. The ritual has many rich layers, from sharing food with people and the biblical level of recalling Jesus’ sacrifice to building community among believers, she said.

Godlas said Muslims have a practice of “grateful remembrance” of God’s names. It carries with it an attitude of appreciating every thought and feeling as a gift from God, he said.

The archbishop said his favorite ritual is Holy Week. The observance “really captures everything that it means to be Catholic,” he said. The week follows Jesus from the glory of Palm Sunday to Good Friday, where he is nailed to the cross, to the Easter Vigil, where newcomers join the church, and Easter, marking his new life. “It captures the joy and the essence of our Catholic sacramental, liturgical tradition,” he said.

Rabbi Berg said his favorite moment is the blessing shared both within a congregation and in the family. He talked about the privilege of the blessing when he and his wife hold hands over their three children and recite the prayer from the Book of Numbers: “May God bless you and keep you, may the light of God’s presence shine upon you and inspire you.”

Pictures (above, left to right): Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory, Dr. Alan Godlas; (below, left to right): Rabbi Peter Berg, Dr. Martha Moore-Keish. Photos by Michael Alexander.

Peaceful Methodology

By Shahnawaz Warsi, "Azmat-e-Rasool Conference 2009" - Muslim Students Organization of India (MSO) - New Delhi, India
Wednesday, April 8, 2009

AMU Unit Organized its 4th Grand Azmat-e-Rasool (S.A.W.) Conference on 22nd March from 8:00 pm in the Kennedy Auditorium of Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh, India.

MSO, which was established in AMU in 1983 by Advocate Ismail Wafa of Kerala has spread in at least five states spreading the message of Quran and Sunnah among Youths.

Prof. Syed Ameen Mian Qaudri of Urdu dept. AMU who is also Sajjada Nashin of Barkatiya Silsila, and Sheikh Aboobacker Ahmed, Gen Secretary of All India Sunni Jamiatul Ulema, are its Patrons.

Programme started with the recitation of Verses from Holy Quran. Thereafter Mohammad Zaid, Mujibul Haq Qadri and Abdul Wakeel presented Naatiya Kalam in the praise of Nabi Kareem Sallaho alaihi wasallam. AMU Unit President Mohammad Najmuddin presented Welcome adress. Sajjada Nashin of Ajmer Dargah Prof. Liaqat Hussain Moini appealed the students to develop their Character according to Islam.

National General Secretary of MSO, Shahnawaz Warsi presented annual report of MSO activities and appealed students to join MSO to spread the true message of Islam. He told that Sufism has been an integral part of Islam and only by its peaceful methodology peace can be established.

Vice Chancellor of AMU Prof. P.K. Abdul Azis advised students to work hard in their education field. He told them to follow the Seerah of Rasulallah Sallaho alaihi wassalam. He congratulated MSO Unit for organizing such a grand and disciplined meeting in the University.

Maulana Qamaruddin of M.P. presented very beautifully the Azmat-e-Risalat before the Students.

Maulana Usaidul Haq Asim Qadri, Director of Al Azhar Institute Badaun, described the difficulties faced by our beloved Prophet of Islam in spreading Islam in Arabia. He said that Islam could be established only due to the high character and immense qualities possesed by our beloved Prophet Muhammad Sallaho alihi wasallam which were given to him by Allah Rabbul Izzat.

Prof Syed Muhamamd Ameen Mian emphasised on hard work for the youth. He said that only hard work can bring success for you in academics or in your careers. He said that Mehfil-e-Milad are the chances for us to get more knowledge about our beloved Prophet of Islam.

Ahmed Mujataba Siddiqui conducted the Conference beautifully.

In the last, MSO Members from Delhi led by Zuhairudddin presented Qasida-e-Burda Sharif and Salat-o-Salam.

Dr. Ameen Mian offered Dua. Thousand of boys and girls attended the conference which lasted upto 1:00 am.

Dr. Muhibul Haq, Dr. Abdurrahim, Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed, Mohammad Shoib Malik, Dr. Inayat, MSO Asstt General secretary Shujaat Ali Qaudri, Kerala Unit president Basharat Hussain,Tauheed from Bareilly MSO were among the few who were present on the stage.

Photos by Shahnawaz Warsi /09268207909 / Jamia Millia Islamia /New Delhi.

In Consideration of the People

By Zeyno Baran, "Commentary: What Turkey can do for the U.S." - CNN - USA
Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Turks greeted President Obama with huge excitement Monday.

This was the first time a U.S. president visited Turkey at the start of his term, sending a clear signal that this administration recognizes the importance of Turkey and wants to engage with it from the start.

His address in the Turkish parliament was one of the greatest speeches made by an American leader in such a setting: He not only showed his deep understanding of Turkey's many complex issues and identities, but also handled tough issues with great skill. He framed his talk just right by underlining Turkey's European identity as a secular democracy.

That said, it is important to remember how good U.S.-Turkey relations were at the start of the Bush administration. President George W. Bush also considered Turkey an extremely valuable partner, but then came the Iraq war. The United States genuinely believed Turkey would be one of the most important allies going forward.

Despite official channels and experts making clear the difficulties in allowing U.S. military to cross into Iraq via its lands, the administration chose to listen to those who sang music to its ears. As a result, they based a whole military strategy on the Turkish parliament voting yes and were shocked when they received a no. Bilateral relations then entered a downward spiral.

With Obama's election, there is renewed excitement in Turkey. Like most of the people of Turkey, he opposed the Iraq war and considered Afghanistan the "good war." Going forward, as President Obama underscored in his speech, Turkey can play an important role in Afghanistan as a reliable NATO ally. The question is: How can Turkey best help?

Turkey is one of the few -- possibly the only -- NATO member that has deep religious, cultural and historic knowledge of both Afghanistan and Pakistan. In fact, the Turkish government has brought together the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan much before the United States began approaching them together.

