Back Into Time

BY TNI Correspondent, *The way of the mystic* - The News International - Karachi, Pakistan; Thursday, February 3, 2011

Karachi: The Goethe-Institut was the venue of a movie highlighting the tradition of the Dervishes and Sufis in the Sub-Continent Wednesday evening.

Titled “The Red Sufi”, the movie, produced by Martin Weinhart, traces the train journey of Dr Wasim Frembgen, an anthropologist at the University of Munich in Germany from Lahore to Sehwan Sharif, the site of Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s shrine.

A departure from the conventional form of religiosity, the movie depicts the mystics approach to The Almighty and their endeavour to feel at one with God. The movie begins in Lahore amid the observance of rites and rituals of the saint’s followers in the most uninhibited of manner. There are the whirling Dervishes with long, flowing robes, unkempt hair, and whirling and gyrating to the beat of drums played with all the gusto the drummers could muster. Unconventional as it may sound, there are women going into the whirling trances and ecstacy too alongside men. All this while the dancers have their eyes fixed and arms outstretched heavenward as if in supplication to The Almighty. The movie shows the producer attending a concert at one of the shrines in Lahore where the lyrics sung to classical music tunes music centre around the glory of God.

The movie highlights the quaint bazaars of Lahore just as one had been transported back into time into the Eleventh or twelfth centuries. It also shows sections of the Shia community participating in the rituals.

Then the train departs on its journey to its destination, Sehwan Sharif in Sindh, to the tomb of the most venerated mystic saint, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar where the religious slogans reverberate through the air every now and then. Here too all the rites and rituals pivot around dancing Derveshes and full-throated hymns in praise of The Almighty.

However, there also are scenes in the movie which some could find squeamish. For instance there’s a scene featuring eunuchs dancing away. Dr Frembgen talks to them and asks them as to what brought them there.

In their somewhat raven-throated masculine voices, contrasting with their totally feminine attire, these denizens of the genetic third world reply that they come there because no matter how difficult, how impossible, when they come over to the shrine and pray for a favour, it is invariably granted.

This is supposed to speak for the spirituality of the movement and also bring home the fact that the intermediate gender are as human as anyone of us and it is cruelty to treat them as lower forms of creation.

What is revealing about the movie is that so many highly educated people are devotees of the saint. Two of those featured were highly qualified surgeons.

Introducing the movie, Dr Frembgen said that he was fascinated by the living expressions of the Sufi tradition in Pakistan.

“We should pay due attention to the religiosity of the local traditions”, he said.

Dr Frembgen said that attendance at the shrines in the recent past had declined because of the security situation, the bombings and the growing militancy.

The screening of the movie was followed by an enlivening question-answer session which reflected all shade of opinion, from opposition to the content of the movie, to endorsement, and philosophical analysis.

[Picture: Shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalander. Photo: Wiki.]

"Metro Sufi"

By Jim Quilty, *Filming music as a form of redemption* - The Daily Star - Beirut, Lebanon; Thursday, February 3, 2011

Mahmoud Kaabour discusses what he’s been up to since ‘Teta, alf mara’

Rotterdam: One of the handful of interesting films to emerge from Lebanon in 2010 was Mahmoud Kaabour’s amusing, sentimental, yet formally interesting little documentary “Teta, alf mara” (Grandmother, a thousand times).

This slim (48-minute) documentary reflects upon the filmmaker’s relationship with his grandmother, Hajji Fatima Kaabour, and their shared relationship with Kaabour’s absent grandfather, Mahmoud Kaabour.

The grandfather had been a violinist and an improvisational musician of some note and his improv work (taqsim) wafts throughout this film – both the original home recordings and contemporary updates performed by contrabassist Nabil Amarshi and his ensemble People Playing Music.

The music, Kaabour’s formal interventions and Muriel Aboulrouss’ camera work transform what could easily be a home movie into a lyrical contemplation of place and change, something recognized at last year’s Doha-Tribeca film festival, which awarded “Teta” its audience award and a jury special mention.

Kaabour’s film is screening out of competition at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam, where the Doha Film Institute is also showcasing “Teta” and Ibrahim Batout’s “Hawi,” which took DTFF’s best film award in 2010.

“‘Teta’ was supposed to have a theatrical release in Beirut in February,” Kaabour says. “But now, thanks to the situation in the country, that was just pushed back to the first week in April, maybe, if the situation stabilizes a bit.”

Since Doha, Kaabour has been in the U.K., talking to distributors and sales agents. “It’s looking grim with sales agents,” he says. “We’ve been getting nice letters, all saying ‘I don’t know if we can sell this in 15 regions, so I’m not sure that this is for us.’”

Kaabour says the film was well-received at Tunis’ Carthage film festival and has had two special screenings – one at the opening of the Mathaf, the Museum of Modern Art in Doha; the other, the U.A.E. premier, hosted by twofour54 (the Abu Dhabi Media Authority, with whom Veritas, the film’s producer, is a partner) and the Abu Dhabi Film Commission.

“I’m waiting to hear back from the U.S.,” he continues, “to find out if it’s going to make it to Tribeca, or San Francisco. Tonight [Tuesday] is the European premier … If it comes out theatrically in Beirut and the U.A.E. and ends up in Al-Jazeera afterward … if it finds a home in museums, galleries, art house cinemas, and comes out on DVD and TV and gets a few different regions of the world, that’s not so bad.”

Kaabour has a number of new projects in the drawer. Nowadays he’s pitching a film that’s meant to go into production in June. “Champ of the Camp” will follow a Bollywood singing competition that’s been happening in U.A.E. labor camps for about three years now.

“It happens strictly in the camps but it’s a rock concert,” Kaabour smiled. “There are 3,000 viewers per camp and they’ve recently been letting champions from different camps compete for a national title.”

The idea grew from a film-screening event Kaabour runs in Dubai called Mahmovies: Music for the Eyes, which combines free music documentary screenings and concerts.

“We managed to secure permission from all the camps to let all the champs come out for the first time and give concerts to the Dubai public,” he recalls. “It was the first time that laborers and the people from the city meet, beyond running into each other, where everybody’s wearing blue overalls and they’re building and you’re not allowed to have any contact with them.

“It was a massive success, both for the singers – who were able to live their Bollywood dream for a night – and to people who felt vindicated from some sort of guilt they have about accepting the position of the laborers in the U.A.E.

“That inspired us to pursue a film that will actually take us into the realities of these people’s lives,” Kaabour continues. “Not to dig dirt, but to show how music becomes a raison d’etre and a driving force in people’s lives, which are otherwise quite crap.”

He says there will be formal similarities between “Champ” and “Teta.”

“It’s gonna be a magic-realist doc again [like ‘Teta’], where every performance turns into a music video or an illustration of a fantasy or a re-creation of their family photos.

“The idea isn’t to follow the winner but four people who progress through the game. Even if they don’t make it to the end, watching the competition though their eyes as people who lost could be intriguing.”

Kaabour also has a fantasy project that he says he’s been pursuing for the last four years or so. “Metro Sufi” will profile a number of Swiss, Dutch and German nationals (not immigrants) who have embraced Mevlevi Sufism – but not necessarily Islam, at least Islam as it’s conventionally practiced by pious Muslims.

“They let women whirl,” Kaabour smiled. “They have wine with dinner. To them, national responsibility comes before religion. They have quite a few interesting arguments among them.”

What all the subjects have in common is that Sufi practice has helped anchor them in an otherwise dislocating urban context.

“There’s a lot of talk about bridges between East and West. For me, these individuals embody the connection between the two cultures. Instead of reaching out to talk to someone else, they’re balancing a lifestyle that’s not hindering their affiliation to their home countries, or their high-ranking positions, or their contributions to society here in Europe.

“I think it could be inspiring to people in the Middle East. It’s a way of questioning the foundations of Mevlevi Sufism through a look at modern Europe and seeing whether it works.”

One of the strong central elements linking the new projects with “Teta” and his previous work is music. Kaabour lived in Canada for seven years and he says one of the main things he took away from that country was live music.

“Montreal is one of the most musical cities I’ve ever known,” he says. “They have bars and venues that have music 365 nights a year. You just step in. You may get one concert. You may get two.

“That presented an aspect of music appreciation that I didn’t have before. Before it was just about listening to records … Sometimes the music is so overwhelmingly affecting, yet they don’t have the resources to record it.

“It also gave me a chance to collaborate with musicians and specifically a group called Godspeed you Black Emperor. Musicians in that ensemble made the soundtrack of [Kaabour’s award-winning 2004 short] “Being Osama,” and that’s where I started my experiments of using music in an interesting way in cinema. “The soundtrack composer is one of the film’s Osamas. His contribution is to make musical commentary upon the stories of the other Osamas. In the film you see him playing with this ensemble live, so the soundtrack is live performance.”

Kaabour has tried his hand at being a musician himself and traces his relationship to music back to his grandfather’s influence.

“For me,” he says, “music is a much higher art form than cinema … I find cinema is a recycling of real life. It doesn’t offer me the escape from real life that the abstraction of music does.

“If a musician sits in a room with his guitar, he’s really connecting with his inner voice, then and there. By the time a filmmaker’s seen a single image of what he’s trying to create, so many hands have gone into the project …

“Everything we create in cinema is based on a rearrangement of reality – whether it be time, characters, places, lighting. While music heads in an opposite dimension where you’re generating something from seven sounds, basically. But there are always new musical structures, new renditions of the seven notes. It’s a language of letters but no words, so the possibilities are much higher.

“I make films, but when I need comfort I don’t go to the movie theater. I go to bars and just listen to what people are strumming.”

