The Pain Of Separation

By Karan Kapoor/ANI, *Ludhiana hosts seminar on Sufism* - Thaindian News - Bangkok, Thailand
Saturday, September 19, 2009

Ludhiana recently played host to a national seminar on Sufism. This time, the theme was the influence of Sufism on modern times.

The Sahitaya Academy of New Delhi and the Punjab Sahitaya Academy organized the seminar. The seminar also focused on the ‘pain of separation from God’ and intellectuals, poets and Sufi singers.

“Sufism says that God, whom a man looks for all over, is within him. And once he realizes this fact, he will be free of his ego and will find happiness,” said Vaasthe Mohi, a Sindhi poet from Ahmedabad.

While, Gulshan Majith, a poet from Jammu and Kashmir, said: “When God is everything, so what is the importance of religion and caste discrimination, this is the message of Sufism. Shaivaism, Buddhism and Sufism give same message to the world and consider this world as the manifestation of that supreme power and do not make a distinction with the other. There are no boundaries. Everybody in this world is equal for God.”

The participants also put forth the argument that many Punjabi poets make use of themes from popular Punjabi culture. Dr. Chandraprakash Deval, a poet from Rajasthan, said Sufism is the paramount method to fight terrorism.

“Sufism is the best way to fight terrorism. If the minds of people can be changed, they will start respecting other religions, humanity and the feeling of brotherhood and secularism will increase, terrorism will be finished then. So to fight terrorism it is important to popularize the way shown by Sufism, adopt and follow that way and spread the feeling of brotherhood,” Deval said.

Sufi singer Balbir Kaur, who also teaches singing at Guru Nanak College in Ludhiana, held the audience spellbound and she also highlighted that school students must be made aware of the great cultural heritage, traditional folk art and literature of the Sufi saints, to promote Punjabi language.

Associating Sufism with any one religion is against its very basic tenets. Underlining this basic fact, renowned Sufi singers Idrim Khan and Skakur Khan from Rajasthan sung the verses of Bulle Shah, Guru Nanak, Kabir and Sajjan Shah.

[Picture from the Sahitaya Academy website]

Conflicting Interpretations

By Geoffrey York, *Somalia's leading export: its civil war* - The Globe and Mail - Canada
Thursday, September 24, 2009

Nearly two decades on, Somalia's warring sides are globalizing their conflict and violence. Geoffrey York reports from a Somali suburb in Nairobi being overrun by extremists while moderates make appeals to diasporas in Canada and elsewhere

Eastleigh, Nairobi: A young security guard named Hassan sits under a palm tree outside a Nairobi school, watching for Somali radicals who might want to lure away the children.
In another quarter of the Kenyan capital, a former Somali prime minister is conferring with his supporters in a luxury hotel. He is guarded by nine armed men alert for assassination attempts.
In a third neighbourhood, a moderate Islamic leader who fled Mogadishu last year is raising money from Somali exiles for media to counteract extremist propaganda - and to pay for his own militia.

Somalia's vicious 18-year civil war is spilling out into Kenya and beyond, spiralling into a global struggle that enmeshes the Somali diaspora from Africa to Europe to Canada. It is fought with guns and dollars, preachers and teachers, radio and TV, refugees and exiles; it's waged in schools, mosques, slums and skyscrapers.

Back in Somalia, the conflict is itself becoming a proxy war: Al-Qaeda radicals, including many from Pakistan, have imported the ideology of suicide bombings to the once-moderate nation. The United States, meanwhile, is shipping weapons to the official Somali government; this week, the Pentagon flew in special-forces helicopters to kill a Kenyan-born terrorism suspect.

Two regional rivals, Ethiopia and Eritrea, are also deeply embroiled, with Eritrea backing the extremists and Ethiopia twice sending in troops to bolster the government.

Despite this support, and more from thousands of African Union peacekeepers, the government is steadily losing ground to the extremists, who have seized many districts of Mogadishu over the past year. Nearly 300,000 refugees have fled to the badly overcrowded camps on the Kenya-Somalia border. Hundreds of thousands of others have sought shelter in Nairobi - only to find the battle has followed them to their supposed haven.

It's part of a global struggle between conflicting interpretations of Islam. Moderate factions, including Sufis, are clashing with a radical brand of Islam allied with al-Qaeda and funded by wealthy businessmen from Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. And one of the key battlegrounds is the Nairobi suburb of Eastleigh, known as Little Mogadishu. The impoverished, overcrowded slum is home to about 400,000 people and the dusty streets are often flooded by burst sewer pipes. Many Kenyans regard it as a hotbed of weapons, violence, terrorism and smugglers.

Yet it is also the business hub for Somali exiles, with some of the highest rents for shops and offices in Nairobi - some in Kenya say Somali pirates invest their profits there, putting upward pressure on rates throughout the city.

Eastleigh is increasingly infiltrated by the radical militia known as al-Shabab ("the Youth"), which has close links to al-Qaeda. Of the 5,000 to 8,000 Somali refugees who cross to Kenya every month, as much as 10 per cent are al-Shabab members, according to the Kenya-based Institute for Security Studies.

A prominent Somali businessman was killed in Eastleigh this month; last month, Kenyan police raided it searching for al-Shabab recruiters who reportedly worked for groups that posed as charities and humanitarian agencies. Ten young men were arrested for having agreed to become al-Shabab fighters. Terrorists were also reported to have planned a series of bomb attacks for the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Only two of the mosques and schools in Eastleigh have resisted the lure of anti-Western ideology, and those are fighting for survival.

Fathu Rahman primary school was established last year by leaders of Somalia's Sufi Islamic community. It teaches Islam, but also secular subjects such as English, Swahili and mathematics. Unlike the extremists' schools, it allows girls and boys to share classrooms. And that makes the plainclothes security guard a necessity.

"There's a risk of infiltration by al-Shabab-affiliated men who are working every day to put their ideas forward," says Khalif Maalim Hussein, the school's principal. "Their message is crossing directly from Somalia to Kenya. They are targeting young people who are uneducated, who don't know much about Islam, and they convince them that they are the real Islam. They are even targeting teachers. Their nerve is unimaginable."

He says the recruiters offer payments of $10 or $20 (U.S.) a day, and cellphones stocked with credit - irresistible lures to impoverished children. If they accept, they go to extremist schools and then are sent to Somalia to join al-Shabab. "They are exploiting the hopelessness of the Somali people," the principal says. "They offer money and the promise of heaven. But it's the opposite: If they kill an innocent person, they will go to hell. Our Islamic religion is a religion of peace and tolerance and respect - not beheading people because they are not Muslims."

Abdi Mohamed, a 14-year-old student, fled Mogadishu in 2006 with his sister and brother when his school was closed. In Eastleigh, his sister unwittingly enrolled his brother in a radical school. "They taught him to fight against Ethiopia and join the war as a jihad," Abdi says. "They taught him that foreign forces were spreading Christianity in Somalia, like crusaders." When their mother later joined them, she found her son drastically changed. "He would have gone back to Somalia to fight," Abdi says. "When my mother saw that he was becoming very different from other children, she decided to take him out of that school."

Another student, 16-year-old Faisal Hussein, says he is glad that the school hired a watchman. Recruiters "talk to people on the streets," he says. "Some children disappear. If they are taken to these schools where they are taught jihad, they lose contact with their parents and nobody knows where they are. They take them to Somalia."

One of the school's founders is a prominent Sufi leader, shaykh Hassan Qoryoley, who long ran a moderate religious centre in Mogadishu. He has been a target of the extremists since the 1990s. First, they tried to buy him off, offering him $70,000 in cash and a university post in Saudi Arabia to leave Somalia. When he refused, the death threats began. By 2008, he was one of the top names on the death lists of the extremists who controlled most of Mogadishu. For a few months, shaykh Hassan held out in his Sufi religious centre, guarded by armed security. But it was too dangerous. He fled to northern Somalia, then Ethiopia and finally to Kenya.

The Sufi shaykh is a key supporter of the militia known as Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama ("followers of the Prophet Mohammed"), who picked up their weapons in Somalia this year, alarmed by the dramatic gains by al-Shabab, with its hard-line beliefs in amputations and stonings and its brutal attacks on Sufi followers. "We send money and manpower to the government areas of Somalia," shaykh Hassan says. "In the last few months we've begun sending envoys to North America and Europe, asking them to help us confront these radicals. The government forces are mostly clan militia and ex-army officers, mainly fighting for money - their salary. But our fighters are fighting for our beliefs, our religion, our ideology. When you believe in what you're fighting for, you can fight."