Reading the tea leaves, one may conclude that the Obama administration wants to cooperate with Turkey in engaging with the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This would be the wrong kind of cooperation. Although Turkey has channels to the Taliban and has means to facilitate the talks, there cannot be a morally acceptable deal reached with the Taliban, whose ultimate goal is to curb all individual freedoms and universal human rights, especially when it comes to women.

No matter what the reasonable sounding arguments may be in favor of this strategy, pulling Turkey into any kind of engagement with the Taliban -- either as part of NATO or bilaterally -- would have much worse long-term consequences.

Instead, the Obama administration needs to think of "victory" not only in the short term and from a purely anti-terrorism perspective, but also in consideration of the people who have lived and will continue to live in those lands. In other words, providing true safety, security, justice and development for Afghanistan and Pakistan -- not the kind of society the Taliban has been providing.

Indeed, it is in providing the basic securities that Turkey can be a great partner. Turkey not only can and will continue to help provide safety and physical security, but also could further assist with the reconstruction projects, such as building hospitals, schools, sanitation facilities and investment projects that would have direct impact on the socioeconomic development of the Afghan and Pakistani societies.

There are many Turkish companies that have undertaken successful construction projects in these fields since early 2002. There are also military and civilian trainers, nongovernment organizations and even volunteer teachers who work in some of the most dangerous regions.

Still, Turkey can possibly make the greatest contribution by helping the United States frame the challenges it is facing in a more accurate and honest way. Just as President Obama referred to his personal story and that of the United States to help Turks look deeper within, Turks can do the same for the United States.

To start, Turkey can explain how the vast Eurasian region it belongs to is not just part of the "Muslim world" but has been at the crossroads of eastern and western cultures and ideas and witnessed many brutal wars and massacres over the millennia. Moreover, each country has its own spirit -- there are ancient cultures and tribal formations, and these do not move fast. It is important to stop and drink the tea.

Turkey can also explain that it is only in recent decades that jihadism and extremism took root in these lands known for their Sufi teachings that talk about love, instead of hatred. As a true partner, it can also help the United States recognize its share, along with many others, in inadvertently contributing to the creation of the Taliban and al-Qaeda by making bad foreign policy choices.

Anything short of recognition of the past catching up with us will leave us all unprepared for what may come in the future. In other words, we may be doomed to repeat the same mistakes until we learn our lesson.

CNN Editor's note: Zeyno Baran, a native of Turkey, is senior fellow for the Center for Islam, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World at the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think tank that says it is dedicated to "global security, prosperity and freedom." From January 2003 until 2006, Baran directed the International Security and Energy Programs at The Nixon Center.

The Art of Writing

By Johannes Hillje, "Traditional art in a modern style" - Hürriyet Daily News - Turkey
Wednesday, April 8, 2009

The Rezan Has Museum opens a new exhibition today by well-known calligrapher Etem Çalışkan, an artist famous for rewriting the Nutuk, a 36-hour speech Atatürk delivered in 1927.

The exhibit includes 15 poems and 10 quotes from relevant historical figuresA new exhibition of work by the famous Turkish calligraphy artist Etem Çalışkan debuts today at Istanbul’s Rezan Has Museum at Kadir Has University.

The pieces will include visual interpretations of "the most beautiful poems by Istanbul’s most important poets," Çalışkan told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

The Istanbul-based artist put verses by well-known Turkish poets, including Yayha Kemal Beyahtl, Nazım Hikmet and Talat Sait Halman, on paper in his unique writing style. The exhibit includes 15 poems and 10 quotes from relevant historical figures such as the Sufi mystic Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi.

Çalışkan, 81, became famous for rewriting the Nutuk, the 36-hour speech Mustafa Kemal Atatürk gave in 1927 at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

The work on the Nutuk, which covers the events between the start of the Turkish War of Independence in 1919 and the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, fills 900 pages and took Çalışkan about two years to complete.

It was published by the Turkish Ministry of Culture in 2000 and is displayed, in 17 books, at the Atatürk Museum in Ankara.

Major works
Two other major works that Çalışkan has illustrated are a Turkish translation of the Koran and a book by Sufi mystic Yunus Emre, making him the only person to ever rewrite all three important books. "I don’t think anyone else will ever do this again," he said.

Çalışkan was also hired to decorate Atatürk’s mausoleum in Ankara with sayings uttered by the founder of the Turkish Republic.

Çalışkan’s passion for calligraphy began during his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul, now part of Mimar Sinan University. He learned the art of writing from Emin Barin, an important calligrapher in the first half of the 20th century. After graduating in 1956, Çalışkan worked for various newspapers, including Yeni Sabah, Milliyet and Hürriyet.

Sales of Hürriyet skyrocketed the day Çalışkan’s version of Atatürk’s Gençliğe Hitabe, a speech addressing Turkish youth, was published.

His large portraits of Atatürk were printed in many newspapers and became very famous.

Today, Çalışkan is one of the only Turkish calligraphers writing in Latin letters. "People always connect calligraphy to Arabic letters and religion," he said. "If I wrote in Arabic, I would be rich by now."

He hopes Turks will learn that calligraphy can be also done in Latin letters and develop the art further. "Calligraphy is related to our culture; it was popular in the past, when paintings were forbidden," he said.

Calligraphers now face the challenge of preserving the art of writing, which was the main artistic discipline during the Ottoman Empire. "Nowadays, people prefer to write with computers, but computers cannot dream and create something new, because they don’t have a brain," he said.

Çalışkan thinks that schools should start teaching handwriting again. He is proud of his sole student, Seval Özcan, a young artist who shapes mirrors in calligraphy style. Çalışkan was also invited to a calligraphy symposium at Eskişehir University, which he says shows that young people are still interested in the art.

The new exhibition at Rezan Has Museum is the fifth collaboration between the artist and Kadir Has University.