Not Listening

By Omid Safi, *The pernicious 'good Muslim, bad Muslim' game* - Ekklesia - United Kingdom; Thursday, February 3, 2011

One of the lower points in the Park51 Center controversy was the comment by New York Governor David Paterson: “This group who has put this mosque together, they are known as the Sufi Muslims. This is not like the Shiites…They’re almost like a hybrid, almost westernised. They are not really what I would classify in the sort of mainland Muslim practice.”

In a few short sentences, the governor managed to offend Sufis, Shi’i Muslims, as well as westernised Muslims, non-westernised Muslims, and “mainland Muslims” (whoever they are). Paterson overlooked the fact that some Shi’i Muslims are mystically inclined, and that six million American citizens are Muslims, thus there is no question of “westernising” or “almost westernising” for them. There is a more disturbing implication hiding in his assertion: the ongoing way in which the general demonisation of Muslims, of the kind now routine on Fox News, is accompanied by an equally pernicious game of Good Muslim, Bad Muslims.

There are many versions of this game, but the basic contour stays the same: The assertion that the general masses of Muslims are evil, terrorist-supporters, anti-western, patriarchal, misogynist, undemocratic, and anti-Semitic; and that these masses are set off and defined against either the solitary, lone Muslim good woman or man. The 'Good Muslim' is often an individual, or a small circle, because to admit that the larger group of Muslims could be on the right side of the human-rights divide is to have the house of cards of the Muslim demonisation game collapse on itself.

There are endless scenarios of this fictitious bifurcation: Reading Lolita In Tehran is 'Good Muslim', unspoken, nameless, faceless masses of Muslims are patriarchal, bad Muslims. Irshad Manji is an Israel-loving 'good Muslim' who suggests that Muslims could be blamed for the holocaust, while the majority of Muslims are bad Muslims. Salman Rushdie and Orhan Pamuk are 'good' secular or ex-Muslims, defined against the masses of Muslims. It is worth noting how easily and how frequently the 'good Muslim' solitary figure ends up being prominently featured on the op-ed pages of the New York Times.

Sarah Palin famously addressed “Peace-seeking Muslims” on Twitter: “pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing.” In her inarticulate bifurcation, supporters of Park51 were defined as being outside the “peace-seeking” Muslim category.

The latest version of this bifurcation game of Good Muslim, Bad Muslims is that of pitting Muslim mystics (Sufis) as the “good Muslims” against the majority of Muslims cast as villains. Sufi tradition offers incredible reservoirs for mercy, love, and pluralism. Yet it is inaccurate, and politically appropriative, to present Sufism as disconnected from politics or wider social concerns at best, and as agents of the Empire at worst.

This type of a presentation was prominent in the discussion about Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the visionary American Muslim leader behind Park51. Time and again in the presentation of Imam Feisal and his wife Daisy Khan, we were reminded by the New York Times that they represented Sufi Islam, a gentle kind of Islam, nothing like the scary monster of political Islam: “He [Abdul Rauf] was asked to lead a Sufi mosque.” Daisy Khan is described as “looking for a gentler Islam than the politicised version she rejected after Iran's revolution.” Another New York Times article was even more explicit in marking the couple as worthy “good Muslims”: “They founded a Sufi organisation advocating melding Islamic observance with women's rights and modernity.”

The suggestion that Sufi teachings are somehow immune to politics, that Sufis have been unconcerned with social issues and questions of justice and politics are problematic. Historically speaking, Sufis have been fully engaged in both challenging political powers and alternately legitimising political power throughout their history. The legacy of prominent Sufis like Abu Sa’id Abi ‘l-Khayr has been used in legitimising political powers, and Sufis such as ‘Ayn al-Qudat Hamadani and Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri have spoken truth to power. In both cases, Sufis have not remained aloof from politics.

The Park51 controversy exposes many underlying assumptions about religion in the public space and politics, particularly in the case of Muslims, who are given two options in this superficial bifurcation game: to be politically destructive in the manner of terrorists or 'Islamists', or to be politically quietist, acquiescing in the face of power. In this 'Good Sufi/Bad Muslims' dichotomy, Sufis are asked to line up in the politically quietist camp, so that they can be validated.

This dichotomy ignores a third group of Muslims: Those who, whether mystically inclined or not, want to neither destroy the world nor acquiesce to the wishes of the Empire, but rather seek to redeem the world by speaking truth to power. This group speaks out of the love of God and cries out for the suffering of humanity, defiantly and prophetically standing up for justice and liberation.

And here is where the canard of 'Moderate Muslims' comes to play: Ever since 9/11, we have been asked time and again where the 'moderate Muslims' are, and why they are silent. No matter how often, and how loudly, Muslim organisations and individuals condemn terrorism, the likes of Thomas Friedman can still famously, and inaccurately, state: “The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks… To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.” No presentation of factual data seems to persuade these critics that Muslims did, do, and will continue to speak out loudly and officially against terrorism. The reason their critics do not hear the moderate Muslims is because they are not listening.

Moving beyond the question of Muslims condemning terrorism, there is the larger question of what exactly makes someone a 'moderate' Muslim? In its current usage, the term 'moderate Muslim' is as meaningful as a purple polka dot unicorn. If the term moderate implies a balancing point between two extremes, it is a hopelessly vague term in the post-9/11 landscape. If one of the two extremes away from the 'moderate Muslims' is easy to imagine (terrorism, Bin Laden, etc.), the other extreme is ill-defined. What are moderate Muslims moderating? If one extreme is terrorism, then what is the other extreme?

'Moderate Muslims' are often defined, and confined, to be supporters of US foreign policy, vis-à-vis some important issues, such as supporting US global military presence, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Palestinian-Israeli issue. To dare suggest that the United States is today the world’s only military Empire with hundreds of military bases in other countries, or that we have in fact become the Military-Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned us about, or heaven forbid, that the Palestinians suffer from decades-long, unbearable occupation and violations of human rights, is to define one outside the safe (and lucrative) safe-zone of 'moderate Muslim'. Sadly, even the safe-zone is not so safe. Imam Feisal has been sent on political missions abroad by the State Department, yet even he was not safe from being branded by Fox News as a terrorist sympathiser.

If our public discourse about religion and politics is to evolve to a more subtle and accurate space, it must get to the point where religious voices that speak from the depths and heights of all spiritual traditions can do more than simply acquiesce in the face of the Empire. They can, and should, speak for the weak, and give voice to the voiceless.

With grateful acknowledgements to Sightings, and the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Illinois, USA.

REFERENCES

Omid Safi is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, USA. He served as the Chair of the Study of Islam Section at the American Academy of Religion from 2002-2009. He is the author of Memories of Muhammad: Why the Prophet Matters (HarperOne, 2009).

The Historical Divide

By Vikas Kumar, *Combating Extremism and Terrorism* - Eurasia Review/SAAG - India; Tuesday, February 1, 2011

The assassination of Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistani province of Punjab, is the latest reminder of the continuing impasse in the War on Terror. A lot has been written about the mysterious inaction of rest of the security guards when Taseer was being shot by one of them, the Pakistani Army’s silence, and the massive support for the unrepentant assassin.

We are faced with individuals whose belief system is logically as well as empirically unfalsifiable. If democratic governments and free markets fail to deliver, which happens more often than not in countries like Pakistan, people are told that God is unhappy with innovations. However, if they succeed people are asked to guard against the charm offensive of Satan. So, irrespective of the actual performance, Islamic extremists are convinced that the quest for a liberal democracy and free markets is dangerous. No amount of reasoning and/or exposure to facts can change them. Any move away from the fundamentals of the faith even for the sake of argument amounts to apostasy. In short, persuasion will not work with people wedded to an impregnable world view. The religiously motivated are bound by the internal logic of their belief to attack liberals, who will not mend their ways on their own.

The easy way out is to surrender hard earned liberties and conform to the assassin’s way of life. But, as Benjamin Franklin warned long ago, “those who give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither”. The other option is to combat the mind of the terrorists, to isolate them ideologically, which is easier said than done. We cannot even restrict their access to religious and secular public spaces without casting democracy in a poor light and turning them into martyrs. But can we not at least physically defend ourselves by fighting the war on the extremist territory? That is exactly what the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is doing along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border with very limited success.

Unfortunately, NATO has opted for the third best solution in absence of a credible ideological war strategy. The first best solution would involve modernist, democratic forces in direct ideological war with Islamic extremists. As argued above the first best solution is a non-solution because any ideological campaign against the extremists has to first clear the Islam-in-danger hurdle. The second best solution would involve allying with moderate Islamic groups locked in ideological war with the extremists. The traditional Islamic opponents of the extremists need not clear the Islam-in-danger hurdle because they have extensive support at the grass root level and cannot be portrayed as intruders.

A case for ideological war

For some reason NATO has chosen to overlook the second best solution and is given to believe that military operation coupled with concurrent democratisation and development is sufficient to conclusively eliminate the threat posed by Islamic extremists. But this purely secular strategy will at best bring the war-torn areas back to pre-war levels of development, without affecting the ideological base of Islamic extremists. In the meantime, the drone-borne war financed by democratic countries will discredit the very idea of democracy more than it would harm the extremists. Unsurprisingly, the strategy pursued so far has not only failed to stabilise Afghanistan but has also destabilised Pakistan. Even if victory is obtained, the revival of Islamic extremists after the withdrawal of NATO forces is inevitable because their ideological appeal will remain intact. In short, the War on Terror is a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money because it can at best temporarily neutralize ragtag extremist militias.

It is not that the current policy of isolating the armed militants and gradually expanding the constituency of peace through development projects is entirely superfluous. The development offensive provides people with a greater chance of obtaining secular employment and social security whereas the military offensive increases the fatality rates in the extremist camp. Similarly, the development initiative assures potential defectors that their livelihood will be taken care of and military preparedness assures them of physical security and protection from sanctions imposed by extremists. So, the current two-pronged strategy definitely increases the cost of joining the extremist camp and reduces the cost of defection.