Shaykh Hassan himself, however, concentrates on propaganda and financial cam-
paigns, especially in the Somali diasporas in Europe and North America. He is raising money for the militias, but also for a planned network of radio and TV channels - which he calls an essential tool. "These radical groups took their fight to the media," he says. "They're using local radio and television stations in Somalia. We have to establish our own media to broadcast our religion. We're hoping we will get the finances we need to wage this media war."

That war has already begun, even on Twitter, where the Sufis briefly experimented with their own feed, featuring a background photo of a machine gun resting on a copy of the Koran, and offering cheerful updates such as, "Ahlusunna fighters have been wiping out the foreign terrorists in hiiraan region of somalia."

But the extremists are equally up-to-date. "They have created their own cable-television system in Eastleigh," shaykh Hassan says. "They've put television cables in every building. They are making 24-hour broadcasts. ... They tell everyone that they offer free education in their schools. All of these things are making them very attractive to poor people."

For his own safety, the shaykh lives far away, in a different suburb of Nairobi. And when he has meetings in Eastleigh, he prefers private back rooms. "I'm aware of the risks," he says. "I try not to sit in the crowded areas of mosques."

If the threats are great for Somali exiles, they are worse for those who dare to return home. Awad Ahmed Ashareh, who came to Canada as a refugee and is now a Canadian citizen, has been a member of Somalia's official Parliament since 2004. Yet he has travelled to Mogadishu just once this year, preferring to spend his time in Nairobi instead.

In fact, the vast majority of Somalia's 550 MPs live mainly abroad, making it almost impossible for the government to get the two-thirds majority needed to pass legislation. "There was only one sitting of Parliament this year, and it was very difficult, very dangerous," Mr. Ashareh says in an interview in a Nairobi café. "The government controls very little in Mogadishu. The African Union peacekeepers protect the airport, the seaport, the president, the prime minister and the parliamentary speaker - but not the MPs. There are flying bullets, bombardments, explosions. When you're in the presidential palace, they're throwing rockets at you."

Mr. Ashareh says he has to hire his own bodyguards in Mogadishu, costing nearly half of his official $1,200 monthly salary - which hasn't been paid for months anyway.

Salad Ali Jeele, a former Somali deputy defence minister and still an MP, has travelled to Mogadishu for parliamentary sessions. But they are held in the mayor's office, too close to the front lines, he says. "Mortars and shells are coming close to the building every day," he says. "We are patiently staying there. But if you're afraid for your life, you can't do your work."

Ali Mohamed Gedi, who was Somalia's prime minister from 2004 to 2007 and is still an MP, is a top target of the Islamic radicals, who accuse him of allowing Ethiopian troops to enter Somalia. He says he survived five assassination attempts before finally fleeing to Nairobi. Even here, he is obliged to stay away from Eastleigh for fear of assassination. "The enemy is strong and has financial support," Mr. Gedi says as he relaxes in the lounge of an expensive Nairobi hotel. "They are very well organized in the whole Horn of Africa. The same people who operate in Somalia are here in Eastleigh - it's no secret. They are crossing the border from Somalia daily."

Mr. Gedi cites the case of the slain Somali businessman. He believes that the killers were militants from Somalia. "You can count these incidents on a daily basis."

Mr. Gedi says he is guarded by a nine-man security detail. But the bodyguards are so discreet that they are almost impossible to spot in the five-star hotel as the former prime minister holds meetings with other Somali exiles.

Asked about this, he smiles enigmatically: "It is better that you don't see them."

No Variation?

By Michael Kruse, *How real are runaway's fears of being killed for becoming Christian?* - Tampabay.com/St. Petersburg Times - FL, USA
Sunday, September 20, 2009

Will religious runaway Rifqa Bary be killed if she's sent home to Ohio?
Bary is the 17-year-old girl who fled to Florida in July because she's terrified that her Muslim family has to murder her due to her conversion to Christianity.

Authorities in both states say there's no "credible" threat against her. Investigators from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement say her fear is "subjective and speculative." Her parents say they don't want to hurt her and just want her back.

She's living with a foster family as a court in Orlando tries to decide what to do with her. The next hearing is Monday afternoon. Attorneys for her parents are expected to argue that the case should be shifted to Ohio.

This is a good time to pause for a bit and take another look at her Aug. 10 interview with local TV. It remains this ongoing story's primary source. "I'm fighting for my life!" she said in her nearly seven-minute interview with Orlando's WFTV. "You guys don't understand!"

Let's understand then.

• • •

"Imagine the honor in killing me," she said. "It's in the Koran." It's not. Here's what is.
One verse: "If any of you turn back from their faith and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the Hereafter; they will be companions of the Fire and will abide therein."

Another verse: "If they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them."
Those are parts of the two verses Robert Spencer cites to support his belief that Bary will be killed because Islam says she must be killed.

Spencer blogs at JihadWatch.org. He's written nine books, with titles like Stealth Jihad, The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). Two of them have been New York Times bestsellers. In Stealth Jihad, published last year, he writes of the coming "Islamic conquest of North America" and urges this country's schools to stop "the empty rhetoric of inclusion and multiculturalism."

Here are some other things the Koran says.
One verse: "Let there be no compulsion in religion."
Another verse: "Show kindness to parents, and to family."

The Koran, like many other holy texts, is long, complicated and at times contradictory, and over centuries different people have had and continue to have different interpretations.

Bary has committed apostasy. That means she was a Muslim and now she's not. "The Koran condemns apostasy," said Jonathan Berkey, a professor of Islamic studies at Davidson College in North Carolina, "but the verses about seizing and slaying 'renegades' concerned enemies of the prophet Muhammad's state, people who posed a political or even military threat. "For others," he said, "the Koran implies that apostasy is something that God will punish." Not people. Not in this life.

• • •

"They have to kill me," she said. Let's acknowledge this right here: There's no way to know for sure if her parents, or anyone else for that matter, will kill her. But this can be said with certainty: They don't have to.

This idea, though, comes from sharia, or Islamic law. There is one Koran but there is no single sharia. It comes from many sources, including the Koran, and is "more like a discussion by Muslim scholars concerning the duties a Muslim should perform," said Valerie Hoffman, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Illinois.

Most Muslim jurists say apostasy is punishable by death — but not all of them. It is "the heart of a burning debate among modern Muslims," said Sherman Jackson, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Michigan.

"There are lots of liberal Muslims today who feel that there should never be any execution of people who convert from Islam to another religion," Hoffman said. "You can't say Islam says this or Islam says that."

Also important is the fact that sharia is law only to the extent that specific governments choose to enforce it as such. Some governments in the Muslim world do. Most don't. Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority country in the world. Its government does not.

"Sharia is just not applied very often, particularly in the modern world," Berkey said. "There are few places in the Muslim world where much at all of sharia is applied with the force of law."

Apostasy executions are rare. An official at the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom told the New York Times in 2006 that he knew of four: one in Sudan, in 1985; two in Iran, in 1989 and 1998; and one in Saudi Arabia, in 1992. In the case of Bary, which government would order her execution for apostasy — Ohio, Florida, the United States?

"The allegation that Muslim parents would be required to kill an apostate daughter is absurd," said Carl Ernst, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina, "particularly if there is no evidence to back this up besides the daughter's statement."

• • •

"I don't know if you know about honor killings," she said. Honor killings are real. The United Nations Population Fund says there could be as many as 5,000 a year worldwide. Honor killings are usually when a man in a family kills a woman in that family because of some shame the man believes she brought on the family. It typically involves some sort of perceived sexual impropriety, anything from promiscuity to adultery to dating the wrong guy or dressing too "Western." Sometimes, women are killed after they're raped.

Honor killings happen mostly in the Muslim world. In the last couple of years, though, there was a double murder some called an honor killing in Texas, there was one in Georgia, there was another in upstate New York.

But honor killings and apostasy executions are not the same thing. "This is a basic mistake of conflating two things," said Brett Wilson, a professor of Islamic studies at Macalester College in Minnesota.

Ernst, the professor from UNC, called honor killings "a local or tribal custom," having far more to do with culture than religion — "more or less equivalent," he wrote in an e-mail, "to the so-called 'unwritten law,' honored by judges in Texas at least through the 1950s, which considered it legitimate for a husband to kill his wife and her lover if he discovered them in a compromising situation."