The poetry-related works displayed in the exhibit are the start of a project Çalışkan is working on for Istanbul’s term as the European Capital of Culture in 2010.

[Picture from the Rezan Has Museum website. Visit the Rezan Has Museum in Istanbul http://www.rhm.org.tr/en/index.php].

Al-Wasadiyah

By Nur Kafi/HAN with Abdurahman M Abdullahi, "Somalia: Political Islam, It’s time for Strategic Engagements" - Geeska Africa - Nairobi, Kenya
Tuesday, April 7, 2009

‘Political Islam’ is a catchy expression that signifies many things to different people. In Western circles, political Islam is considered a reactionary ideology and an anti-Western movement; and is portrayed as a menace to their civilization, values and hegemony.

In the Muslim world, despotic governments perceive political Islam as a competing oppositional ideology that threatens their political power and economic privileges. Both the West and these despotic Muslim governments agree on the necessity for its containment, even if this involves the violation of human rights and the abortion of democracy. Conversely, the Muslim masses longing for change consider political Islam to be a hope for possible cultural revival, economic prosperity and liberation from Western domination. However, the vicious extremism committed in the name of Islam on 9/11 and after, and the violent reaction of the US and other countries to this, has embarrassed Muslims everywhere. Somalis in particular are shocked at the unprecedented violence carried out in the name of Islam, such as suicide bombings, random assassinations and the wrecking of Islamic scholars’ tombs.

This is not the kind of Islam that Somalis have practiced for centuries and they ask themselves, “what type of religion is this?”

Many varieties of terminology have been used to signify this phenomenon. Proponents of political Islam prefer words such as ‘Islamic movement’, ‘Islamic awakening’ and ‘Islamic revival’. Opponents use offensive words, like ‘Islamic fundamentalism’, ‘Islamic terrorism’, ‘Islamic radicalism’ and so on.

The terms ‘political Islam,’ or ‘Islamism,’ emphasize the resurgence of political aspects of Islam weakened after Western domination, and also the revitalizing of other aspects. They signify active movements striving to make Islam the definitive reference for the state and society. However, these active movements are not a single group; they comprise diverse parties and ideologies covering both extremists and moderates.

All forms of extremism: ghuluw (excessiveness), tanattu' (meticulous religiosity) and tashdid (strictness), are disapproved of, while moderation or balance, “al-wasadiyah,” is the fundamental marker of Islam. Religious extremism leading to political extremism has been known in Muslim history since the Kharijites rebelled against Imam Ali bin Abidalib, which is why the term neo-Kharijites (Khawarij al-Casr) is sometimes employed to signify an armed rebellion claiming Islamic righteousness that is directed against legitimate government in Muslim countries.

In Somalia, in the aftermath of the collapse of the state in 1991, local identity politics based on clanism and political Islam have emerged forcefully. As a result, Somalia has become a theatre for international and regional interventions, and is currently caught up in a bizarre assortment of Islamic insurgencies, piracy and weak state institutions.

It is the collapse of the state, along with successive failures of transitional governments, that has ushered in a stronger political Islam, which has become more militant since the Global War on Terrorism after 9/11, the rise of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) in 2006 and Ethiopian military intervention. Recently, a reconciliation agreement was concluded in Djibouti, producing a national unity government comprised of the Alliance of Re-liberation (ARS) and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). However, al-Shabab and Hizb-al-Islam (formerly members of UIC and ARS) are fighting the new government headed by the former chairman of UIC and ARS, and the incumbent President Sheikh Sharif.

To understand this phenomenon, it has to be placed in the Somali historical context. Islam has been used as a strong mobilizing ideology in anti-colonial responses and nationalist struggles. The first modern organization in the name of Islam was formed by Haji Farah Omar in Aden in 1925. However, it was banned because of its political activities. The second attempt occurred after the return of Italian rule under UN trusteeship in the 1950s, when the Somali Islamic League was formed in Mogadishu. It set out to promote education in the Arabic language, and lobbied Egypt to open Arabic schools that would be comparable with the Italian school networks.

After independence in 1960, some students who had graduated from Arab universities held modern Islamic ideas and introduced them to Somalia. These Islamic scholars were inspired by the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Salafia (Wahabi School) of Saudi Arabia. The process started with the formation of Al-Nahda (the Renaissance) in Mogadishu (1967), Wahadat al-Shabab al-Islami (the Union of Young Muslims) in Hargeysa (1969) and Al-Ahli (the native) student organizations in Mogadishu (1970). The military regime of 1969, however, abolished Islamic societies and banned all non-state institutions. So Islamic activism operated underground and had by the 1970s taken greater strides, in reaction to the military regimes’ espousal of Marxist ideology.

The organizations al-Ahli, Al-Wahda and al-Nahda were coordinating stiff resistance to the socialist ideology. Initially, they all claimed affinity to the Muslim Brotherhood, but that situation had changed by 1975 after the execution of 10 Islamic scholars who opposed secularized family law. Young Islamic activists fled to Sudan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and made contact with different aspects of political Islam. Eventually, besides traditional Sufis and Shafi’i jurists, four Islamic affiliations emerged in Somalia: the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafia and its derivatives, Takfir (declaring unbeliever groups) and Tablighi Jama’a (conveying group).

All modern organizations in Somalia are rooted in one of these four schools. For instance, Al-Shabab and Hizb al-Islam claim affinity to the Salafia movements. The complexity of Somali political Islam is such that even traditional Sufis known for their focus on the spiritual aspect of Islam are becoming more political and militant. The organization Ahlu-Sunna wa al-Jama’a is reacting in military ways to the destruction of the tombs of Sufi Sheikhs by the Shabab. In the final analysis, these organizations agree only on the principle of adopting Islam as the ultimate reference for the state and society. Beyond that, they disagree on political views, being influenced by socio-economic conditions, global politics and regional conflicts.