However, its effectiveness is limited to the not yet indoctrinated masses and their half-hearted cousins in the extremist camp. Once indoctrinated, individuals are shielded from well-meaning arguments and drones alike by an impregnable belief system. Unfortunately, the extremists have already begun to put down roots in hitherto moderate masses and are able to strike targets across the length and breadth of Pakistan. The War on Terror cannot be won unless their ideological appeal is limited. NATO has to shed its ideological-cultural ambivalence and add an ideological component to its military-development strategy. NATO has to exploit the historical divide between the extremists and the masses to check the growth of the extremist camp.

Allying with the historical rivals of the extremists

South Asian Islam can be grouped into two broad categories: heterodox/Sufi Islam, which promotes religious syncretism, and exclusivist/puritan Islam. The theological divide between these categories is complemented by a linguistic and cultural divide, which goes back to the formative period of Sufism in South Asia, when Amir Khusro (1253 – 1325 CE), a gifted poet-musician and disciple of Sheikh Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi, began to use local languages and cultural idioms to express his religious thoughts. An example of his poetry is in order here:

Khusro rain suhaag ki, jaagi pi ke saang
Tan mero man piu ko, dou bhaya ekrang

(Khusro spends the night of union, wakeful with the beloved
The body belongs to me but the mind to my love, the two merging in a monochrome)

The Sufi engagement with South Asian languages, religions, and cultures was not without challengers within Islam. Many were punished for apostasy. But they defended their freedom of conscience and expression. Here one is reminded of Noor Mohammad, the author of Indraavati and Anuraaga Baansuri, a contemporary of the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah (1720 – 1748 AD). When challenged by his sectarian peers he defended himself in the following words.

Jaanat hai wah sirjanhaaraa, jo kichu hai man maram hamaraa
Hindu mag par paon na raakheon, kaa jo bahutai hindi bhakheon

(He, the Creator, alone knows, what is in my mind
I haven’t stepped on the Hindu threshold, what if I’ve written in Hindi)

It bears noting that not all Sufi orders are syncretists. In particular, Naqshbandi Sufism, prevalent in Central Asia and adjoining parts of South Asia, is very sectarian. Under the leadership of Shaikh Ahmed Sirhindi, the Naqshbandis played a pivotal role in vitiating communal harmony in medieval South Asia.

The Deobandis, the contemporary exemplars of the sectarian Islam in South Asia, derive their appellation from an important Sunni seminary, the Darul Uloom in Deoband, a small town in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. This seminary attracts students from across the Sunni world and its graduates play an important role within Muslim communities as teachers in seminaries and experts of Islamic law. While the Pakistani Deobandis continue to hold the seminary in Deoband in reverence, they have independent seminaries. Unlike their Indian cousins, who operate within a stable state and publicly shun violence, the Pakistani Deobandis show a marked preference for violence due to state-sponsored exposure to jihads in Afghanistan and Kashmir. The Afghan experience has, in fact, drawn them, ideologically and operationally, closer to Wahhabism and global jihad.

To spread its message among the believers the Darul Uloom relies almost exclusively on Arabic and Urdu but not other South Asian languages. Why does the seminary steer clear of South Asian languages? The answer is available in the description of Al-Daie, its monthly Arabic magazine, on its website.

Arabic is the religious and official language of Islam and Darul Uloom is an Arabic institute. Therefore, it was [sic] natural that Darul Uloom publishes any Arabic magazine so that the Arab world could be informed about the activities of Darul Uloom and its straight path in their own pure language. (Emphasis added)

So, on the one hand the Darul Uloom recognizes the need to reach the far off Arabs in their own language and on the other it hardly makes any effort to engage with South Asians through their languages, except Urdu, the mother tongue of merely 15 per cent of South Asian Muslims.

The linguistic exclusivism of the Deobandis neatly dovetails with their religious sectarianism. The Deobandis are opposed to all non-Deobandis. The Taliban, who destroyed the cultural heritage of Afghanistan and adjoining parts of Pakistan, are products of Pakistani Deobandi seminaries. The Deobandi disengagement from South Asian culture and attempt to re-cast South Asian Islam in an extremist-Arab mould, with generous support from the Middle East, contrasts starkly with locally-supported Sufism’s linguistic and religious syncretism. Other exclusivist Islamic sects in South Asia are similar to the Deobandis. For instance, the Ahl-e Hadith (People of the Traditions of the Prophet) sect also shuns local culture, is opposed to other Islamic sects, including the Deobandis. Ideologically, this sect is closer to the Wahhabis than the Deobandis. The difference between its Indian and Pakistani wings parallels the difference between the two wings of the Deobandis. Like the Deobandis, its Pakistani wing has its own militant outfit, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has carried out a number of attacks on Sufi institutions.

No wonder Sufism’s appeal transcends religious boundaries, whereas the extremist appeal is restricted to a sub-group of Sunnis. Unfortunately, Sufism and other heterodox sects are beleaguered in Pakistan and areas partly under its influence like Afghanistan and Kashmir Valley, where the Islamic extremists are ascendant. So far, the extremists are far from dominant and have never managed to win free and fair elections in South Asia. Yet if the Pakistani army continues to shield them and nurture them as strategic assets then the balance of power could ultimately shift in their favour, which can in turn trigger the radicalization of the relatively moderate sects. A case in point is the increasing involvement of the (Pakistani) Barelvis, the traditional rivals of the Deobandis in South Asia, in extremist violence within Pakistan and trans-national terrorism. The assassination of Taseer is an advance warning in this regard.

It is indeed surprising that despite its partition in 1971 due to imposition of Urdu and sectarian Islam on Bengalis, the Pakistani state continues to patronise Urdu (the mother tongue of less than 10 per cent of Pakistanis) and exclusivist Islamic sects and suppress local languages and heterodox sects. Since local languages and heterodox sects are closely related and are the only organic sources of resistance to the Arabic-Islamists, NATO can no longer afford to remain neutral in the ideological-cultural war within South Asian Islam. NATO has to nudge the Pakistani state to amend its policies that marginalize heterodox sects and local languages.

Concluding remarks

The War on Terror cannot be won unless the current strategy, which prioritizes military offensive coupled with development and democracy, is complemented by a suitable ideological offensive to delegitimize Islamic extremism. The best way to achieve this is to protect and strengthen local competitors of Islamic extremism and enlist them as partners in the development offensive and help them reach quake and flood victims before the extremists, who are flush with petro-dollars. But will the proposed strategy of exploiting traditional fault lines divert attention from real issues like political ambitions and narcotic smuggling for which Islam could be a convenient cover? The proposed strategy makes sense because when pushed to the wall these vested interests champion the Islam-in-danger cause with telling effect.

In short, irrespective of whether we are faced with instrumental or true extremists, we can no longer shy away from the fact that ideological offensive is an indispensable part of the winning strategy.

(Vikas Kumar is an independent researcher based in Bangalore. He can be reached at e-mail vikasprithvipur@gmail.com. The views expressed by the author are his own)

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Grand Magal

By GIN, *Millions in pilgrimage to holy Senegalese tomb* - Frost Illustrated - Fort Wayne, IN, USA; Wednesday, February 2, 2011

More than three million members of the Mourides, a Sufi Muslim sect, were expected to fill Senegal’s holy city of Touba last week in an annual ceremony that honors the movement’s founder, Cheikh Amadou Bamba.

The “Grand Magal” or “great pilgrimage” recalls Bamba’s exile in 1895 by French colonial authorities, who feared his growing influence.

“After the Prophet, Cheikh Mamadou Bamba has been the person who has most influenced Islam,” said Mamadou Sarr, a guardian at the tomb of Bamba’s best-known disciple, Ibra Fall, the founder of the Baye Fall movement.

In Senegal, the annual “Grand Magal” is given maximum attention and support by the government because Mourides are among the richest and most influential in local politics.

In an unrelated development, a U.S. civil rights group is demanding justice for Cheikh Diop, a Senegalese father of four, detained in a Pennsylvania jail for nearly three years while appealing his deportation.

“It makes no sense to lock up immigrants with legitimate challenges to deportation, who pose no threat to public safety and who are not flight risks,” said Michael Tan, staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “We spend millions of taxpayer dollars every year incarcerating people for no good reason.”

[Picture: Interior of a mosque in Touba.Photo: Wiki.]

Elaborate Arrangements

By Staff Reporter, *Three-day annual Rouza Sharif Urs begins tomorrow* - IBN Live - Noida, UP, India; Sunday, January 30, 2011

Fatehgarh Sahib: The three-day annual Rouza Sharif Urs will begin tomorrow at the tomb of Sufi saint Sheikh Ahmad Farooqui in Sirhind, considered to be one of the holy places of Islam.

Muslims from various parts of the country come to attend the Urs, which will be held from January 31 to February 2.

Observed every year in 'Safer' month of Muslim calendar, the Urs provides an opportunity not only to Muslims but also to Hindus and Sikhs to pay obeisance to the saint and also enjoy the fair organised on the occasion and purchase handicrafts.

The district administration has made elaborate arrangements for conducting the fair in front of Baba Moti Ram Memorial Trust building near Sri Fatehgarh Sahib Gurudwara.

Rouza Sharif is situated on the Fatehgarh Sahib-Bassi Pathana road and the shrine, built in 1929, is in the vicinity of the Sri Fatehgarh Sahib Gurdwara.

Sheikh Ahmad was the most eminent of Khwaja Baqi Billah's disciples. Around 1599, he left Sirhind on a pilgrimage and reached Delhi where he was welcomed by Khwaja Billah.