• • •

To believe absolutely that the girl from Ohio will be killed if she's sent home, you have to believe that there's no variation in the interpretation of Islam — no Sunni, no Shia, no Sufism — among the approximately billion and a half Muslims worldwide, stretching from Southeast Asia to Africa to the Middle East to Europe to Florida and Ohio.

Saying all Muslims have exactly the same rigid and literal beliefs and act on those beliefs in exactly the same ways is like saying the same thing about Christians.

Introverted Lyricism

By Robert Clark, *Exhibition preview: Nasreen Mohamedi, Milton Keynes* - The Guardian - London, UK
Saturday, September 19, 2009

Nasreen Mohamedi was a major, late-20th-century Indian artist who remains surprisingly under-recognised in the west.

Hers is unique stuff, a wonderful stylistic hybrid of influences from modernism (the wandering graphic fancies of Paul Klee, Kasimir Malevich's angulated abstractions) and eastern traditions (the introverted lyricism of Sufi, the patterned seductions of Islamic design).

Her photographs are architectural studies in which urban details are afforded an almost mystic aura. But it is with her drawings and jotted diaries that Mohamedi particularly enchants the eye and the mind.

Some are painstakingly geometric, like studies for some futuristic temple. Others are calligraphic improvisations, the doodles of a wayward imagination.

• Milton Keynes Gallery, to 15 Nov

They All Contain Water

By Gary Meenaghan, *Boxing was Allah's way of getting me fame to do something bigger* - Emirates Business 24/7 - Dubai, UAE
Friday, September 18, 2009

From biographies to big-screen adaptations, Muhammad Ali is without doubt the most prominent Muslim in sporting history.

His story has become an allegory of an underdog's rise to prominence: young black baptist boy grows up in America's Deep South to become world champion, an Islamic convert and break down barriers between race and religion.

Born as Cassius Clay in Louisville, Kentucky in 1942, the oldest son of an abolitionist father started boxing aged 12 after his red-and-white Schwinn bike was stolen. Clay told a local policeman in vivid detail exactly what he would do when he caught the thieves who stole his $60 bike. Joe Martin listened to the young boy before advising him to visit his gym where he trained aspiring boxers.

Martin trained Clay for six years, in which time his student won two national titles and an Olympic gold medal.

Christine Martin, Joe's wife, later recalled: "I was about as involved as Joe, except for the actual training. I would drive those boys everywhere. Indianapolis, Chicago, Toledo… "On trips, most of the boys were out looking around, seeing what they could get into, whistling at pretty girls. But Cassius didn't believe in that. He carried his Bible everywhere he went, and while the other boys were out looking around, he was sitting and reading his Bible."

Clay turned professional within two months of his Olympic victory in 1960 and harboured the dream of becoming heavyweight champion of the world.

His dream came true four years later when, aged 22, he beat Sonny Liston – and the odds – to claim the title. Yet, it would later be revealed, the fight almost never happened due to Clay's decision to join Elijah Muhammad's controversial Nation of Islam. Fight promoter Bob Faversham pleaded with Clay before the bout to postpone his announcement as a Nation of Islam convert until after the fight, or else face his title-fight being cancelled. Clay agreed and the fight went ahead, with the 'Louisville Lip' being awarded the WBA and WBC titles when Liston failed to answer the bell for the seventh round. The underdog emerged victorious.

On March 6, 1964, it was announced on national radio that Cassius Clay had changed his name to Muhammad Ali: Muhammad meaning "one who is worthy of praise" and Ali being the fourth Righteous Caliph.

Ali's conversion caused controversy due to mainstream America's suspicion and misconceptions of the Nation of Islam, as well as Elijah Muhammad's outspoken views on separatism. The negative press didn't bother him though, insisting: "I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want to be and think what I want to think."

The backlash continued when he refused to fight in Vietnam on the grounds it was against his faith.

"War is against the teachings of the Holy Koran. I'm not trying to dodge the draft," he explained. "We are not supposed to take part in wars unless declared by Allah or The Messenger."

Ali was stripped of his titles in 1967 for his refusal to be inducted into the US Armed Forces and it took him until 1974, at the legendary "Rumble in the Jungle" in Kinshasha, Zaire, before he managed to regain his titles.

The decision to host Ali's fight with George Foreman, one of the biggest fights in history, in central Africa, was questioned, but again Ali looked to God for the answers.

"Boxing was Allah's way of getting me fame to do something bigger," he said. "Allah, God... I'm his tool... My purpose is for my people. And I can help with just one fight."

Ali had travelled extensively in the years between his title fights. In the summer of 1969 he visited Abu Dhabi on his way to Mecca and other holy Islamic sites. Little is known of his short stay in the region, but he described to Saudi newspaper Al Madinah years later the emotions he felt during his visit. "I've had many nice moments in my life, but the feelings I had while standing on Mount Arafat on the day of Hajj was the most unique."

Having reclaimed his titles, Ali went on to defend them 10 times. It was during this period he converted from the Nation of Islam sect to become a Sunni Muslim.

Since his retirement in 1981, Ali has been involved with several charitable projects, most prominently the creation of the Muhammad Ali Centre in his hometown of Louisville.Together with wife Lonnie, Ali founded the centre in 2005 with the aim to reach beyond its physical walls and promote respect, hope and understanding, regardless of race and religion.

Despite his early views on separatism and inter-racial relationships while following the Nation of Islam, Ali is now an ardent advocate for an egalitarian society. Having embraced the spiritual practices of Sufism in 2005, Ali is keen to promote commonalities between religions rather than differences. "If you're a good Muslim, if you're a good Christian, if you're a good Jew; it doesn't matter what religion you are," he once said.

"If you're a good person you'll receive God's blessing. "Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams – they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do – they all contain truths."

Since being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1984, Ali's condition has deteriorated to the extent he no longer speaks to media. In a rare public appearance earlier this year, the 67-year-old visited the United Kingdom and Ireland to raise money for the Ali Centre. The Centre's CEO Greg Roberts said it is Ali's conviction and dedication to helping people in need that ensures he is so loved.

"He is humble and compassionate. He cares about the underdogs of the world. These are the qualities that make Muhammad 'The Greatest'," said Roberts.

Ali, however, would disagree. "Allah is the greatest," he quipped once, before adding with a trademark grin, "I'm just the greatest boxer."

Picture: Whenever Ali travelled, he would always ask where the nearest mosque could be found. In this stock picture, the world champion is at a training camp in Deer Lake, Connecticut. Photo: AFP

Fill This Heart With Honey

By Aubrey Belford, *American and Muslim, Sufi mystics band goes global* - AFP - Indonesia

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Depok: With a discombobulating mix of blonde hair and ecstatic cries of "Allah, Allah!", the members of Islamic band Debu sway on stage at a strip mall on the edge of Indonesia's capital.

Led by a clutch of American siblings, the band of adherents of Sufi Islamic mysticism have become a perennial hit during the holy month of Ramadan here in the world's largest Muslim-majority country.

The band -- who live communally under the tutelage of a 60-something California-born Sufi teacher in Jakarta's southern sprawl -- make an often confusing blur of the lines between the West and Islam.

A tour of Iran last year netted the band wildly popular TV appearances and an audience with President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, though bureaucratic red tape over their US passports meant they were unable to perform live.

"One of the things that totally blows them out of the water is that, okay, there are these Americans and the women are all in hijabs (head scarves), singing in Indonesian," lead singer Mustafa Daood, a 28-year-old with an American accent and a blonde ponytail, told AFP.
"Or in Turkey we're singing in Turkish, from Indonesia, so they have no idea where to put us," Daood said, laughing.

Asked what Ahmedinejad was like, Daood hesitated before saying that in their brief meeting the leader reviled as a bogeyman in much of the West seemed to be a "really sweet person."

Debu, whose name means "dust" in the Indonesian language, formed in 2001 and play instruments ranging from the oud, a type of Middle Eastern lute, to tabla drums, flamenco guitar and electric bass.

That sound has seen the band sell around 200,000 albums in Indonesia and win their own daily show on national television before evening prayers during Ramadan, Daood said.

But while the 12-member band -- which includes Indonesians and one Briton -- sings about religious themes, it is cautious over being labelled religious. Singing in nine languages including Indonesian, English, Arabic, Spanish, Turkish and Persian, the band says it is not about an Islam of dour moralising. "'Religious' is like 'oh, you need to pray five times a day, you need to...'" Daood said, trailing off, "these are basic things that they teach kids in pre-school -- you don't need to sing about these things anymore".

