New Sufi Group Joins the Iraqi Insurgency

By Lydia Khalil - The Jamestown Foundation - Washington D.C., U.S.A.
Volume 4, Issue 2 (February 20, 2007)

Late last year, The Jamestown Foundation reported on a new insurgent group comprised of Qadiri Sufi insurgents calling themselves the Battalions of Sheikh 'Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani (Terrorism Focus, September 19, 2006). In September 2006, it was somewhat of an anomaly.

In the early years of the Iraq conflict, Sufi orders refused to participate in the violence, causing militant Salafi groups to attack them in retaliation for not participating or as a means to spark greater sectarian violence. Adherents of Sufi orders were perceived as victims, not perpetrators of violence in Iraq. Many cooperated with coalition troops.

The ranks of Sufi insurgents, however, now appear to be growing. Early this month, another Sufi insurgent group "The Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order" declared itself by posting a video on January 17 of what it claimed to be operations against coalition troops.

(...)

Sufi fighters have similar motivations for joining the insurgency as other components of Iraq's conflict—discrimination, loss of power, status and unemployment, as well as revenge and the suffering of various indecencies such as detentions. In fact, the imam of the Naqshbandi al-Rabat Mosque in Samarra, Sheikh Abaas Fadil, was detained by U.S. forces in March of last year. He was later released, but it was a humiliation for their leader.

Nevertheless, while Sufis may share similar political motivations for joining the insurgency, they do not have the same ideological or religious opposition to the presence of foreign troops and rule by a Shiite majority as do Sunnis. They oppose such circumstances only in so far as they lead to political troubles for their followers. They do not share the same ideological and religious aversion to Shiite rule in Iraq as more religiously motivated Sunnis.

Many Salafi-Jihadis who make up the global Islamist resistance have the same aversion to Sufi strains in Islam as they do Shiism.

The precursor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group, Ansar al-Islam, had attacked Sufi shrines and tombs of Naqshbandi orders in Kurdistan. It seems, however, that this may be changing.

This is certainly the case in Iraq where accomplishing military and political victory over the struggling Iraqi government trumps all else. Abu Musab al-Suri, a top al-Qaeda strategist now in custody, has Sufi family origins and has displayed no anti-Sufi sentiments. Other militant Islamic thinkers, such as Abu Azzam al-Ansari, in his work "Al-Qaeda is Moving Towards Africa," published in the no. 7 issue of Sada al-Jihad, writes that "working with Sufis is easier than working with any other trend, such as Shiite or communist."

There could also be circumstantial reasons for why Sufis have joined in with Sunni and Salafi groups in insurgent cooperation. Former Iraqi Vice President Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, widely regarded as one of the principal organizers behind the insurgency, is himself a practicing member of a Sufi order.

A militant branch of the Kasnazani order was involved with al-Duri. It is possible that these connections had something to do with bringing certain Sufi orders into the fold. Even without this personal factor, members of Sufi orders are participating in the Iraq insurgency in increasing numbers.

This is problematic for the country, but it does not mean that Sufis are participating on a significant scale in the worldwide militant Islamic movement, despite the current thinking of some al-Qaeda members on the subject. Even in Iraq, members of Sufi orders have not signed up wholesale. The very group that was associated with al-Duri, the Kasnazani order, is mostly pro-Iraqi government.

The mainstream of the Kasnazani order (which is itself part of the larger Qadiri order) and its leadership is involved in legitimate political activity, such as running a political party and a national newspaper.

The Iraqi government and coalition troops must take steps to ensure that more Sufi orders participate politically rather than violently, since the latter increasingly seems to be the case.