For World Peace

By Staff Reporter, *Central University's courses on Sufism and Hebrew for world peace* - Times Of India - India; Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Jaipur: To cash in on the growing bilateral ties between Israel and India, the Central University, Kishangarh, has announced a language course on Hebrew. It is also starting a research programme on Sufism to spread progressive school of Islam from the coming session.

"The growing strategic and diplomatic relationship between two nations is generating many opportunities for professionals. The proficiency in this language besides management or engineering degree will open floodgates for our students in fields like space technology, agricultural and strengthening business ties," said MM Salunkhe, vice-chancellor of Central University.

For instance, in 2008, Israel and India finalised a three-year plan to introduce crops such as olives, dates and grapes in Rajasthan for products like olive oil.

The university might open a research centre on Judaism considering the large presence of Jews in Pushkar and Ajmer. The Chabad -- a place of worship for Jews in Pushkar, attracts thousands of Jews in the state. The course came into the thought of V-C after reading an international opinion survey conducted in 2009 on behalf of the Israeli foreign ministry.

Infact, the university is taking assistance to formalise the structure of the course as per the Sufi teachings and Sufi philosophy of Khwaja Moinuddhin Chishti, which dates back to 11th century. "I have experienced Sufism and found it necessary to have extensive research on its practices and values," said M M Salunkhe, vice-chancellor, Central University.

They are also planning to invite speakers from Jewish and Sufis to find out solutions to growing confrontation between Muslims and Jews across the globe. Syed Nazmul Hasan Chisthy, a sufi scholor has offered his assistance to design the curriculum for research programme in Sufism. He said, "Probably, for the first time a professional course on this subject is introduced in an educational institute. The teachings of Khwaja will now have far reached by this course."

This course is available only in some premier universities in the UK and the US. They aim to spread this progressive Islamic school of thought. The university is keen on introducing those courses which can attract international students.

[Picture: Jaipur, Principal Street, c. 1875. Photo: Wiki]

Contemporary Issues

By Staff Reporter, *CU announces seven new courses* - Times Of India - India; Monday, January 31, 2011

Jaipur: Central University has formally announced to start seven new courses from the next session on Sunday. While interacting with media, the vice-chancellor of CU, M M Salunkhe, said, "After intense deliberation with academic bodies, we have chalked out seven new courses."

The main highlight of the programme is research programme in Sufism. Salunkhe said, "I have experienced Sufism and found it necessary to have an extensive research on its practices and values," he said.

This course is available only in some premier universities in the UK and the USA. They aim to spread this progressive Islamic school of thought.

TOI on December 12, 2010 had mentioned about this courses. He also shared the achievements of students of the present batch and earlier batch. "During this period, we have organised many seminars on contemporary issues in society, economics and polity," added Salunkhe.

He said the next session will commence in the new building at Badar Sindri in Kishangarh. The government had allotted 518 acres at Bandar Sindri. "Erection of barbed-wire fencing is completed. A proposal for construction of 33 kv power grid sub-station has been submitted," Salunkhe said.

Sufi Coke

By Faiz, *Sajjad Ali Spotted On The Set Of Coke Studio* - Koolmuzone - Islamabad, Pakistan; Saturday, January 29, 2011

Sajjad Ali was recently spotted on the set of Coke Studio which is located at Studio 146 in the Korangi Industrial Area, Karachi. So, there is a huge possibility that the 44 year old Pakistani semi-classical/pop singer might be seen in the highly anticipated fourth edition of the live music based television series which will air in the summers of 2011.

The production of the fourth season of Coke Studio will kick-start from March 13th, 2011 said the Assistant Producer of Coke Studio, Zohaib Kazi.

Coke Studio, owned by the Coca-Cola Company and Frequency Media has become a national phenomenon and is a source of pride for Pakistanis. It focuses on a fusion of the diverse musical influences in Pakistan, including eastern classical, folk, and contemporary popular music, and is loved by music lovers across the borders.

There is a huge fan following of Coke Studio in India that they might be seeing their own version of it soon. A Coca-Cola India spokesman confirmed the launch of Coke Studio in India. Coke Studio is a music property that brings together different artists on the same platform. Coke Studio Pakistan brought back Sufi music to the main stream but we wonder what will it achieve in India.

Sajjad Ali is also working on the Rock version of his hugely popular track “Bolo Bolo” whose video will feature guitarist Faraz Anwar. The facebook management of Faraz Anwar updated the fans with the following update:

Faraz Anwar to be featured in Sajjad Ali’s Rock version of Bolo Bolo video, Directed by Sohail Javed.

Through Music

By Veenu Sandhu, *Addicted to Coke* - Business Standard - India; Saturday, January 29, 2011

Veenu Sandhu on how Coke Studio has become a platform for fusion music in Pakistan

Korangi in eastern Karachi is one of Pakistan’s largest industrial estates. Pharmaceutical and chemical units, steel plants, textile mills and automobile facilities are housed here. In the last two-and-a-half years, this industrial hub has become the nerve centre of another industry of a sublime nature. This is where Pakistani musicians from across the country, and abroad, meet to create a phenomenon that goes by the name of Coke Studio.

Ever since Coke Studio Season One premiered on Pakistani television channels in June 2008, it’s had a cult following even in India. It’s a platform for fusion music which draws from every possible source — traditional Pakistani folk, regional, western, Sufism and more. But the sound that is finally created is distinctly Pakistani. So it comes as a bit of a surprise when the Coca-Cola India spokesperson says that the brand’s flagship music property was launched first not in Pakistan but in Brazil. Somehow that doesn’t seem to matter anymore. For it’s Pakistan and Pakistani music that Coke Studio has become synonymous with.

The music spans across genres and the artists include both the well-known and the little-known. There is the 23-year-old Amanat Ali Khan who was one of the finalists in the Sa Re Ga Ma Pa contest in India and also sang “Khabar Nahi” in Dostana. There’s Arieb Azhar, who went off to Croatia when he was just 19, and along with musicians from Croatia, Bosnia, Bolivia and Ireland performed on streets, pubs and at concerts. On Coke Studio, he lends his voice to the words of poets like Khawaja Ghulam Farid and Bulle Shah. There’s also Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Junoon’s vocalist Ali Azmat and Ali Zafar, the Pakistani actor-musician-painter who played the lead role in Tere Bin Ladin. Season Three also had Abida Parveen, a stalwart in Sufiana kalaam, making an entry at Studio 146, the Korangi address where the recording sessions are held and aired live.

“Even the youngest pop artist here is trained in classical music and has a good understanding of Pakistani folk. They have succeeded in reinventing folk and Sufi music,” says Bani Abidi, a Pakistani visual artist living in Delhi. Abidi, who belongs to Karachi, says there is also a sense of Punjabiness at play. For people like her living away from their country, the huge presence Coke Studio has on the Internet is a blessing. Every episode of Coke Studio can be downloaded from its website (www.cokestudio.com.pk) and every video is accessible on YouTube.

Putting together an episode of this scale requires sound financial backing. Backed by Coca-Cola, Coke Studio has that kind of money. Abidi feels this is the US’s liberal agenda. “The US,” she says, “is very interested in opening up minds to Sufism, the enlightened Islam.” And what better way to achieve this than through music?

The Coca-Cola India spokesperson confirms the “plan to launch Coke Studio in India sometime this year”. But will it become as popular as it is in Pakistan? The Facebook page ‘I want Coke Studio INDIA’ indicates it could. “I would be very excited if something like this comes to India and stands on the might of pure music,” says singer Kailash Kher. “But in a country where film music dominates the entire music industry, this might be more difficult to achieve than in Pakistan where film music is almost non-existent.”

Hitesh Madan, guitarist and vocalist of EKA music band, agrees: “Anything mainstream is still perceived to be film music.” A platform that would break that monotony is really needed, he adds. Coke Studio India could be just that.

Visit Coke Studio Pakistan.

Search For Reconciliation

By TJF, *SHAYKH YUSUF AL-QARADAWI URGES MERGER OF SALAFISM AND SUFISM* - The Jamestown Foundation - Washington, D.C., USA; Publication: Terrorism Monitor, Volume: 9 Issue: 4; January 28, 2011

Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Muslim Brotherhood ideologue and one of the most influential men in modern Sunni Islam, has long resisted the Salafist trend of condemning Sufi Muslims as heretics and even apostates.

Though he has been offered the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood several times, al-Qaradawi has always declined, saying he would prefer to be a guide for the nation in general, rather than be the leader of a specific group.

The Shaykh has pursued this goal through a highly successful media strategy, involving a satellite television show and a popular website, IslamOnline. Nevertheless, he is held in suspicion by the West and is banned from travelling to the UK and the United States.

The Shaykh recently offered his views on several issues, including the Sufi-Salafist split in Sunni Islam, in an interview carried by a pan-Arab daily (al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 23, 2010)*.

Al-Qaradawi naturally objects to Egypt’s official ban on political participation by the Brotherhood, asking if it is really possible that religious people are banned from practicing politics and participating in the development of the country: “There is no doubt that this is a crime, because religion is the essence of life, and the religious individual has the right to participate in building the country through his personal opinion, be it political, economic, educational, or health opinion… If the groups are banned from working publicly, they will start to work underground. The Islamist groups might be forced to work secretly. This is an unhealthy situation, because whoever works in the open can be held to account for his actions, and you can criticize him, but how can you hold to account whoever works in secret?”

Though the interview took place shortly before the uprising in Tunisia, al-Qaradawi noted that many of the governments in the Arab and Islamic world do not have any popular support and derive their authority solely from rigged elections disguised as democracy: “They are governments that are hated by their peoples, and they govern their countries by brute force and martial and emergency laws rather than governing through the consensus of the people.”
With regard to a growing perception in the Sunni world that Shi’a Islam is intent on expanding its numbers and territory in the Middle East, al-Qaradawi warned that Shiites are trained for preaching their creed and have access to large funds to promote Shi’ism as well as having the support of a major nation — Iran— behind them.