"We try to reach them on a much deeper level, on a meaning level, as opposed to just a kind of ritualistic Islam.

"We have one of our songs which says: 'If my path and my religion doesn't fill this heart of mine with honey and illumination, I don't want to waste my time."

Before the band, Debu members say, there was the Shaykh.

Shaykh Fattaah is a bearded Californian who converted to Islam in his thirties and turned teacher in the esoteric ways of Sufism, a broad set of Islamic disciplines that aims to bring people to a closer experience of God. The band, which includes four of the Shaykh's children, is just part of a community that has followed him around the world.

The group of around 60 people moved from homes and trailers in the US state of New Mexico to the Dominican Republic and then, in a move they say was directly inspired by God, to Indonesia.

The group now lives in a housing complex at the city's edge, where families gather together on the tiled floor of the Shaykh's house to pray, study and eat. Costs are shared communally.

"Most of us are related, many of us. And if we're not exactly blood related somehow, we've been together so long it's like we consider it family," percussionist Naseem Nahid, 32, said.

Although money can be short, "We just makes things work with what we've got and we never go without. We always have a good time," she said.

The Shaykh himself is rarely seen, only occasionally descending from his room for communal meals. His influence instead carries through lyrics written for the band in a poetic style inspired by Sufi masters such as Rumi.

Replete with images of drunkenness and passion -- "Your wine of love intoxicates/ This state my mind cannot conceive/ So I can't differentiate/ Between Adam and his wife Eve" -- the lyrics may at first seem startlingly un-Islamic. But the band says it is all firmly within the Sufi tradition and part of efforts to break Islam away from mere ritual.

The spiritual message is also, according to 30-year-old bassist Ali Mujahid, part of the band's push to go from being a Ramadan act to mainstream, global success.

"(Many Muslims) tend to take 'Islamic' and box it up and use it on Fridays and Ramadan," Mujahid said. "Our message from the music and the message from the poetry is that we want (Islam) to be daily, it's a daily thing."

Resalet Salam

By Amira El-Noshokaty, *Singing to the heavens* - Al-Masry Al-Youm English Edition - Egypt
Thursday, September 17, 2009

Reviving the fading art of religious chanting

At the Qubet al-Ghouri cultural center in the heart of historic Cairo, the powerful voices of young munshids, or chanters, fill the air with praise and devotion.

This is the collective voice of the Samaa Sufi Inshad troupe, the first of its kind.

Driven by a desire to revive the waning tradition of inshad, or religious chanting, Entisar Abdel-Fattah, head of the Qubat al-Ghouri, formed the Samaa troupe in 2007. The troupe chants mostly Sufi lyrics in praise of God and the Prophet Muhammad.

“Most of our music and theatrical works were inspired by folk heritage," explains Abdel-Fattah. As modern education becomes the norm, the influence of the Kuttab, or Islamic schooling, has receded. It was the Kuttab that had long represented the cornerstone of inshad instruction, after which Sufi religious orders stepped in to fill the gap.

Abdel Fattah has set up a school for Inshad, along with another for Arabic Calligraphy. The troupe, Resalet Salam, or "Message of Peace," is another of his many artistic achievements.

Abdel Fatah's music is a unique blend of Sufi inshad, Coptic hymns and Indonesian religious chants. Focusing on notions of peace and love, it incorporates religious musical styles from 12 different countries on five continents.

According to Mohammed Omran, professor of Folkloric Music at Cairo's Arts Academy, the precise origins of religious inshad remain unclear. Some scholars believe the tradition first began with the Prophet Mohamed's disciple Belal, Islam's first Muazin, or caller to prayer.

"In Egyptian folk culture, inshad can be of various themes, be they romantic, patriotic or religious," said Omran. At the beginning of the twentieth century, religious inshad were a combination of vocals and clapping. “Singers would knock their prayer beads against their canes for the tempo," said Omran. “Gradually, the tambourine and Oud were introduced, creating a musical ensemble now known as the goqa."

He went on to explain that Munshids would often recite inshad as a method for learning tajweed, a rhythmic style of reading Quran aloud.

Although the tradition has customarily been dominated by men, there have been numerous examples of female munshids. “The famous singing sensation Om Kalthoum was a case in point," said Omran, who went on to point to Damietta's Sheikha Shiha and Sharqia's Sheikha Tafida as other well-known examples.

Listening to these powerful voices as they make their way heavenward, it is almost possible to believe in the possibility of a better world of peace and harmony.

The Same Musical Heritage

SDSU Staff writer, *Yale Strom Performs for UN General Assembly* - San Diego State University - San Diego, CA, USA

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Yale Strom, SDSU Jewish Studies artist-in-residence, performed for the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday, Sept. 12, as part of the Concert for Pakistan.

Strom played alongside Salman Ahmad and his internationally acclaimed Sufi rock band, Junoon. Other performers that evening included musicians from around the world, such as Sting and Gavin Rossdale.

The concert aimed to raise awareness of the plight of the Swat Valley refugees who fled the Taliban in Pakistan.

Common Chords Ahmad also plays with Strom in Common Chords*, a music ensemble that is trying to bridge the divide between Muslims and Jews by showing their music shares the same musical heritage. Through their music they bring Jews and Muslims together in dialogue and share in the beauty of each other’s musical folk traditions.

Common Chords performed at SDSU in April 2008**.

About Strom
Strom is a violinist, composer, film maker, writer, photographer and playwright and the first graduate from SDSU with a Jewish Studies minor. He is now one of the world's leading ethnographer-artists of klezmer music and history.

His field research in Europe has lead to six award­-winning documentary films and several books.

Strom's musical compositions have been heard on National Public Radio and performed around the world.

With his klezmer band, Hot Pstromi, and his wife, vocalist, Elizabeth Schwartz, he has created twelve albums. He lectures widely and has taught at New York University.

Strom was also a guest curator for a musical and photographic celebration of the newly restored Eldridge Street Synagogue on Manhattan's Lower East Side in Oct. 2007.

For more information on Strom, visit his website

*Visit Common Chords

**Click on the title to the original article with the link to this event

Beyond The Borders

By Sanjeev Miglani, *Pakistan: Now or Never?* - Reuters Blog - USA
Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Pakistan’s nearly 2.3 million people forced from their homes in the northwest are beginning to get more attention beyond the borders.

Last weekend Pakistani artistes as well singing great Sting came together for a concert in the U.N.General Assemby in support of the men, women and children who have become refugees in their own land in one of the largest human dislocations in recent years.

The Concert for Pakistan was put together by Salman Ahmad, founder of the Pakistani sufi rock group Junoon, which has created a mass following with its songs of peace and harmony.

Top billing was Sting, though, with his song “How Fragile We Are ”.

On Sufi Thought

By K. S. Ramkumar, *Indian scholar named to IIROSA assembly* - Arab News - Saudi Arabia
Thursday, September 17, 2009

Jeddah: It has been a rare achievement for Indian scholar and educationist Syed Shah Khusro Hussaini who was in the Kingdom for a brief visit recently.

Hussaini is among 20 people nominated to the General Assembly of the International Islamic Relief Organization, Saudi Arabia (IIROSA), an affiliate of the Makkah-based Muslim World League (MWL).

This is the first time Muslim dignitaries outside Saudi Arabia are being nominated to the prestigious body.

“I have visited the Kingdom on some occasions in the past, but this is a special visit, as my membership of the MWL and IIROSA has brought me here to meet with officials of the two organizations,” Hussaini told Arab News.

Hussaini, who specializes in Sufi literature, has received honorary doctorate degrees from the UK-based Belford University and Gulbarga University in the southern Indian province of Karnataka, his native state. He heads the Khaja Education Society (KES), which runs a chain of educational institutions in Gulbarga.

The institutions have about 12,000 students on their rolls. Hussaini’s father, Syed Shah Mohammed Hussaini, the recipient of the country’s civilian Padmashri award in 2004, started the society.

“I am trying to consolidate the existing institutions and planning to start a full-fledged research-oriented organization on Sufi thought,” said Hussaini, whose plans also include the starting of postgraduate studies for girls and an institution for mass communications.

Hussaini said he was aware of the difficulties of non-resident Indian (NRI) students in pursuing higher studies in their countries of residence, especially in the Kingdom and elsewhere in the Gulf.

“It is in this context that our society has reserved a 15 percent quota for NRIs and foreign students in all our institutions,” he said.