Political Islam has been approached from the perspective of those modernist theories that consider that traditions, including religion, are destined to decline, due to the rise of secular nationalism and nation-state institutions. Based on this assumption, Islamic movements are treated as presenting a threat to world order and as security challenges for the 21st century. This notion and the policies built upon it have contributed to further antagonizing and radicalizing many groups within political Islam, both in Somalia and worldwide.

In Somalia, tremendous changes have happened over the last 20 years and the political setting has shifted towards political Islam. Certainty, the period of Western projected dominance of secularism, and the state that it represented, collapsed in 1991. Political Islam emerged from its ashes and is now digging itself a strategic position in the realms of the state. Moreover, the people of Somalia are looking to Islam as an alternative salvation and solution. They believe that Islam is capable of diluting radical clanism and reconstituting the state. However, that form of Islam should be authentic and moderate; it should not be based on an extremist interpretation that preaches relentless violence.

Currently, the choice is either ruthless extremism or participatory moderation. The question is: which one of these two Islamic banners prevails? Which one would the Somali people choose and support? Which one should the international community accept and work with?

Political Islam has been approached from the perspective of those modernist theories that consider that traditions, including religion, are destined to decline, due to the rise of secular nationalism and nation-state institutions. Based on this assumption, Islamic movements are treated as presenting a threat to world order and as security challenges for the 21st century. This notion and the policies built upon it have contributed to further antagonizing and radicalizing many groups within political Islam, both in Somalia and worldwide.

In Somalia, tremendous changes have happened over the last 20 years and the political setting has shifted towards political Islam.

Certainty, the period of Western projected dominance of secularism, and the state that it represented, collapsed in 1991. Political Islam emerged from its ashes and is now digging itself a strategic position in the realms of the state. Moreover, the people of Somalia are looking to Islam as an alternative salvation and solution. They believe that Islam is capable of diluting radical clanism and reconstituting the state. However, that form of Islam should be authentic and moderate; it should not be based on an extremist interpretation that preaches relentless violence.

Currently, the choice is either ruthless extremism or participatory moderation. The question is: which one of these two Islamic banners prevails? Which one would the Somali people choose and support? Which one should the international community accept and work with?

To begin with, Somali intellectuals are required to re-evaluate political reality in Somalia and realize that the choice is between Islamic extremism and moderation. Thus, non-Islamists should make strategic engagement with Islamic moderation. On their part, moderate Islamists have to welcome the participation of all parties in the rebuilding of the state.

All moderate Islamic scholars should realize that the country is in peril and should stand up and articulate the true nature of Islam. All Somalis have to reawaken their natural religiosity and reassert their mobilizing capacity for exceptional solidarity, as brothers and sisters. Moderate Islamists have to show that Islam accepts political participation and plurality for all the citizens. They have to demonstrate that Islam protects human rights and freedom of expression. They have to reconfirm their commitment to peace and regional security. In so doing, they have to convince the international community and regional states that the new Somalia will be a bastion of peace and an icon and hub for development and regional cooperation.

Finally, the external actors involved in Somalia should realize that the Somali political landscape is changing.

The current unity government headed by moderate Islamist President Sheikh Sharif and the Shari’a bill endorsed by the Council of Ministers shows the trail in that direction. Therefore, moderate political Islam should no longer be eschewed but accepted as an alternative political reality.

In particular, neighbouring Ethiopia should be convinced to refrain from its subversive policies and develop an alternative strategy, based on dealing with moderate Islamists. Moreover, the Egyptian regime, in its entanglements with its rising Islamic opposition, should not obstruct the emergence of Islamism in Somalia. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia and Yemen should realize that their national security is at stake if extremism prevails in Somalia.

Eventually, if Islamic moderation does not take centre stage in Somalia, extremism will emerge as a triumphant ideology, hence the strategic choice of all concerned parties must be to join with the new government against rising extremism – and the government should combine clemency with resolve and take the path of state reconstitution seriously.

Et de Trois!

[From the French language press]:

Et de trois pour le Festival soufi ! Le compte à rebours a commencé. Outre les festivaliers, artistes, poètes, sociologues et autres seront de la partie.

Par Houda Belabd, "Et de trois pour le Festival soufi !" - le Matin - Maroc
Dimanche 29 mars, 2009

And three for the Sufi Festival! The countdown has begun.

In addition to the festival people, artists, poets, sociologists and others will participate.

This Festival speaks of a living culture, a culture that changes with time and place, but whose ultimate goal is to be an expression of universal values. Because the Sufi path teaches and vehicles each time, every place, how it is possible to bring the highest levels of our human -individual or social- achievements.

[Visit Par Chemins, the Festival Cultural Engineering Agency's website http://www.par-chemins.com/]

[Read also THE VIEW FROM FEZ http://tinyurl.com/c73m3r ].

Where the Two Halves Join

By Bindu Chawla, "Dialogue of beloveds, raga, anuraga" - The Times of India - India
Saturday, April 4, 2009

The word raga means 'to love'. All Hindustani ragas are scientifically structured and as you proceed to sing them, and you unfold their grammar, you also come to reveal hidden principles of cosmic love.

The raga divides itself into two equal halves, in which each note of one half has a corresponding answering note in the second half. And yet, in terms of melody, neither of the two halves can stand alone.

The melody gets created only at the exact meeting point of the two halves, at the specific point where the two halves join. The group of notes that create the junction are also known as the 'pakar' or haunt, of the raga. Throughout its rendering or exposition, the raga is the interplay of a musical dialogue between these two halves, virtually the 'beloveds'.

The pakar is the raga's spiritual fountain; no amount of singing will slake the raga's thirst. It is the flower's inner honey; no amount of sucking will quench the hunger of the bee.