In his defense of Sufism, al-Qaradawi brought up the names of two medieval theologians who are regarded as providing many of the intellectual underpinnings of Salafist Islam: Shaykh Ibn Taymiyah (12633-1328) and his disciple, Imam Ibn al-Qayyim (1292-1350). According to al-Qaradawi, the two were “among the greatest Sufis,” but rejected what was inappropriate in Sufism: “Personally, I call for ‘making Sufi into Salafi’ and ‘making Salafi into Sufi.’ The Sufi takes from the discipline of Salafi in not following the fabricated Hadith, polytheist rites, and tomb-side rites, and we want the Salafi to take from the Sufi tenderness, spirituality, and piousness. From this mixture we get the required Muslim.”

In his search for reconciliation between the two trends of Sunni Islam, al-Qaradawi also called upon the thought of Muslim Brotherhood founder Shaykh Hassan al-Banna (1906-1947), saying al-Banna conceived the Brotherhood as an inclusive grouping of Sunni Muslims: “It is a Salafi movement as it calls for returning to the Koran and Sunna, it is a Sufi tendency as it calls for purifying the hearts and returning to God, it is a Sunni way that is based on honoring the Prophet's companions and on the work of the Sunni school of thinking.”

Al-Qaradawi suggested that, contrary to public perceptions, Salafism is in fact a constantly evolving trend in Islam that now encompasses several schools of thinking, including those that are close to “centrism” and the ideology of the Muslim Brothers. After long denouncing the Brothers for participation in politics, the Salafists have now taken to politics in a major way. Exposure of the modern Salafists to developments in the wider world through travel after years of isolation and access to theological literature previously unavailable has also led to changes in Salafist jurisprudence.

Al-Qaradawi said the violent Salafi-Jihadi groups do not share the same agenda as the Muslim Brothers, who have told them: “We have tried such things, but they have not been helpful, and we have not gained anything out of them other than detention, suffering and victimization.” He noted that many of these groups, especially those in Egypt, have now reconsidered their strategies, issuing books of “Revisions” outlining their mistakes. Nevertheless, “All Islamist movements are entitled to try for themselves, and start from zero until they reach the conclusions of the preceding groups.”

[Picture: Front cover of *The Global Mufti: The Phenomenon of Yusuf al-Qaradawi*; Columbia/Hurst]

*[See Sufi News, January 6, 2011. (ed.)]

Judged By Deeds

By AFP Staff Writer, *Sikh shrine in Baghdad lives on in memories* - Dawn.com -Karachi, Pakistan; Thursday, January 27, 2010

Baghdad: A desolate courtyard surrounded by fields of mournful graves is all that remains of an ancient shrine to the Sikh faith’s founder Guru Nanak inside a sprawling Muslim cemetery in Baghdad.

War, insurgents or looters have wiped any trace of a historical footnote that had preserved the memory of the Indian holy man’s 16th-century journey through Arabia and his stay in Baghdad, hailed by Sikhs as an early example of inter-faith dialogue.

“No one visits anymore,” lamented Abu Yusef, the lean and bearded Muslim caretaker, standing in the nearly-bare patio where a disorderly stack of broken electric fans and a discarded refrigerator replace the prayer books and articles of Sikh worship that had furnished a shrine whose modesty mirrored the apparent humility of the man it honoured.

“Before the war a few Sikh pilgrims would occasionally arrive,” Abu Yusef said, referring to the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled ex-dictator Saddam Hussein and unleashed an unending cycle of violence.

“Once or twice we even had Western tourists. Last year, after a very long time, a Sikh man came from Dubai who promised to return and rebuild the shrine. But since then, nobody,” he said with a resigned shrug of the shoulders.

When they came, the pilgrims would stay a night or two and convert the shrine into a temple, Abu Yusef recalled.

“They slept in the courtyard, where they also cooked large quantities of food to share after worship with whoever came along,” he remembered, pointing to the places in the roofless, sun-beaten enclosure with whitewashed walls and a plain concrete dais that had housed prayer books, painted portraits of the guru and a prized stone plaque from the 16th century.

What is known about the origins of the site, which lies today inside central Baghdad’s expansive Sheikh Marouf cemetery that adjoins a disused train station where decaying railroad cars rest frozen on rusted tracks, is gleaned from scant historical sources.

One is a Punjabi hymn by the poet and philosopher Bhai Gurdaas, written several decades after the visit.

Inter-faith dialogue

That song, part of the holy scriptures of the world’s 25 million Sikhs, recounts Nanak’s travels with the Muslim minstrel Mardana who was his constant companion, their arrival in Baghdad and lodging outside the city.

In Baghdad, say historical Sikh sources, the pair stayed with Sheikh Bahlool Dana, a renowned Sufi Muslim of the time.

“It is curious that the hymn recording Guru Nanak’s visit says that he chose to stay outside Baghdad, which at the time was a wealthy, magnificent city and an important centre of learning,” said Abdul Majid Padar, India’s learned charge d’affaires in Baghdad.

“That probably means he had reason to stay outside the city,” he said. “I believe it was because he knew about Sheikh Bahlool, and went looking for him.” Nanak, an enlightened spiritual thinker who was born a Hindu but gained deep knowledge of Islam as India’s other major religion at the time, travelled throughout his homeland and parts of the Middle East, seeking other men of his ilk.

He shunned religious labels, teaching that man is judged by deeds, not the religion he proclaims. His ideas, which later formed the basis of the monotheistic Sikh religion, drew from Hinduism and Islam, but are regarded as much broader than a mere synthesis of the two.

“Guru Nanak’s stay with Sheikh Bahlool was an early example of inter-faith dialogue, of a kind that is hard to imagine in Iraq today,” said Dr Rajwant Singh of the the Sikh Council on Religion and Education in the United States.

Iraq has been torn by sectarian strife since the fall of Saddam, with Shiites, Sunnis and even the country’s small Christian community victims of the bloodshed.

It is in the courtyard of the Muslim Bahlool’s own humble tomb that, five centuries ago, the remembrance to Guru Nanak was erected.

“This shrine is very much sacred to the Sikhs as it stands testimony to Guru Nanak’s visit and dialogue with the Muslim Sufi sheikh of that place,” said Balwant Singh Dhillon, professor of Sikh studies at the Guru Nanak Dev University in India.

Modern accounts of the shrine date back to World War I when the site was rediscovered, after being lost in obscurity for centuries, by a regiment of Indian Sikh soldiers sent to Iraq with the British army.

Dr Kirpal Singh, a Sikh captain in the Indian medical service who travelled to Iraq, described the shrine in a letter dated October 15, 1918.

“It is really a humble looking building and known to very few people except Sikhs,” he said in an account quoted by the SikhSpectrum.com online journal.

Other accounts and faded photographs reveal an ancient stone plaque at the entrance, commemorating the building of the memorial, as the centrepiece of the shrine. The plaque was dated 917 on the Islamic calendar, or 1511 AD.

Pritpal K. Sethi, who visited Baghdad in 1968 with her late husband, in-laws and three children, told AFP she was moved to be standing at the same spot as the holy man.

“I really got a great feeling as I was standing on the same site visited by Guru Nanak Sahib. It was a very emotional feeling,” said Sethi, who was 31 at the time and living in neighbouring Kuwait.

“It was a very small, simple structure of about 600 square feet (56 square metres). There was a large courtyard outside. Not many Sikhs used to visit at all,” said Sethi, who is now 73 and living in the United States.

“Definitely, the most precious thing at the shrine was the ancient plaque that verified the legitimacy of the site,” she said.

Curiously, it was the hymn by Gurdaas that probably led to the rediscovery of the shrine. Subedar Fateh Singh, one of the Sikh soldiers in Iraq during World War I, announced the discovery in 1918.

“I am certain that Fateh Singh knew about the shrine from the hymn, which he must have learned in childhood, and he went looking for it,” said Padar, the Indian embassy charge.

The shrine was repaired by Sikh soldiers in the early 1930s, and reportedly again during World War II, when another regiment of Sikh soldiers was stationed in Iraq.

But accounts of what happened more recently to the shrine and its contents, including the 16th century plaque precious to Sikhs, are sketchy.

Shortly after the March 20, 2003 invasion of Iraq, Indian media reports variously said the shrine had been damaged or destroyed by US shelling, with other accounts claiming it had been bombed by Islamic extremists.

But a visit to the shrine showed no hint of damage anywhere in or around the shrine, raising the possibility that everything, including the stone plaque, was likely looted.

Abu Yusef, the caretaker, said he had been away at the time of the invasion and did not know what had happened and Padar, the Indian charge, said his own understanding of an attack during the war had come from news reports.

But with the temple gone, the only footsteps of the Sikh holy man’s journey through Baghdad remain in the memories of visitors like Sethi.

“It greatly saddens me,” she said about the shrine’s destruction.

“It signified Guru Nanak’s wish to spread his message of peace, love and a rejection of superstitions and rituals in search of the truth,” she said.

“He yearned to spread this message throughout the world, and he travelled on foot from India to deliver it.”

Picture: Abu Yusef, the caretaker of the ancient shrine to the Sikh faith’s founder Guru Nanak, sits in his lodgings n the Sheikh Marouf Junaid al-Baghdadi cemetery, in the Karkh district of Baghdad, on December 09, 2010. - Photo by AFP

The Notion Of Blasphemy

By Kancha Ilaiah, *Islam and the concept of equality in India* - Deccan Chronicle - India; Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The social role of Islam in the Indian subcontinent has become a topic of global debate. The liberal world is looking at Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh as “bad states” and as uncritical and undemocratic societies because of the issues they grapple with.