Other dignitaries to be nominated to the IIROSA General Assembly include Mohammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh; former President of Sudan Abdel Rahman Suwar Al-Dahab; and Robert Crone, president of the Islamic Center in Washington.

Picture: Syed Shah Khusro Hussaini

AŞK

By Şule Kulu, *Şafak looks forward to reaching the world with ‘The Forty Rules of Love’* - Today's Zaman - Istanbul, Turkey

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Elif Şafak, the author of the recent bestselling novel “Aşk” (Love), has said her novel, which probes the connection between Ella Rubinstein, a middle-aged housewife living in Boston in the 2000s, and Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, who lived in Konya in the 1200s, will be titled “The Forty Rules of Love” in English.

“It will come out in the US in January 2010. It will be published by Viking in the US and Penguin in the UK. I look forward to seeing it out in English and reaching the world audience,” Şafak says.

Noting that she did not want to name the English version “Love” -- the direct translation of “Aşk” in English -- as she thought “love” does not have the same tone as “Aşk,” Şafak says the novel will be called “The Forty Rules of Love” in English, which refers to the core of the book, namely the 40 rules of Şems-i Tebrizi, Mevlana Rumi's companion, which are mentioned in the book.

In an interview with Sunday's Zaman, Şafak spoke about the success of “Aşk” in Turkey and her expectations for “The Forty Rules of Love.”

What do you think is the reason behind the success of “Aşk”? Were you expecting such wide appreciation?
I wasn't expecting this. I had a good feeling about it, that's all. “The Forty Rules of Love” became a big best-seller in Turkey. But to me what is more important than the number of copies sold is how widely and lovingly the novel was received. I get amazing positive feedback from readers. I find this very moving, and I am very grateful.

What makes “Aşk” different from your other novels?
It is my ninth book. When I look at my books in retrospect, I realize each and every one of them is different. They are different in style and content because they were written at different moments in my personal and literary journey.

While I was writing each I was a different person. I am not interested in reaching somewhere. I am interested in the journey itself, in the process of becoming.

“The Forty Rules of Love” revolves around a simple but essential concept: love. It is a novel that draws deeply upon Sufi thought and combines the Western novel writing techniques with the Eastern traditions of storytelling.

Could you talk about writing process of “Aşk” or “The Forty Rules of Love”? Was the preparation period and the writing simultaneous, or was there a separate preparation period?
This novel was written in 15 plus one-and-a-half years. What I mean by this is my interest in Sufism started more than 15 years ago, when I was a college student. I wrote my thesis on Sufism, and my first novel “Pinhan” [The Sufi] was deeply woven with Sufi culture.

Ever since then I have kept reading on this subject. In time my interest became less intellectual and more emotional. More than your mind, your heart becomes your guide.

I accumulated many things inside, and there came a point in my life when the doors opened up and I just started writing this novel. I couldn't have written it earlier. I wouldn't have written it later. This was the right time in my personal journey.

How did you develop the 40 rules of Şems? Are they the rules of Elif Şafak as well?
In the novel there are 40 spiritual rules. I developed these as I wrote the story. In a way they came to me. I was deeply inspired by the teachings of Şems and the poetry of Rumi as I developed these rules. I was also inspired by universal Sufism and universal mysticism. But the rest is the work of my imagination.

What kind of a reader profile do you encounter when you think of the feedback you receive? Who is reading “Aşk”?
The profile of this novel's readers is very wide and very mixed. People of different backgrounds and worldviews read the book with similar attention and love. Leftists, secularists, feminists, liberals, conservatives, agnostics, religious people. Perhaps people who do not easily come together are reading the same book. This I find fascinating.

What does the fact that the novel has been read by Turks from almost all segments of society make you think regarding readers of novels in Turkey?
I think there is a very good readership in Turkey. We are always complaining that people do not read enough. This is only partly true. There is at the same time an amazing readership in Turkey, and we never know the real numbers because there are also lots of pirated books.

Those who do read in Turkey do it with love and attachment. If a reader loves a book, she shares it with her mother, aunt, grandmother. Generations of women in the same family read the same novel. Most fiction readers in this country are women, and they are fabulous.

I have always believed there is a vivid, dynamic literary scene in Turkey, and my readers are very mixed. They come from all backgrounds, culturally and socially. I do not favor the tradition of “Father Novelists” in which a novelist is expected to know more than his readers and to teach them. I write with my intuition. When I am writing a novel I do not know where I am going with the story. The story flows.

In one of your interviews you say, “After the writing process of a novel is completed, it belongs to the reader rather than to the writer.” From this perspective, what kind of a perception of “Aşk” do you see in the feedback you receive from your readers?
I receive so many emails, letters, postcards… People share with me not only what they think about my novel, but also how the novel has touched their life. This is very moving and inspiring. I see my novels as buildings with multiple doors and corridors. Every reader enters from a different door.

Sometimes two readers can read the same book, they can be inside the same building without ever running into each other. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, my novels are multilayered. Secondly, I believe, the reader of literature is not a passive being. Being a reader is an active process. The reader contributes to creating the meaning. That is why even when thousands of people read the same book, each reading is unique.

Do you expect the same success from its English version as well?
I cannot know that beforehand, I can only be hopeful. I am assuming the subject of the novel could be of interest to many people all around the world. We all are looking for love, and we all feel incomplete without it.

The story of Rumi and Şems strongly resonates with our needs and longings in the modern world. I think my fiction is both local and universal. I see myself as a commuter between cultures and languages. I am a nomad in spirit. And I believe stories belong to all humanity. They have no visas. They need no passports. They travel across frontiers, geographical and mental boundaries.

You say, “Both the English and the Turkish versions of this book are original,” in one of your interviews. What do you mean by that?
Well, for the last five years I have been writing fiction in both English and Turkish. Several of my novels were originally written in English, then translated into Turkish. Several others were written in Turkish, then translated into English. So I am a writer who enjoys commuting between languages.

In “The Forty Rules of Love” I tried a completely new technique. I wrote the novel in English first. Then it was translated into Turkish by an excellent translator. Then I took the translation and I rewrote it. When the Turkish version was ripe and ready, I went back to the English version and rewrote it with a new spirit.

In a way I have built two parallel books in the same span of time. It is a bit insane, I have to admit. It is a crazy amount of work. I do this because language is my passion.

In one of your interviews you say, “I am among those who keep learning.” What was the most important thing you learned while writing “The Forty Rules of Love”?
Rather than being one of the learned, I am interested in the process of learning. I am a student of life. I learn from my readers. I learn from life. Art requires taking a closer look at things. Artists and writers cannot be content with surfaces. They need to go deeper.

I do not believe in heroes. In my novels you cannot find characters that are absolutely good or absolutely bad. I believe in each of us there is good and bad. Every person is a tapestry of conflicting voices. I like to explore the dialectics of life.

We know of your deep attachment to Sufism. It is not difficult to notice traces of this attachment in your books. What do you think about the idea that being engaged in Sufism has been a kind of fashion recently?
I guess in all my books, Sufism was like a shadow that kept coming with me. It was an undercurrent, sometimes more visible, sometimes less, but it was always there. This time it became the core, the very center of my writing.

There are people who criticize me for “making Sufism popular” or “making Rumi a fashion.” I don't understand this. Let's say 500 people read a book because it is popular and out of that 500, let's say five become genuinely interested in Sufism. Isn't this a good thing?

Sufism is an ocean without a shore. If I draw from it a bucketful of water, will that lessen the water in the ocean?

In addition to a deep appreciation of “The Forty Rules of Love,” there are also criticisms, as you know. These criticisms mostly center around the fact that “there are some inconsistencies and anachronisms stemming from lack of information and being inattentive in the book” as they argue that you misinterpreted some words of Şems or, for example, you used an expression as if it was a verse from the Quran although it was not. How would you comment on these criticisms?
In Turkey we often confuse criticism with rejection. To criticize someone doesn't have to mean to reject someone. You criticize the people you value, in fact. We easily forget this.

Some of the criticisms are well based, and I listen to them and I learn from them and I am thankful to my critics. Some other criticisms, however, are raised just for the sake of criticizing and, frankly, those I disregard.

There were some minute errors in the first edition, for instance, instead of the word “hadith” it was printed as “verse.” Instead of “game of shadows.” it was printed as “shadow theater,” which didn't exist at the time. All of these typing errors were corrected in the next editions. If there is good, constructive energy behind a criticism, I will always appreciate it.