It is said that in the days of yore, the musicians would forget to eat, drink and bathe, as they were caught in the haunt of a raga. Such can be its spiritual hold. All ragas have nyas or pause notes, points of rest in this 'haunt', which are actually emphasised more than others, and ultimately turn it into a lullaby, a song on the lip. Yet the raga is the most grammarised thing going.

It works through symmetrical musical movements of the two halves. The smallest microtone of one half must have its parallel in place in the other half, the nuance of a note of one half answered just as it should be in the other half, or else another raga's haunt will creep in and 'interfere' with the grand design.

And yet, it is this very methodology, of working the raga's yin and yang, that will turn its very love-haunt into the gateway of cosmic love.

Pandit Amarnath of the Indore gharana would say that the word raga means 'to love', but the completion of this lies in the set of words 'raga-anuraga', which mean 'to love and to be loved' in return. The import of this is that the musician sings his song of love, but it is when the cosmos returns his love that the cycle is said to be complete. This is the Sufi way.

The raga's yin and yang, male and female, become alaf and meem, main aur Allah; I the beloved of Allah and Allah, my beloved, till there is no difference between the two. Ultimately all becomes Allah, and I drop away. I becomes fanaa, or extinct. All that remains is Allah.

In a beautiful bandish for the raga Brindabani Sarang Pandit Amarnath says:

"O heart, stay true to yourself,
The soul is the very Oversoul
Mitu-rang, finding the Oversoul is like
water finding Water, and sky, Sky.
O heart, stay true to yourself."

The story of finding the Water and Sky is the story of finding the raga's anuraga . The love of the beloved is akin to the love of Allah. And the love of Allah is akin to the love of the beloved.

In another bandish in the raga Sawani, Pandit Amarnath says:

"Beloved, my destiny is with you.
May I receive your love in all our lives,
And may you remain eternal...
The light of my heart is to think of you,
The life of my body to see you,
The vermilion on my forehead is your love.
Beloved, my destiny is with you."

Picture: Feel the pulse of spiritual music. Photo: TOI/Getty Images.

Within Six Months

By Qaiser Khan Afridi, "Cultural event at Rahman Baba’s shrine postponed" - The News International - Karachi, Pakistan
Friday, April 3, 2009

Peshawar: Keeping in view the severe damage caused to the shrine of Pashto Sufi poet Abdur Rahman Baba in the recent bombing, the Rahman Baba Adabi Jirga has announced postponement of the grand cultural festival, saying it will be held once the government repairs the shrine.

Every year in April, fans of Rahman Baba organise a grand cultural festival at the shrine. Poets, writers and lovers of Rahman Baba from Afghanistan and Pakistan come together to celebrate the festival. This time, the festival was scheduled for April 5.

Addressing a press conference here, Rahman Baba Adabi Jirga President Yousuf Ali Dilsoz said that since 1962, they had been holding the festival regularly as per the Jirga’s constitution, but, unfortunately, for the first time, they would not be able to hold the four-day event owing to the damage caused to the shrine.

Jirga Patron-in-Chief Sultan Muhammad Darwesh, Vice-President Abdul Jalil Sabir and Finance Secretary Malik Waris were also present on the occasion. “At first, we decided to hold the event, but after consulting our elders and other 125 members of the Jirga, we agreed to postpone the festival, as the provincial government has displayed banners right outside the shrine, stating the building is dilapidated and could crumble anytime,” Dilsoz said, adding that they would hold the event once the government repaired the building within six months, as promised.

Lauding Afghan President Hamid Karzai for promising reconstruction of Rehman Baba’s shrine, he said a representative of the Afghan government visited the shrine and offered to build it completely.

“The federal and provincial governments have also vowed to reconstruct the shrine within six months,” he said, demanding of the government to equip the Rahman Baba auditorium with the latest facilities by providing chairs and installing a sound system.

[Picture: Rahman Baba's Shrine. Photo from http://en.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-310/_nr-632/i.html].

Music Is the Medium

By Karan Kapoor (ANI), "Sufi singers want Sufism to live forever in the hearts of people" - Newstrack India - India
Thursday, April 2, 2009

Ludhiana: For centuries, Sufism has spread a unique meaning of love to the mankind through soulful renditions in the praise of God. But today several Sufi singers believe that there is need to keep it alive.

To preserve the tradition of Sufi singing- various artists, intellectuals and poets recently converged here.

A discussion was held on 'Sufism' and what should be done to prevent it from fading into history. Punjab Sahitya Akademi invited noted Sufi artists and scholars who touched upon various aspects of traditional Indian Sufism. Leading the group was renowned musicologist and performer Dr. Madan Gopal Singh who enthralled the gathering with his exposition.

The dominant concern of all participants on this occasion was the waning popularity of Sufi music.

"The reason behind youngsters taking less interest in Sufi singing is because culture in musical Gharanas (traditional families) has changed. Modernisation has changed the scenario and a number of old and priceless traditions are losing their charm. So, in this era, it is important to keep alive such traditions otherwise they will disappear and people will forget them," said Dr. Namwar Singh, music critic.

"The serenity and the feeling of making others feel great that we see in our Indian culture come to us from the Sufi singers. They came to India with the Mughal rulers. But they didn't sing about and for the government. They sang for people and that's the reason why the Sufi singers like Baba Bulle Shah and Baba Fareedji received great respect in the country," said Dr. Sukhdev Singh of the Punjab Sahitya Akadmi.

Besides, on this occasion, traditional Sufi singers from Rajasthan, Manganiars, delighted the audience with their music and made it a lively event.

"There are two letters in the word 'su' and 'fi', which means that we should not harm the feelings of any religion. Sufi's chant both Ram and Allah. They say neither they are Muslims nor Hindus but they are human beings," said Idrim Khan, a Sufi Singer.

Punjabi Singer Barkat Sidhu also brought alive the classical traditions of the great Gharanas of Punjab with his rich repertoire.