There is a view that Islam has not gone through any reform, while other religious and civil societies have passed through reform after reform. There is a strong view that the Islamic civil societies are resisting reform, even while a religion like Hinduism, which practices caste and untouchability, is willing to change.

This view is now acquiring global acceptability with the recent developments in Pakistan — particularly in relation to the blasphemy laws.

Before examining this view, we must understand the social role of Islam in the subcontinent.

Before Islam came to India, there were two notions of God in India. One was that of Vaidic Brahminism, which believed that God (Brahma) created Indians into unequal varnas (or castes); The other was the Buddhist view of God, which was essentially agnostic. Though the Christian notion of God was also prevalent, it was confined to a small region, that of Kerala.

Once the Islamic traders came along, the notion of Allah, who created all human beings as equal (irrespective of caste, tribe and race), spread across the Indian subcontinent.

Though this was followed by the invasion of Muslim rulers, the Sufi movement began and started acquiring a pan-India character by the end of the 11th century itself. It was mainly from the Muslims and the Sufi movement that the Hindu notion of spiritual exclusion, which was based on caste, tribe and race, got challenged. Perhaps this caused enormous exodus of lower castes into Islam and the plural but unequal castes began to be homogenised within Indian Islam. At that stage, in the land of caste (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and so on), Islam became a massive agent of inclusiveness and oneness.

This new practice of homogenising hierarchal and unequal castes was seen as a blasphemous act by the native Hindu spiritual pundits. This must have resulted in enormous violence and counter violence in the subcontinent.

Islam in the process achieved what was difficult for even the Buddhists. As we know, by 1947 about 31 per cent of Indians (mostly lower castes) embraced Islam and thus the present Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh emerged as Muslim nations. This happened merely because of the inclusive spiritual policy of Islam in general and of the Sufi saints in particular.

Let us not forget that the inclusive Muslim trade even in the villages played a key role in expanding Islam. In fact, it seems to have broken what Karl Marx called “the self-sufficient (but under developed) village economy”.

Today the practice of untouchability exists in Hinduism, Christianity and Sikhism because of their notions of “blasphemy”.

The Christian world, which is attacking the Islamic blasphemy laws as medieval, should know that the Indian church — particularly the Catholic Church — still practices untouchability and casteism through a different mode of blasphemy laws that are borrowed from the Hindu system. We do not have any statistical data on how many dalits and lower castes were punished or even killed in places such as Kerala by Syrians and Marthomas for engaging in social intercourse with upper castes — the character Velutha in Arundhati Roy’s novel The God of Small Things is a good example.

Now one central argument around “Islam as a global religion” is that it homogenises its civil societal order so much so that it does not allow any contending pluralities to exist.

Such a trend from within stagnates its civil societal transformation, for transformation requires pluralities to operate at least vertically. Blasphemy laws work as instruments against change and transformation.

Islam seems to have worked out the theory of blasphemy that makes it tightly inclusive. But this very tightly inclusive spiritual policy evolved through the Islamic history also made the expansion of Islam into caste society possible.

The caste culture worked out a theory and practice of blasphemy to establish strictly exclusivist social units. God in that society is not seen as a social unifier but as a divider. The strength of Islam and also the language of Urdu — perhaps after the decline of Pali — was unification through a spiritual discourse of inclusion and oneness of soul, body and the social organism.

What the Christian West has not noticed is that Indian Islam succeeded in abolishing untouchability from its social fold totally, though caste exists in some form.

Pakistan came into existence as an aggressive Islamic state. The Christian world has to understand its trauma and it must also ponder why it has failed to abolish untouchability within the fold of Indian Christianity.

Thus, the notion of blasphemy should not only be understood in terms of attack on one particular belief of God or a Prophet, but should also be understood as abusing a human being’s rights against the other in relation to God. This is where the discourse around God and the multiple forms of blasphemies must expand.

From Within

By Bina Shah, *Violating the Saints* - The New York Times - New York, NY, USA; Tuesday, January 25, 2011

There is a certain poetry in the final moments of worshipers who were killed by Islamic militants as they prayed at the holy site of Data Darbar and shrines to Abdullah Shah Ghazi and other Sufi saints in Pakistan over the past year.

I imagine them focused on their task — appealing to the saints for intercession with God — as they whispered their prayers, or left talismans tied to the doors and trees, or danced in ecstasy on a heated night, connecting to the Divine in ways that have been passed down through generations, linking the mysticism of Islam with the mysteries of their own lives.

They were certain, the 40 men and women at Lahore’s Data Darbar, the 9 people at Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s tomb, and the 5 others at Pakpattan, that the saint — or buzurg, as they are known in South Asia — would have the power to convince God to accept their prayers. Perhaps a woman was going there to pray for a child, after years of being barren. Perhaps a student wanted help to pass his exams. Perhaps a man needed a job, with hungry mouths at home that he was desperate to feed.

As they climbed the stairs up to the pistachio-colored building that is Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s watchtower over the seas of Karachi, or passed through the iron gates at Baba Farid’s tomb, as they took off their shoes to walk across the cool tiled floors at Data Darbar, they must have been hoping that their actions would bring relief for their pain — spiritual, physical, emotional.

If they were lucky, they would experience what is known in Sufism as fanaa, the annihilation of the lower self in the Divine. In the words of Bayazid Bastami, the 9th century Persian Sufi saint, a worshiper would “become fully absorbed to the point of becoming unaware of himself or the objects around him.”

And then the bombs went off, and their souls were let out of the cage that is the human body and reunited with God.

There is no poetry in the aftermath of a bombing. After the initial fireball, there’s choking black smoke, people running everywhere, screaming in fear and panic. There is blood, and body parts strewn on the ground. Rescue workers must claw their way inside, facing searing heat and burning wreckage, to find what little remains of both the victims and the perpetrators.

If there are any human remains left, they are taken by ambulance to the hospital, where their relatives wail in horror at what has happened. And yet the dead are at peace, “free of every barrier that could stand in the way of viewing the Remembered One.”

Those of us left behind know that these bombings are perpetrated by those who wish to divide our country and break our spirits. We seem helpless to prevent these attacks, and those who commit them grow bolder with each one. They feed off our fear like ticks growing more bloated on every drop of blood that is spilled in our country.

Violent attacks on Sufis for their beliefs is not a new thing. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk banned all Sufi orders in 1925, and their spiritual centers were taken over by the Turkish state. In North Africa in the 12 century, the Maliki Almoravid dynasty actively denounced Sufis and Sufism. Mansur al-Hallaj, a Persian mystic and poet of the 10th century was condemned to death for proclaiming, at the height of an ecstatic trance, “Ana al-Haqq” (I am the Truth).

The practice of Sufism is characterized by its disciples’ sole aim: to become closer to God. They achieve this through dhikr, the remembrance of God, and asceticism, through being “in the world but not of it.” Sufis are opposed to violence, extremism and jihad. They are seen as the world’s symbols of Islamic tolerance and humanism: nondogmatic, flexible and nonviolent.

Many Muslims in Pakistan consider themselves to be Sufis, and while the South Asian brand of Sufism is tied to our own particular culture, it has links to Sufi orders all over the world, which have thrived despite violence and discrimination.

However, a closer reading of history reveals that while South Asian Sufism carries that particular flavor of peacefulness, Sufis in other parts of the world have not been passive when it comes to standing up for Haqq, the Truth. In the Middle East and North Africa, Sufis have been at the heart of many reform movements, forming the core of anti-colonialist uprisings, such as the Sanusis in Libya, and the Qadris in Algeria.

Could it be that the Pakistani movement of peaceful Sufism may have to evolve into something more resolute in order to stand up against terrorism? Perhaps, but only if it would mean no compromising in matters of Shariah, and if it would serve the goal of Haqiqah, or “arriving at the knowledge of God,” both central to Sufi thought everywhere in the world.

There are Western analysts who believe that Sufism is the perfect foil to be used in the battle against Islamic extremism. The terrorist attacks on the shrines may be an expression of extremist contempt for the Sufi tradition, and they might well serve to rouse Pakistani anger enough to turn against the militants, but look what happened the last time the West tried to use Islam against its enemies: The mujahedeen were born, morphed into the Taliban, and then into the extremists that are against Pakistan today.

Sufism can only encounter extremism on its own terms, as a movement that rises from within, not as an experiment imposed from without. Attempting to “use” Sufism will only result in more bombings like these ones. And Pakistan cannot afford to lose more lives in the name of any ideology, on either side of the divide.

Bina Shah’s most recent novel is “Slum Child.” [Visit Bina Shah's website.]

[Picture: Data Darbar Complex in Lahore, Pakistan. Photo: Wiki]

"Start"

By A.G. Noorani, *Sufi images* - Frontline - India; Vol. 28/Issue 03 - Jan 29-Feb 11, 2011

The erudition of the text matches the richness of the illustrations in these two books on holy places of Islam.

Oversize books with profuse illustrations tend to be dismissed as “coffee table” books that adorn the drawing rooms of the affluent.

They might yet read books like these two and ignore their contents. For, they belong to the genre in which erudition of the text matches richness of the illustration. There is unfortunately not a single work on the main dargahs or mazaars of the great masters of the subcontinent. Each has its own individual characteristic, while all are bound by a rich tradition.

Mazaar, Bazaar is an excellent source book for students of culture as well as for artists and students of communication.

Saima Zaidi, its editor, who teaches the history of design and typography at the University of Karachi, has brought together a large number of contributors of erudite essays – 33 actually – and has embellished the work with excellent illustrations.