You have two children. What kind of a feeling is it to be a novelist mother? Are your children aware of your love for writing?
To be a woman novelist and a mother is like juggling many balls in the air, trying not to lose the balance. When I am writing a novel I work intensely, so it was difficult for me to learn this balance.

After the birth of my first child, I suffered from a long depression. I didn't know how to harmonize motherhood and writing. In time, I learned better. I wrote about that experience in my previous book “Black Milk,” which is my only autobiographical work.

[Also on this novel: http://sufinews.blogspot.com/2009/03/loves-sharia.html]

More Elements To His Life

By Damaris Kremida, *German scholar examines identity of yesterday and today* - Hürriyet Daily News - Turkey
Friday, September 11, 2009

A Harvard graduate in Middle Eastern studies, German native Richard Wittmann has spent a quarter of a century studying Turkey's Ottoman history. As a researcher for the Orient-Institut Istanbul, he is working on a book about a Sufi bureaucrat at the turn of the 19th century.

At the age of 42, it is hard to believe that scholar and German native Richard Wittmann has been studying Turkey for a quarter of a century. It seems like not so long ago that as a teenager he came to spend a year in Istanbul as an exchange student.

“What first got me dealing with Turkey as a country academically was a series of books I found at my host family’s house,” Wittmann said. “It was an old Ottoman encyclopedia that nobody could read because it was in the Arabic script.”

Now the researcher at one of Istanbul’s better-known academic establishments, the Orient-Institut Istanbul, is examining the life of a 19th century whirling dervish and how he perceived himself.

The subject of his research, in some regards, is not unlike himself and other contemporaries who travel the world and live in cultures other than their own, said Wittmann. Although the Sufi dervish did not travel much he got around in a more existential sort of way.

“It’s interesting how the Sufi was meandering,” said Wittmann. “He was a bureaucrat and then he got into the Sufi perspective while at the same time retaining his position as a bureaucrat. He was far from the monk of medieval Europe who just left the outside world. He just added more elements to his life.”

Wittmann pointed out that just as his subject was able to reconcile his two identities, one as bureaucrat and the other as spiritual man, today people who live in other cultures engage in a similar exercise.

“There’s a great line: ‘We don’t’ change our identities, we just accumulate.’ It’s not like the 19th century where people went to America and started a new life,” he said. “We go to India, Africa, here and there and we accumulate identity pieces in a way. This sort of creates our identity. This has a fascination on me as well.”

Layers of identity in a cosmopolitan city
At the turn of the 19th century in Turkey, Wittmann said, so many people in the Ottoman Empire wanted to be seen as modern and as Westerners, “to be seen as modern as the French or the Greeks.” His Sufi subject on the one hand talks about God and the world and interprets what he sees in spiritual ways. Yet he was also modern.

“He liked to use the telegraph. He was fascinated by the modern bakeries in Istanbul,” said Wittmann. “He was proud of having a French shirt instead of the traditional Muslim garment. At the same time he would despise some foreigners or innovations. He was just torn between two worlds. But by looking at a figure like this we can learn a lot about identities, about what things matter to a person and also how complex individuals really are.”

Wittmann explained that before the 20th century, and especially in a city as diverse and multi-faceted as Istanbul, people lived with contradictions. Turkey still lends itself to these and it is important to be reminded of them.

“You could be a Sufi and a strict Orthodox Muslim,” he said. “You could have different identities at the same time. I think that’s part of what makes living here exciting. You have these extremes all living and acting here at the same time. But I think it is generally important to remind people about the diversity of lifestyles here, because people tend to forget.”

The older generations here had neighbors who spoke a different language, neighbors who took holidays on different days than them. And this was not a problem; in fact it was taken for granted. Today this memory translates into a pervasive sense of tolerance for foreigners and outsiders, said Wittmann.

“I think this is something you can still discover if you have an open eye for it in Turkey today; this attitude,” he said. “I think this is quite remarkable. It could be one of the big assets of this society, to remember this. Because other societies, in Europe and elsewhere, have this notion of a very strict nation state. An ideal national who fits in. If you are an immigrant, then when you come you are expected to speak the language as soon as possible and maybe even think like most people do.”

Whereas, he noted, living here as a foreigner locals don’t expect you to do everything as the Turks do.

“You have an incredibly large degree of tolerance for other lifestyles,” he said. “It’s OK as a foreigner if you eat during Ramadan. No one would scold you for that or expect you to fast. It’s ok to speak a different language as a foreigner. No one will say to you hey you have to learn the language. This is a real every day tolerance that is just remarkable and not so easy to find in many countries.”

Wittman has been living in Istanbul for the last five years and that he came originally to carry out his archival research.

Orient-Institut Istanbul
The Orient-Institut Istanbul is located in the neighborhood of Cihangir, conveniently close to Taksim Square, one of the major cultural, entertainment and transport centers of the city. With Istanbul’s rich archives, manuscript libraries, museum and art collections, the institute offers unique opportunities for research on Islamic, Mediterranean and Turkish culture, society and history.

The Orient-Institut Istanbul supports academic research, with current interests spanning from the study of the plurality of Turkic languages and peoples, Ottoman history, to the current dynamic development of the region. Much of the work is conducted in cooperation with universities and independent academic institutions, both in Turkey and abroad.

The Orient-Institut also has an ever-growing research library open to the public. Its collection consists of approximately 35,000 volumes and 1,200 periodicals focusing on Ottoman as well as contemporary Turkish studies. In addition to its comprehensive Turkish collection, the library also houses often hard-to-find academic literature in German and other foreign languages. The institute likewise hosts public lectures and scientific conferences on a regular basis.

Established in 1989, the Orient-Institut Istanbul functioned as a branch of the Orient-Institut Beirut. Since the 01/01/2009 the Orient-Institut in Istanbul is established as an institution independent of the institute in Beirut.

An independent academic institute, the Orient-Institut Beirut was originally established in 1961 by the German Oriental Society, or the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, or DMG. It is now a member of the Foundation of German Humanities Institutes Abroad, or Verbund der Deutschen Geisteswissenschaftlichen Institute im Ausland, or DGIA.

For more information visit the Orient-Institute or email: oiist@oidmg.org

Picture from the “The uses and significance of dress”, a series of public lectures at the Orient-Institute from Sept. 29 through Oct. 1.

Eid Mubarak / عيد مبارك

Eid Mubarak to All Readers of Sufi News And Sufism World Report: Have a Blessed Eid ul-Fitr!

Picture: Eid U.S. postage stamp, September 1, 2001. Design/Calligraphy by Mohamed Zakariya.

Wiki/Eid Mubarak: On September 1, 2001, the United States Postal Service (USPS) released a 34 cent Eid postage stamp. When the first-class postal rate increased in 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, this stamp was re-issued with the new rates.

Click on the title to the USPS

Visit Zakariya Calligraphy

Nothing But Him

By Mahmoud Habboush, *Moroccan youth rediscover Sufi heritage* - The National - Abu Dhabi, UAE

Saturday, September 12, 2009

In the rectangular courtyard outside the Tijani zawiya, a Sufi centre in Fez, half a dozen groups of men sit in circles around aluminium trays filled with flat bread, fruits, milk and thick harira vegetable soup, waiting to perform the al Maghreb prayer before breaking fast.

Among them is 23-year-old Abdul Hameed al Warhi, who works in a shoe factory by day but spends most of his free time here, praying and partaking in mystical rituals with his fellow Sufis, whose strand of Islam, dominant in Morocco before a mid-20th century decline, is now enjoying something of a resurgence.

Following prayer and iftar, Mr al Warhi, wearing a brown T-shirt and black tracksuit bottoms, steps into the zawiya, which looks like a typical Moroccan mosque with colourful tiled walls and stain-glass windows. In the middle of the room, thick copper bars and short marble columns seal off the tomb of Sidi Ahmed al Tijani, who founded the Tijani Sufi order in the 19th century.

“[Sufism] is the purity of intention and clarity of heart,” said Mr al Warhi, sitting on a red Persian carpet next to the tomb, which is revered by followers of this order, many of whom hail from as far afield as Senegal, Mali, Gambia and Mauritania.

Mr al Warhi is one of many Moroccans, especially among the youth, who are rediscovering their Sufi heritage, a development that has been promoted by Mohammed VI, the Moroccan king.