"In monetary terms, Sufism has nothing. But it is very rich in spiritual terms. People, who sing in other languages run after money. But Sufi singing is devoted to God and its singers receive appreciation and respect from people. Sufi singing is priceless," said Barkat Sidhu, Punjabi Sufi singer.

Sufism is generally described as an eternal quest of the soul for the supreme power. And, music is the medium through which the Sufis travel to a state of mystical bliss.

Sufism celebrates life and the divine through music, the medium that each and every one of us understand beyond linguistic barriers.

A Costly Failing

By Douglas J. Feith and Justin Polin, "Radio-Free Swat Valley" - The New York Times - New York, NY, USA
Sunday, March 29, 2009

On March 5, in the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan, forces believed to be affiliated with the Taliban bombed the shrine of Rahman Baba (born around 1650), the most revered Pashtun poet.

The attack evokes one of the grosser Taliban outrages from the pre-9/11 era: the dynamiting in 2001 of the enormous stone Buddhas in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley.

This use of bombs as cultural commentary is especially notable in that the shrine was sacred to other Muslims. It reminds the world, and especially complacent Muslims, that the Islamist extremists’ war is a civil war within Islam — and not just a “holy war” against other religions and the United States. It should show American policymakers the wisdom of working to persuade Pashtuns to reject the Taliban.

The bombers took aim at the poet’s shrine because it represented Sufism, the mystical form of Islam that has long been predominant in India and Pakistan. The Sufism of Rahman Baba generally stresses a believer’s personal relationship with God and de-emphasizes the importance of the mosque. It refrains from exalting violence and war and praises such virtues as tolerance, devotion and love. Its practice relies extensively on dance, music and poetry. Some of Sufism’s most esteemed poets and scholars are women.

The extremists are determined to destroy Pakistan’s moderate Sufi tradition — by claiming the exclusive right to fly the banner of Islam and asserting this claim through cultural, educational and violent means. Through intimidation, they silence musicians, still dancers and oppress women. As a result, artists and performers are leaving Pakistan’s Swat Valley and the North-West Frontier Province in droves.

Though the Sufi tradition has been widely followed for centuries in South Asia, its hold is weakening as the extremists flex their muscles. Pakistan’s inability to enforce its laws in the border region with Afghanistan has allowed extremists to threaten dominance in northwestern Pakistan.

The United States may be able to help Pakistan prevent this, however, by supporting Pashtun opposition to the extremists. The Pashtuns who oppose the Taliban need protection. The extremists have gunned down, bombed and hanged those who have worked against them. It would help to improve the government’s schools in the region and thus reduce the appeal and influence of Taliban-run madrassas. And by building roads and creating jobs and business opportunities for the Pashtuns, the Pakistani government, with American help, could counter the money and other material blandishments offered by the extremists.

It is a costly failing that the American government has been unable to communicate quickly with the Pashtun community about the attack on the Rahman Baba shrine. Congress has provided trillions of dollars to support military action in the fight against terrorism, but it has not yet provided resources for a strategic communications capacity that could be the key to victory.
If it had the equipment and personnel for the job, the United States could broadcast radio programs for the Pashtuns commemorating Rahman Baba’s life and poetry, thus helping to revive the collective memory of Sufism and inspiring opposition to the Taliban. Other programs could highlight the cultural and physical devastation wrought by the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The United States conducted impressive strategic communications during the cold war. Radio Free Europe, Voice of America and other programs conveyed information and ideas that contributed to the discrediting and ultimate defeat of Soviet communism.

Pakistan’s Islamist extremists apparently know the value of strategic communications. They preach and broadcast, understanding that every non-extremist school they close, every artist they force to move, every moderate tribal leader they kill and every Sufi shrine they destroy can increase their powers of intimidation and persuasion.

The problem along the Afghan border is not mass support for Islamist extremism. Rather it is widespread acquiescence by people who are fearful and demoralized. As the extremists work to demonstrate that only they represent the true Islam, Pashtuns can reflect on the warnings against cruelty and violence that Rahman Baba outlined in “Sow Flowers”:

Sow flowers to make a garden bloom around you,
The thorns you sow will prick your own feet.

Arrows shot at others
Will return to hit you as they fall.

You yourself will come to teeter on the lip
Of a well dug to undermine another.

Douglas J. Feith, a former under secretary of defense, is a senior fellow and Justin Polin is a research associate at the Hudson Institute.

[Picture: Mahodand swat. Photo by Kamran Safdar, http://www.valleyswat.net/].

Close to Him

By John Thorne, "Morocco moves to mysticism" - The National - Abu Dhabi, UAE
Sunday, March 29, 2009

Sale, Morocco : On Thursday evenings a mystic called Abderrahim Harrati goes down to a small white shrine with a green dome beside the sea to transmit spiritual energy.

Every week men gather there to soak up Mr Harrati’s “baraka”, a blessing from God that they believe flows in his bloodlines, traceable to the Prophet Mohammed.Together they lift their voices in ritual song, uniting in the practices of Sufism, Islamic mysticism that is moving to centre stage in Moroccan society as a new generation updates it for the 21st century.

Some Sufis worry that their traditions are being watered down in the process. But Moroccans increasingly consider Sufism’s tolerant brand of Islam a welcome alternative to a fundamentalist streak in the country that has occasionally turned violent in recent years.Morocco is home to dozens of tariqas, or Sufi orders, anchored to the land by shrines where holy men such as Mr Harrati’s ancestor, Sidi Abdel Kader el Harrati, lie entombed.

While only a minority of Moroccans are active tariqa members, most make room for Sufism in their view of Islam, said Moha Ennaji, professor of linguistics, cultural and gender studies at the University of Fez. “The rituals are part of our lifestyle,” he said. “Dancing, singing – this is Sufi behaviour.”