“They comment on a pluralistic society and reflect a visual culture that evolved from centuries of exchange with diverse civilisations.”

terms and topics vary. There is one on wall chalkings advertising cures for impotence and those calling for jehad which, the writer Durre S. Ahmed argues, display “a collective crisis of masculinity, religion, sexuality and love”.

The book thus covers mazaars (graves) as well as bazaars. The editor has written an essay on the visual campaigns of political parties in Pakistan. There are essays on Sufi and Shia elements in the representations of Guru Nanak and on the Buddhist art of Gandhara.

Samina Quraeshi has produced a feast of a book. She is a teacher, artist and author, currently the Gardner Visiting Artist at the Peabody Museum, Harvard University.

Sacred Spaces has essays by Professor Ali M. Asani at Harvard on “Images of South Asian Sufism”; by Professor Carl W. Ernst at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on “Islam and Sufism in contemporary South Asia”; and by Kamil Khan Mumtaz, a leading Pakistani architect, on the architecture of Sufi shrines, besides a major contribution on “Story-Telling as Imaginative History” by Samina Quraeshi herself, a devoted student of the legendary Annmarie Schimmel, who deserves a biography.

The author calls her a “practising Sufi and eminent scholar of Islam”. Invited to the author's studio, she remarked, “Your real work is to express what people feel and cannot express. You must communicate through the talent Allah gave you. Do not waste it. Start.”

There can be no praise greater than this that in this book Samina Quraeshi has fulfilled the task her mentor had set. It is about sacred places and how the spirit of Sufism is embodied and enacted at the shrines of the saints.

Her outlook is reflected in a Sufi saying she quotes: “The real journey must take place within the waste of one's homeland, the soul.”

Special Prayers

By Asim Hussain, *Data Sahib Urs starts today amid tight security* - The News international - Pakistan; Sunday, January 23, 2011

Lahore: Three-day celebrations of 967th Urs of Hazrat Ali bin Usman Hajveri, known as Data Ganj Bakhsh, will begin amidst tight security here on Sunday (today).

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif will inaugurate the festivities by laying floral wreaths and opening the milk Sabeel at the shrine of the 10th century Sufi saint who was among the pioneers of preaching and spreading Islam in the sub-continent, particularly in Punjab.

As per tradition, milkmen will bring thousands of litres of milk as a donation for the milk Sabeel at Data Darbar which will be distributed among the devotees and visitors during the Urs.

Millions of devotees from all parts of the country come to witness the Urs and to offer special prayers. A large number of devotees, especially youth, have already gathered at and around the shrine from all over Punjab. They are dancing, drumbeating and collecting donation to participate in the Urs while philanthropists provide them food as part of worship.

The district administration has taken all the necessary measures to maintain peace and security during the Urs. A special committee, headed by Auqaf Minister Ehsanuddin Qureshi, and comprising Auqaf Secretary Tariq Mehmood Pasha and Auqaf Director Tahir Raza Bukhari, is supervising all the preparations and management of different functions during the Urs.

Various seminars on Sufism, spiritual gatherings, Qirat and Naat competitions, debate contests, seminars, lectures of religious scholars, etc will also be a part of the Urs. Noted and amateur Naat Khwans, Qawwals and Qaris will participate in these contests. Besides, a large number of Ulema, Mashaikh, spiritual leaders and Gaddi Nasheens from all over the country will take part in the congregations and meetings.

According to Auqaf Minister Ehsanuddin Qureshi, over 500 Ulema, Mashaikhs and custodians of popular shrines from all over the country and abroad will gather for the Urs ceremonies to conduct various spiritual sittings which will be attended by thousands of devotees.

These gatherings will be presided over by noted personalities like Syed Muhammad Bilal Chishti of Ajmer Sharif, India, Diwan Syed Tahir Nizami from Mehroli Sharif, India, Khwaja Fakhruddin Fakhri, Syed Ahmad Ashraf Shah, Ghulam Qutubuddin, Nazeer Ali Shah, Baqar Ali Shah while prominent among the participants will be Khwaja Abul Khair, Samsam Ali Shah, Abdul Shakoor Hazarvi, Sufi Ashraf Masoomi, Siddiq Hazarvi, Mufti Khan Mohammad Qadri, Ashraf Asif Jalali, Prof ZAfarul Haq, Abdul Tawwab Siddiqi, Fida Hussain Shah, Hafeezullah Mehrvi, Mehmood Ahmad Qadri and others.

They will also offer special prayers for national security and prosperity and for the wellbeing of Muslim Ummah.

In view of the ongoing wave of terrorism, particularly the twin suicide blasts at the shrine last year, special security arrangements have been made including nine walkthrough gates, 80 security cameras and other monitoring apparatus which would be manned by over 500 policemen, 65 security guards of the Auqaf Department besides over 100 others from private security agencies. In addition to that, hundreds of volunteers, employed by the department, will perform different duties.

While officials of the bomb disposal squad, Civil Defence and other civic agencies, like Wasa and Wapda, will be deployed to meet any emergent situation.

[Picture: Data Darbar. Photo: Wiki.]

Behind The Blast

By HT Correspondent, *Aseemanand in Rajasthan ATS custody* - Hindustan Times - India; Saturday, January 22, 2011

Ajmer: The Rajasthan anti-terrorism squad (ATS) on Saturday took into custody Swami Aseemanand, a key accused in the 2007 Ajmer bomb blasts. His remand is till February 5. The agency produced the swami in the court of judicial magistrate Vikram Singh, who sent him to ATS custody. Swami Aseemanand had been brought from the Ambala jail in Haryana.

An ATS officer said Aseemanand would be quizzed in connection with the attack at the Ajmer dargah of 12th century sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti.

In its charge sheet filed in October last year, the ATS named Aseemanand as the mastermind behind the blast, which killed three persons and injured 15.

A CBI team had arrested Aseemanand in November last year. He was then sent to judicial custody in Hyderabad and later re-arrested by the National Investigation Agency in the Samjhauta Express blast case.

The First Socialist

By Staff Reporter, *Sufi Shah Inayat’s Urs begins* - Samaa TV - Karachi, Pakistan; Saturday, January 22, 2011

Thatta: The 301st Urs of a famous Sufi Shah Inayat Shaheed has been started here on Saturday.

Shah Inayat raised a slogan of equality, peace, brotherhood and struggled for the rights of farmers and laborers. He is known as the first socialist of the world.

He was killed with a large number of his disciples in a war to protect a commune they had established in the Jhoke area.

The Urs celebrations will continue for four days in which thousands of his devotees will participate.

All The Same

By Yonat Shimron, *A believer in hope* - Charlotte Observer - Charlotte, NC, USA; Saturday, January 22, 2011

A Jewish-born Muslim convert reaches out to promote his vision of understanding and tolerance

An N.C. congresswoman is elected on the strength of a TV ad blasting a proposed community center near ground zero in New York as a "victory mosque."

The new chairman of the congressional committee overseeing domestic security said he plans to open an inquiry into what he calls the "radicalization" of the Muslim community.

And in Oklahoma, residents approve a "Save Our State Amendment" banning Islamic, or Shariah, law.

In this polarizing environment where Muslims are often cast as the enemy, David Sterling recently began writing an occasional column for The Chapel Hill News.

The 58-year-old American-born Muslim convert has a more hopeful vision for Muslim acceptance in the U.S. With the calm demeanor of someone not easily rattled by the latest demagoguery or political posturing, Sterling is trying to make his vision a reality in his everyday interactions.

The owner of a pair of stores that sell gemstones for amateur and professional jewelry designers, Sterling is in his element helping people unleash their creativity.

"I really believe this is a precursor to a new reality," said Sterling, who lives in Durham. "Islam is here to stay in the U.S. And I believe there will come a time when it will be popular."

In his first three columns, Sterling wrote about mollifying his Jewish family after he converted to Islam 35 years ago, traveling to Washington with his wife, Zahara, to participate in the "Rally to Restore Sanity" in October, and embracing Jesus as one of the great prophets Muslims emulate.

Sterling has also taken on a larger public profile recently as one of a group of Muslims who gather for the obligatory Friday prayers, called Juma'ah, at the Friends Meeting House in Chapel Hill. There, Sterling occasionally delivers the sermon, or khutba, following the prayer.

To those who would paint Muslims with a broad brush, Sterling is proof that Muslims are a diverse bunch. Sterling follows the mystical branch of Islam called Sufism. Like other Sufis, best known for their ecstatic use of chanting, singing, dancing and whirling, Sterling wants to experience transcendence in this life.

"This is the paradox of life," he said explaining the Sufi way of thinking. "We are in time and we contain the timeless."

But while many non-Muslims have embraced bits and pieces of Sufism, especially the poetry of Rumi or the music of the late Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sterling practices the mainstream Islam preached by Muhammad. He prays five times a day, fasts during the holy month of Ramadan and abstains from alcohol.

Happy in the U.S.

Yet committed as he is to Islam, Sterling avoids the immigrant mosques, where he says the sermons are either too dogmatic or irrelevant to the issues facing Muslims today.

He is adamant he would not want to live in a country that follows Shariah law, especially as it's interpreted in the Middle East, where he says it has become oppressive. And after traveling the world and living abroad, he says he's happiest in his native country.

"I would never want to live anywhere else as a Muslim than in the United States," he said.

Born to Holocaust survivors who emigrated from Poland, Sterling was raised a Jew in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. He went to Hebrew school, attended synagogue and celebrated his bar mitzvah, or coming of age ceremony. Sterling completed high school in 1970, during the height of the countercultural revolution and was swept up in it.

Meeting a holy man

At 18, he hitchhiked across the country and dabbled in different faiths, trying to square his parents' narrow form of Judaism with his desire for a more universal faith experience. He joined the Hare Krishna for six weeks. He lived on a Hopi Indian reservation. He studied Tibetan Buddhism.