The mystical branch of Islam, with its philosophy of inner peace, social harmony and oneness with God, is seen by many in Morocco as the ideal counterweight to such strict interpretations of Islam as Salafism, which have gained ground in the past few decades, as well as answering the country’s spiritual needs.

“A lot of people who want to adhere to Islam follow ideologies that lead them to extremism and rejection of others,” said Mr al Warhi. “But Sufism is a peaceful and forgiving way that calls for dialogue and love of others.”Sufi orders are mostly distinguished by their system of dhikr, which is a silent – that is, internal – or vocal chanting based on the repetition of prayers or the names and attributes of God, which number 99, according to Islamic tradition.

Essentially, the Sufis, like mystic branches of other religions, strive to obtain spiritual oneness with God, and dhikr, they say, is the vehicle that helps them achieve that. “When I do dhikr, I feel comfort and tranquillity,” said Mr al Warhi. “A spiritual feeling that I can’t describe to you.”

At the central Sufi zawiya of the Boutchichi order in Madagh, a small village in the north-east of Morocco, just 15km west of Algeria, young worshippers sit in a circle after performing the al Ishaa prayer, the last of the day. They begin chanting a poem about love of the divine, without the use of musical instruments.

The tone is solemn and engaging: “Oh how happy are those who won God and saw in the world nothing but Him,” went one line. As the chanting continues it grows louder and the young men gradually stand up with some of them clasping their hands around the backs of fellow worshippers, jumping up and down euphorically. Towards the end of each verse, a powerful voice resonates throughout the zawiya’s court, the ceiling of which is made of corrugated-iron sheets. The voice, loud and penetrating yet barely recognisable, said “ah”; the last letters of the word Allah.

Sufis say that in this ecstatic state the material world dissolves; and people react in different, spontaneous ways, including jumping, spinning and deep grunting. For Hassan Boumata, 17, from Tiznit, a town in the southern region of Sous-Massa-Draa, it is because of this exhilaration he will always be a Sufi. “A lot of people are looking for happiness but real happiness and serenity lies in dhikr,” said Hassan, who is still in secondary school.

If testament were needed to the revival of Sufism in Morocco, it was visible last year when 100,000 worshippers descended on the Boutchichi zawiya for the celebration of the Moulid, or the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed.

Sufism has been one of the defining elements of Moroccan culture for centuries. Sufi zawiyas and shrines of Sufi masters are seen everywhere in the country. In the desert, the vast agricultural plains and fertile valleys, shrines for “men of God” take pride of place.

But during the latter half of the 20th century, Sufism declined in numbers and influence due, among other reasons, to the emergence of a number of competing secular and religious ideological strands, including Morocco’s first Islamist movement in 1969, influenced by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. But following the Casablanca bombings in 2003 and 2007, perpetrated by Jihadist groups inspired by the literalist interpretations of Salafi Islam, the Moroccan regime closed dozens of Quranic schools that were believed to be centres of Salafist preaching and pushed to rekindle public interest in Sufism.

In July, the Moroccan monarch wrote to an international Sufi gathering in Marrakech saying that Sufis “advocate co-operation and joint action to support fellow humans, to show them love, fraternity and compassion”. The Alaouite Dynasty, which has ruled Morocco since 1666, adopts Sufism as a major tenet of the country’s Islamic faith.

It is believed the term Sufi was coined in the eighth century when it was applied to ascetics who wore uncomfortable woollen clothes to achieve spiritual discipline. Sufi is Arabic for wool.
Early on, a number of orders, or Tariqa, were established by certain Sufis who linked their chain of teachers back to the Prophet Mohammed. Only the few of those who attained high levels of Sufi knowledge had orders established after them.

Not everyone in Morocco appreciates the current rejuvenation of Sufism. Back in Fez, Salah Iddin al Sharqi, 16, said he did not consider the zawiya to be a “house of God”. Walking through the packed, narrow alleys of the 12-century-old city, in a red T-shirt, khaki shorts and flip-flops, Salah said some Sufi practices were not consistent with Islam.

“I believe in God and his messenger, but the zawiya is not a place of worship. There is someone buried in the zawiya and I don’t believe in praying in a place where someone is buried,” he said, referring to the tombs located in many Sufi zawiyas. Others express outright hostility towards Sufism, saying it should be banned according to prophetic tradition.

Standing outside the Barrima mosque in the old city of Marrakech – which is across the road from a small Sufi zawiya – after al Ishaa prayers, three young, bearded men said certain Sufi practices amounted to “blasphemy”.

“Seeking the blessing [of the dead] is explicit blasphemy,” said one of the men. Salafis have traditionally criticised the presence of tombs in some Sufi zawiyas as well as the reverence the Sufis hold for their sheikhs.

Even some Sufis question the practices of their fellow worshippers. Idris al Faez, imam of the Tijani zawiya in Fez who tends toward a more conservative version of Sufism, said he could understand certain criticism directed towards Sufis.

“There are some aspects of ignorance among some Sufis such as the mingling of the two genders and the use of music,” he said, sitting against the wall of the Tijani zawiya in Fez. Still, proponents of Sufism argue that it was the absence of their brand of Islam, as well as the spread of satellite channels espousing anti-Sufi views, that has allowed extremist versions of Islam, such as Salafism, to grow.

“The absence of the role of Sufism … resulted in the emergence of all sorts of extremism,” said Fouzi Skali, a leading Moroccan Sufi expert. “We can’t imagine a civilisation with this type of behaviour of killing innocents. We have developed an ideology that is against the basic values of Islamic civilisation”.

“If there is no change in moral values by which societies are ruled, we will be moving towards more crises and splits within societies,” said Mr Skali, who manages the annual Fez Festival of Sufi Culture.

Regardless of the ups and downs Sufism has experienced in the past and may experience again in the future, practitioners say it is ingrained in Moroccan culture and always will be.

“Sufism is the essence of Islam,” said Sidi Jamal, a Sufi master and son of the sheikh of the Boutchichi order in Madagh, as he sipped a bowl of soup. “The Prophet, his friends and early followers were all Sufis.”

Picture: Abdul Hameed al Warhi, 23, centre, a Sufi follower, breaks fast at Tijani zawiya. Photo: Nicole Hill/The National

Well-established Credentials

By Rajiv Kumar, *Top Article: Whose Side Are We On?* - Times Of India - India
Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Security hawks, the media's foreign policy experts and the political class had a field day after July's Indo-Pakistani joint statement.

Particularly for the BJP, whose astute leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee once took the boldest of steps to liberate India from its Pakistan obsession, nationalism seems confined to overtly displaying our superiority over a smaller neighbour, one fighting with its back to the wall against destabilising forces.

Good foreign policy, however, has to be more nuanced so that our long-term national interests are served.

To better appreciate complex diplomatic endeavours, we must start by taking note of some facts. First, India accounts for about 80 per cent of South Asian GDP. Being so dominant, it has to bear an asymmetric responsibility for achieving stability, peace and prosperity in South Asia. This must be the bedrock of our neighbourhood policy.

Second, we cannot choose our neighbours and should work with whoever we can to help Pakistan defeat the jihadis. Otherwise, there will be negative outcomes for our own experiment at building a pluralistic, multi-ethnic and democratic society.

Third, the strategic balance between the two countries must surely rule out any ideas of a decisive military victory. That road leads only to mutually assured destruction. We may well have to bite the bullet one day, but it is best avoided.

Fourth, there is not one monolithic Pakistan we can engage with. A choice must be made. There is the Pakistan of the armed forces which treats the country and its people as a fiefdom to be exploited for personal benefit. There is another Pakistan toiling in poverty, deprivation and backwardness for which succour from daily injustices is welcome from any quarter.

Fundamentalists, meanwhile, see themselves as guardians of the Pakistani state and true representatives of the Islamic republic. They see victory within their grasp because they have duped the army into believing that it can calibrate the growth of jihadism.

There is also the Pakistan of the rising middle class which wants modernisation but equates it with neither westernisation nor Islamisation. They are as horrified as we are at a video showing Taliban goons caning a woman and yet like us do not want to succumb entirely to the Coca-Cola culture.

The sufi and pir traditions to which prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and brave journalists, judges and lawyers belong are also part of this Pakistan. The small, almost inconsequential section of westernised, 'liberated' men and women is yet another Pakistan.

There is also the Pakistan of the Mohajirs who see themselves as increasingly marginalised and resent that. Finally, there is the Pakistan whose political leaders represent growing popular aspirations for freedom and rule of law.