That behaviour’s roots going back to the Middle Ages, when Islamic scholars developed the idea that while all good Muslims meet God after death, it is also possible to draw close to Him during life. Since then, Sufi orders seeking that closeness have arisen across the Muslim world. Some emphasise poetry, others dance, others meditation and repetitive prayer. All seek to achieve dhikr, a profound awareness of God’s love and presence.

Those Sufis most adept at doing so are sometimes said to possess baraka. “The light of baraka was carried by the Prophet Mohammed, and the saints of Islam carry it to this day,” said Lahcen Sbai, a spokesman for the Boutchichi tariqa, one of Morocco’s leading Sufi orders.

Some people say that baraka brings inner peace, others that it can cure illnesses, and still others that it brings good luck. Some say that it can do all of these things at once. “I feel like I’ve gone to the doctor and been made well,” said Abdelfettah, a shop owner who has attended prayer meetings with Mr Harrati’s group for eight years and did not wish to give his surname.

Abdelfettah and other followers of Mr Harrati’s tariqa believe that baraka resides both in the tomb of his ancestor and in his own living person.

“It’s a gift from God, and it’s a joy to pass it to other people,” said Mr Harrati, who assumed leadership of the order upon the death of his father in 1992.

The loyalty commanded by Sufi orders has led them periodically into the thicket of Moroccan politics, forging alliances with some rulers and clashing with others. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rural Sufi leaders known as marabouts proved among the stiffest foes of encroaching French armies, while the heads of larger tariqas found accommodation with colonialism.

Following independence from France in 1956, King Hassan II slowly squeezed Sufism into a corner during decades of political repression remembered today as the années de plomb – the “years of lead”. Sidi Hamza Boutchichi, the head of the Boutchichi tariqa, was forbidden to leave his home without authorisation, while Abdesslam Yassine, the leader of the Sufi-inspired Islamic movement al Adl wal Ihssane, or “Justice and Charity”, was placed under full house arrest.

However, Hassan’s son Mohammed VI has led a rapprochement with Sufism as Morocco has scrambled to contain a violent strain of Islamic fundamentalism that produced suicide bombings in Casablanca, the commercial capital, in 2003 and 2007.

Some formerly aloof Sufi orders have similarly relaxed strictures, said Mr Sbai, from the Boutchichi tariqa. The order no longer requires members to wear traditional wool robes and undertake periods of isolation, leading to a steady rise in numbers, he said.

Meanwhile, Sufi music has gripped young Moroccans, filling the airwaves and internet with the beat of skin drums, the clatter of brass castanets, and the twang of the guembri, a three-stringed lute.

The government sponsors hundreds of music festivals each year, where Sufi musicians mix traditional sounds with those of hip-hop, reggae and jazz.For some, going professional is a necessary adjustment to a modernising country.

“Thanks to rural exodus and the television, the brotherhoods are disappearing from the countryside,” said Frédéric Calmès, a French oud player who has lived and performed with the Hamadcha tariqa in Fez since 2002. “But festivals allow them to reach a wide audience.”

“My father was our sheikh, and we used to have prayer meetings at our house in the evenings,” said Abderrahim Amrani, who today leads the Hamadchas on the festival circuit.

“It’s not like before, but it keeps the tariqa alive,” he said. “And if we’re lucky, we still pass on a little baraka.”

Picture: sufis in the coastal city of Sale at the shrine of Sidi Abdelkader el Harrati, a 17th century Sufi saint. Photo: John Thorne/The National.

Fluid, Flexible and Peaceful

By Amil Khan, "Al-Qaeda's spreading tentacles in West Africa opposed by traditional leaders" - Telegraph - London, UK
Sunday, March 29, 2009

Traditional Islamic leaders from across West Africa are meeting to try and form a common front against al-Qaeda's growing influence in the region.

Amid the hectic bustle of people and vehicles on the streets of Mali's capital city, Bamako, there are signs of the growing influence of austere Islamic practice that is causing social rifts across Africa.

In the market next to the grand mosque in the centre of town, Muslim women with their hair covered but their shoulders and arms bare barter for T-shirts emblazoned with photos of US President Barack Obama. In another part of the market, a young man in the austere Saudi-inspired dress of trousers hitched up at the ankle and long beard berates a bookstall owner for not carrying the "right sort of works".

The books the man is referring to are the texts of an austere form of Islam seeping into Africa's Muslim nations that seeks to strictly delineate Muslims by their religious practice and denounce those who fall short as non-believers. It is commonly referred to as "Takfiri".

This interpretation, which counts Osama bin Laden among its supporters, is worrying the continent's traditional Islamic leaders, who are meeting in Timbuktu over the weekend to try and decide on a common response.

"In Africa, extremism is an automatic result of economic disparity... In Sudan, the ideology is there. It is minor at the moment, but it is there and we have to stop it where it is," Shaykh Garibullah, one of the key participants in the conference, told The Sunday Telegraph in an interview.

The conference has been organised by the Radical Middle Way initiative, a British Muslim organisation, led by Fuad Nahdi, a Kenyan-born British Muslim. Mr Nahdi says that in Africa, Islam has historically been fluid, flexible and peaceful.

"The experience of Barack Obama's African family, where you might be Muslim and have a Christian uncle or an aunt who worships traditional tribal gods, is the norm in the experience of Islam in this part of the world," Mr Nahdi told the Telegraph in Bamako before the conference.

Takfiri ideology has a central argument that explains the problems of any group of Muslims as the result of a drift from "true Islam", which it portrays as a "pure" code that shuns all outside influences. Those, like the followers of al-Qaeda who promote extremist violence, target the non-Muslims they see as oppressors as well as Muslims they see as "hypocrites".

The conference organisers say that the suffering of millions through disease, poverty and poor governance make Takfiri ideology attractive, and increases support for groups like al-Qaeda.

Osama bin Laden's organisation arrived in Africa in 2007, when the group incorporated an Algerian extremist outfit that was previously called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Jihad (GSPC). The group rebranded itself al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Late last year, CIA director Michael Hayden called it a serious and growing threat.