He was living in Berkeley, Calif., when he read a book about Sufism and was "enthralled." Later, when he ran a sandwich shop, he met an Iranian-born Sufi traveling the country with only a portable outdoor gas burner and a book of poems by the Persian master Hafez.

He invited the holy man to the communal house where he was living and the two became friends.

One night he had a vision of a man dressed in a long robe wearing a veil of shimmering light who said to him: "Come. Don't hesitate."

When he awoke, he got in his car, drove to a Sufi congregation and joined.

He has never looked back. Eleven years after his conversion, he agreed to an arranged marriage to Zahara. He was 35. She was 21. They never dated, much less talked to each other.

Today, the Sterlings say they advise their five sons against such an arrangement - not because they are unhappy, but because they recognize how fortunate they are to have found such a compatible match.

"We know how unusual it was," he said. "To find that in this day and age, while not impossible, is rare."

After following his Sufi spiritual master, Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri, to South Africa for five years, the Sterlings returned to the United States in 2002 and settled in Houston, later in Durham. The couple opened their store, Rare Earth Beads, in 2005.

Building a bridge

Every few weeks, the Sterlings lead a "zikr," or practice of remembering God, in their home during which they pray and chant. Newcomers to the practice said they appreciate the sincerity of Sterling's approach.

"David makes the living heart of Islam more accessible to me as a non-Muslim," said Krista Bremer, a writer from of Chapel Hill who is married to a Muslim. "He's provided a bridge for me and my husband to meet in a place where I could understand and relate to his faith."

That's exactly the approach Sterling now takes with his column.

In October, he wrote about finding forgiveness from his family for his conversion to Islam.

"I see us overcoming the currently volatile and highly emotionally charged narrative about Islam and Muslims in America and the world," he wrote. "Standing on level ground, we are all the same in the end."

Picture: David Sterling grew up in a Jewish family and says he has found forgiveness from his family for his conversion to Islam. He hopes to spread the message of acceptance. Photo: Harry Lynch/CO.

Sesat

By Bianca Smith, *Leading, healing, seeking* - Inside Indonesia - Indonesia; Issue 103: Jan-Mar 2011

Sufi women defy traditional beliefs about female spiritual inferiority

In an urban neighbourhood in eastern Java, hundreds of religious students, or santri, arrive at a pesantren (boarding school) owned and run by the family of a charismatic preacher, Nyai Nisa. She is a popular figure, aged in her 40s, with hundreds of supporters who appreciate her speeches for their wisdom and for the feminist orientation of her religious thought.

The santri have come to this family-operated pesantren because it is also the home of a tarekat (Sufi order). They will attend courses of study that last for days, weeks or months depending on their spiritual needs.

The pesantren-based tarekat run by Nisa’s family is distinctive when compared with similar institutions in Java: the school’s history has been turbulent because the women active within it have opposed widely-held ideas about gender. The stories told by Nisa and other women at the pesantren reveal lesser-known experiences of Sufi women that significantly contrast to the idealised spiritual image of Sufis, who are usually male. Apart from this, the pesantren is different because it includes an asylum that caters to the needs of the mentally-ill.

In the spiritual cave

Nyai Nisa’s tarekat is a branch of the Naqsyabandiyah, the world’s largest Sufi order. Like most of Indonesia’s many Sufi orders, this one has adapted to its local cultural context, which means that its traditional teaching practices, material and structure have changed to varying degrees over generations. The pesantren attracts people from all over Indonesia, who come and go in their hundreds, and even some from as far away as Malaysia and Brunei. It offers a standard Naqsyabandiyah observance referred to in east Java as prihatin, which its adherents consider an important exercise in the pursuit of divine knowledge.

Here, prihatin means ‘to go within’ by ‘going without.’ The prihatin process confines seekers of the truth to ‘the cave,’ symbolically named after the cave in which the Prophet Muhammad meditated and received some early revelations. The ‘spiritual cave’ is a vacant room in a gender-segregated dormitory, which seekers share with up to ten others, sleeping on carpets without pillows or sheets. Talking is banned, and seekers are confined to their own room and to the women’s compound. The minimum time required in 'the cave' is three days, and some stay for 40 days or several months – it depends on the needs of the seeker. In this way, there is a constant stream of people coming and going, so it is hard to know exactly how many are there at any given time.

Fasting is required between sunrise and sunset, and since bathing is not allowed during the day, it is performed after midnight, when seekers endeavour to cleanse their inner and outer dimensions in order to know their ‘inner lights and spiritual guides’. The aim is to ‘go within’ in order to feel who one really is. Ideally, santri enter the compound on a Wednesday night when an initiation takes place after the evening prayer. When confronted with the hardships they will experience in prihatin, some women decide to proceed no further.

Women perform prihatin for a number of reasons. Some seek enlightenment, others want to heal themselves. Many women are widowed or divorced, and some tell stories of arranged marriages in which they experienced repeated marital rape when they were as young as ten years of age. Several women explained how they killed their own newly-born babies to lighten their heavy loads as Javanese wives and mothers. Others spoke openly of their sexual desires for married men and how these desires crystallised as they went deeper into themselves during prihatin.

Seekers do not pay for the experience, but contribute some money for the food, which is supplied twice a day when they open and break the fast. Food is cooked by full-time santri who board for free at the pesantren and work as household staff, a typical pesantren arrangement. This traditional structure is centred on the house of the mursyid (spiritual leader), which is located between the male and female compounds.

The mursyid lives with his wife and children in the house, while members of the pesantren’s staff have separate living quarters near the communal kitchen at the back of the property. Female santri are traditionally segregated from the males, and do not have the same access to the mursyid as male santri. It is therefore very common for the mursyid’s wife, known as ‘bu nyai’, to play an important role in the daily interactions with female santri. Yet Nisa’s pesantren is different, because its history shows its women to be more than functionaries in a male-dominated structure.

A history of female leadership

The family pesantren has been in operation since the early 1900s when Nisa’s grandfather established it with his wife, Siti. After his death, Siti inherited the leadership for 30 years. Her leadership conflicted with the conventions of the genealogical lineages from which pesantrens derive authority as inheritors of august forebears. Recognised Sufi tarekat are parts of international networks legitimated by male mursyid or syeikhs who form a chain of spiritual transmission that goes back to the Prophet Muhammad. As a rule, therefore, it is males who lead Sufi tarekat in gendered spiritual lineages.

A division of the Nahdlatul Ulama organisation is responsible for recognising the authenticity and correctness of the tarekat, including the Naqsabandiyah order. Nisa’s grandmother’s leadership, however, seriously jeopardised the legitimacy of the family’s tarekat, and it was classified as sesat (deviant) until her son, Nisa’s father, succeeded to the leadership upon Siti’s death in the 1960s. With a man back in control, the pesantren’s status was restored and it began operating in line with the standardised rules of the Naqsyabandiyah order.

Nisa’s brother is the current leader of the pesantren, but what makes this pesantren unusual is that its staff and students recognise Nisa as the inheritor of her grandmother’s leadership ability. Inspired by her grandmother’s example, Nisa established her own small pesantren which she runs and manages on her own in another city in Java. But she continues to play an important role as spiritual leader of the women’s section in her family’s pesantren.

Women in Southeast Asia have an elevated social status in contrast to other Asian societies such as in India and China, and it is not uncommon for women to assume high positions in spiritual matters in the non-formal spheres of religious practice. Nisa’s grandmother was recognised for her spiritual abilities by her husband, a charismatic Sufi syeikh. He entrusted her with the leadership of hundreds of santri, who remained loyal by seeking her counsel and guidance during her 30 year leadership. Both men and women were initiated into the tarekat under her guidance.

The making of a nyai

As a nyai, the female equivalent of the kiai, Nisa performs a similar role to that of her grandmother, and implements a feminist approach that was shaped by her experiences with her father and his four wives, and by the severe segregation rules she grew up with at home as a child. Nevertheless, she takes care not to challenge strict interpretations of Islam that prevent women from leading men in religious and spiritual matters.

As a child she was rebellious, running away from home several times. She fled for good when her father arranged for her to marry a kiai who already had three wives. She was to be the fourth. The teenager finally returned home after living with relatives for a year, and married the son of a high-profile governor. Having been raised in the pesantren, she had no secular education, but her new status as the wife of a governor’s son allowed Nisa to follow in the footsteps of her grandmother by preaching and teaching, and she generated a large following over the years.

The pesantren also specialises in spiritual healing of mentally-ill patients. These patients are moved to a separate section of the pesantren in a village out of town. This special asylum has a high success rate in restoring mental health, thereby gaining ongoing support from locals, who firmly believe in the efficacy of its Sufi healing practices. The site has been associated with ‘healing the mad’ since Nisa’s grandparents led the pesantren, and its reputation has grown because of the many successful healings of mentally-ill individuals who took part in periods of prihatin. The spiritual manager of the asylum is a disciple of Nisa’s father. He has four wives who assist him to take care of the 100 mentally-ill people in his care.

In addition to her formal tarekat duties such as opening the initiation ceremonies and preparing women for what will take place during prihatin, Nisa is a spiritual guide and counsellor for women. Many people visit Nisa, seeking her blessing, prayer and advice, and she considers her vocation to lie in guiding women to feel Allah’s love. Her family’s pesantren provides a feminine space for healing under the leadership and guidance of advanced women Sufi practitioners.

Bianca J. Smith (bianca.smith@ubd.edu.bn)is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Brunei Darussalam. She researches the gendered dimensions of (re)Islamisation in Indonesia’s pesantren, tarekat and spiritual movements.

This article is part of the Women and Islam feature edition.

[Click on the title to the original article with more pictures and the link to "Women and Islam" (ed.)]