Since then, the group has started running weapons and established a base in northern Mali. It recently kidnapped six Europeans including one Briton, and has targeted Algeria in a bombing campaign. Analysts say al-Qaeda sees West Africa's ungoverned spaces as a potential base like the one it enjoys in Pakistan's border regions. It also seeks to find resources and new recruits.

A Western security analyst based in the region said American forces were operating in the area, providing training and support to regional governments to counter the threat. The support, he said, improved the operational abilities of local police and armies but provided material for al-Qaeda propaganda that Western countries seek influence in Muslim lands to subjugate their populations and steal their resources.
Leaders such as those attending the conference in Timbuktu have the moral authority to challenge such propaganda.

As the conference delegates started arriving in Bamako, the extent of their influence became clear. Shaykh Tijane Cisse from Senegal commands the devotion of over 50 million people in West Africa.

Fifteen minutes after he arrived at the hotel without prior announcement, word spread around the city of his presence and a steady flow of followers formed a line leading to his room.

The tombs of Shaykh Cisse's ancestors, who led the Tijaniyyah Sufi brotherhood before him, are a focal point for followers. In countries, where the austere Takfiri ideology has grown, Sufis – who practice a spiritual and inclusive understanding of Islam – have been targeted.

In Pakistan earlier this month, extremists blew up the shrine of a 17th century Sufi poet.
Back in Bamako's main market, a shopkeeper who spoke Arabic because of his education in one of the capital's Islamic schools, and sold traditional carved wooden statues of nude women said he could not comprehend an Islam that attacked the tombs of revered figures.

"If they did that here, there would be civil war," he said.

Photo: Telegraph/AP

Maila Charaghan

By Our Correspondent, "Thousands flock to Festival of Lights" - The News International - Karachi, Pakistan
Sunday, March 29, 2009

Lahore: The three-day urs celebrations of the Festival of Lights (Maila Charaghan) started on Saturday at the shrine of renowned sufi saint Hazrat Shah Hussain.

Thousands of devotees lit oil lamps on the shrine to pay homage to the saint.

Devotees turned up at the shrine and participated in urs celebration with great religious enthusiasm. Families and devotees offered fateha at the shrine. A large number of drummers kept beating drums compelling devotees and malangs to dance with abandon.

Many people had set up tents selling clothes, sweets and other items and a large number of devotees were seen shopping there. Children also accompanied their parents.

The Auqaf Department in collaboration with authorities concerned had also made special arrangements for the festival. A large number of police personnel was also deployed at the shrine.

Shah Hussain (1538-1599) was a Punjabi poet and a saint. He was the pioneer of the Kafi form of Punjabi poetry.

Shah Hussain’s shrine is located in Baghbanpura near Shalamar Gardens.

[Picture: The Shalimar Gardens. Photo from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalimar_Gardens_(Lahore). Read a biography of Shah Husayn (Madhu Lal) at http://www.abntv.com/festivals/mela_charagan.html].

Calling for some Action

By Ben Arnoldy, "Bombing of packed Pakistan mosque likely to further inflame region" - The Christian Science Monitor - Boston, MA, USA
Friday, March 27, 2009

Delhi, India – A suicide bomber entered a crowded mosque in northwest Pakistan and detonated an explosive that killed more than 50 people during Friday prayers.

It’s unclear who was behind the attack, which took place in tribal region West of Peshawar known as the Khyber Agency. Security forces tasked with protecting NATO supply lines were among those praying and subsequently killed at the mosque, according to local reports.

By attacking a packed Sunni mosque at Friday prayers, the perpetrators showed a brazen disregard for popular sentiment in the region, analysts say.

“I think people in the frontier will be scared to send their children and men to the mosque. And I think the moderate sort of religious people in Pakistan will be calling for some action against these people,” says security analyst retired Brig. Gen. Mahmood Shah.

Earlier this month, militants bombed a Sufi shrine in Peshawar. The attack damaged the tomb of Abdur Rahman Baba, a Sufi saint and one of the most famous poets in the Pashto language. Many local Pashtuns are fond of reciting his verses. Although that attack struck at a popular ethnic figure, it was largely seen as a sectarian strike against the Sufi faith.

Today’s attack marks the first bombing of a Sunni mosque in the region, says Mushtaq Yusufzai, a Peshawar-based reporter with The News, a newspaper based in Pakistan. Although the attack will further anger local people, Mr. Yusufzai doesn’t see that turning into an effective backlash against militant groups.

“The people cannot react, they are helpless. They cannot fight against these unseen fighters,” he says.

In the past, local tribal leaders have organized lashkars, or armed posses, to go after militant groups. But militants retaliated by killing tribal elders and burning their homes, breaking much of the local resistance.

Yusufzai said he talked to some locals who claim to have seen drones recently in area – the rumors, valid or not, will no doubt add to growing resentment of US airstrikes in the region.

He also said the attacks came as a surprise because local Taliban were believed to have agreed to focus their efforts on the fight in Afghanistan.

[Picture: On the Pakistan side of the Khyber Pass. Photo from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khyber_Pass].

Ashk Olsun!

By Meredith Compton, "Latif Bolat, Sufi Musician, April 7" - Hiram College News - Hiram, Ohio, USA
Friday, March 27, 2009

The Hiram College Interfaith Council, Special Events and Conferences Office, Ethnic Diversity Affairs Office, music department, Intercultural Forum and East Asian Society present Latif Bolat, Sufi Musician, on April 7 in the Kennedy Center Ballroom.

Bolat will present a convocation at noon. The talk will focus on 1000 years of Turkish mystic Sufi culture including music, poetry and philosophy.

There will also be a concert at 7:30 p.m. titled “Ashk Olsun: Let There Be Love.”

All events are free and open to the public.

[Visit Latif Bolat's website http://www.latifbolat.com/].