India must choose which Pakistan it wants to support, and which it wants to isolate and hopefully defeat over time. Clearly, we must work to erode the credibility and legitimacy of Pakistan's armed forces establishment whose very reason to be is its festering animosity towards India. Islamic fundamentalists are the second group to be opposed. It is not mere coincidence the two are aligned in vicious opposition to India and subvert by coordinated, violent means any move to improve bilateral relations.

Pakistan-bashing, on which some sections of India's political spectrum and media thrive, strengthens the hands of these two groups. Nothing serves their purpose better than a bellicose India flexing muscles and vocal chords against Pakistan which they claim to represent. The reaction to Sharm el-Sheikh must have been music to their ears.

The Pakistan to be supported is today most effectively represented by Gilani. He comes from a sufi family, is a thorough professional with well-established credentials for integrity. He is seen as distinct from his president who comes from a completely different background and perhaps with his own agenda.

Gilani represents the aspirations, weaknesses and strengths of the Pakistani middle class which desires better and open relations with its counterparts across the Wagah border. Sharm el-Sheikh was manifestly designed to support him and prevent him from relying completely on Rawalpindi, the jihadis or Asif Zardari for his political survival.

India must continue to make bold attempts to improve ties and strengthen Pakistan's elected leadership to give it the wherewithal to begin confronting religious fundamentalists and resisting the armed forces establishment, the two worst enemies of the Pakistani people.

At Sharm el-Sheikh, India gave away nothing in real terms. It only provided Gilani an opportunity to claim a breakthrough with his own hawks. If the strategy works, we would have an interlocutor with credibility and some capacity to resist the two groups most inimical to our interests.

What possible end can be served if Indo-Pak relations remain stalemated? Those who criticise initiatives to engage Pakistan should then suggest a more effective means of improving ties and collaborating with it to fight jihadi terrorists who, as agreed by the two countries earlier, are a menace for both.

The writer is director, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations

[Picture: Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani. Photo from http://www.pakembassyankara.com/prime.htm]

Finding Our Balance, Deepening Remembrance, Seeking Truth: A Workshop In Spirituality

A Gathering of Remembrance and Celebration

Within an atmosphere of remembrance (dhikrallah) and mindfulness (taqwa) we will explore the possibilities of finding spiritual balance in our lives through traditional wisdom and spiritual practice.

Co-sponsored by The Baraka Initiative, The Threshold Society, The Book Foundation

When: Friday, October 30 - Sunday, November 1, 2009

Rancho Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano
Enrollment limited to 99
Youth Scholarships Available (30 and younger)

Conference and 5 meals: $270 (before Oct. 1)
Room for 2 nights: $120 (double occupancy)
$160 (single occupancy if available)

To register, go to the Registration web page

To find out more information about the guest teachers, see Guest Teacher Biographies

For the actual events, see Tentative schedule

See also, the website of the workshop A Gathering of Remembrance and Celebration

and the website of the sponsoring institute, The Baraka Institute

In a world increasingly characterized by extreme individualism, social fragmentation, and marginalization of traditional values, where can we turn for spiritual inspiration and community?

How might we connect ourselves to The Living Tradition that originated with the Prophet Muhammad (peace & blessings upon him) and the revelation of the Qur’an, and that continued through generations of transformed people like Imam Jafar Sadiq, Bayazid Bistami, Rabia, Abdul Qadir Geylani, Ahmed Rifai, Ibn Arabi, Jalaluddin Rumi, Bahauddin Naqshband, and countless others up through modern times?

The Baraka Institute is being created to nurture a community committed to spiritual transformation,
 and to sponsor events that offer practical knowledge and wisdom for the times we live in.

A Companion Of The Souls Of The Lovers

By Vithal C. Nathkarni, *Mystic experience of union & separation* - The Economic Times - India
Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Sunrise over Konya is awe-inspiring, particularly when one views it from the top of a 18-storey building.

We’re searching for the silhouette of the tomb of the Mevlana — as the Sufi Master Jalaluddin Rumi is known here. "It lies too far towards the East" the concierge informs us. "Take a taxi."

The visit to the green-turreted tomb of the Master turns out to be the most relaxing part of our whirlwind-tour of Turkey. The Mausoleum is also a museum which has among its treasures the first manuscript of the Masnavi.

Widely regarded as the greatest Sufi poem ever written, this was composed during the last years of Rumi’s life. The circumstances under which the 25,000-verse-long poem came into being are illuminating. One night, finding him alone, Husamuddin Chelebi, Rumi’s closest disciple, bowed and asked if the Master would compose something that "might easily be memorised and serve as a companion of the souls of the lovers (of the Faith and Union) so that they would occupy themselves with nothing else".

At that very moment, from the top of his blessed turban the Master is said to have taken out a piece of paper. On it were written the first eighteen couplets of the Masnavi, beginning with the lament of the reed. "If you will write them down I shall dictate the verses that are to follow," said the Master and Chelebi joyfully agreed. That is how the Masnavi came to be written down over a 12-year period that ended with the Master’s death.

The first manuscript of the Masnavi, finished within five years of the Master’s demise, is displayed in a room adjoining the tomb. It opens with "the story told by the reed of being separated" (in Coleman Barks’ 1994 translation). Later, over a steaming cup of kahve in a café on Sultanahmet Street, a Turkish friend explains to us the nuances of the image.

"The central metaphor of the reed-flute symbolises the music of the Mevlana’s own heart. Burning with love and yearning, it always longs for the Beloved. So it sings like the reed-flute," he explains.

Rumi, the poet of lovers, seems to experience separation and company, sorrow and rejoicing all at the same time and is wishful of sharing the flood of feelings for the beloved with the song of the reed’s plaintive notes, he adds.

We have something similar here from Bhakti poets ranging from Andal to Meera. The rain cloud symbolises longing for one; a crow for another. All maddened with Divine Love.

[Picture: Mevlana Museum. Photo from http://www.mevlana.net/index.htm]

"Islam: Faith and Worship"

Staff Report, *Turkish Sufi music in the air in Abu Dhabi* - Middle East Online - Abu Dhabi, UAE
Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Over 11,000 visitors flock to Abu Dhabi's exhibition 'Islam: Faith and Worship'

Abu Dhabi - A Turkish Sufi music group performed a spectacular show as part of Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage's (ADACH) programme of cultural events during the holy month of Ramadan at the art exhibition "Islam: Faith and Worship", held at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi.

The music and the ritual of whirling performed by the Konya Turkish Sufi Group are inspired by the famous 13th century Muslim mystic poet and philosopher Jalaluddin Al Rumi, a symbol of love and coexistence.

The event was attended by a large public turnout of UAE citizens and foreign residents interested in the Muslim spiritual music.

The group came from the city of Konya in Turkey, under the auspices of the Turkish Ministry of Tourism and Culture.

The Turkish performance is part of Abu Dhabi's exhibition "Islam: Faith and Worship", which has recorded over 11,000 visitors so far.

Abu Dhabi's cultural events, held on 8th - 14th of September 2009, include a number of lectures by specialist and scholars on Islam.

The exhibition opens its doors throughout Ramadan everyday at 10:00 am - 1:00 pm and every night at 8:00pm - 10:00 pm. Organised by ADACH in collaboration with the Turkish Ministry of Tourism and Culture, the exhibition, which ends on October 10th, 2009, includes nearly 150 art works.

Some of the works of art are displayed for the first time, compiled from seven museums and national libraries in Turkey especially for the exhibition.

The themes include the biography of Prophet Muhammad, the emergence of Islam, elements of faith and worship in Islam, and many other issues.

Greater Peace Of Mind

By TNI Correspondent, *Qaim regrets Centre’s attitude towards GST issue* - The News International - Pakistan
Monday, September 7, 2009

Khairpur: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah Jillani, while elaborating Sindh’s stance during the National Finance Commission (NFC) meeting, on Sunday regretted the centre’s attitude over the issue of general sales tax (GST) on services.

Talking to reporters here at Daraza Sharif after inaugurating the two-day Urs celebration of Hazrat Sachal Sarmast (RA), the chief minister said his government had made it clear that the GST was a provincial subject and asked the Centre to let the provinces collect the GST and take it out of the NFC terms of reference, adding that Sindh’s stand on multiple criteria-based NFC had also got the support of the majority.

Qaim hoped a consensus NFC Award would be declared at the end of the day, saying the sub-committees thus formed had been making headway. He lauded the PPP government for taking up the NFC Award, which had been elusive so far and scared the previous governments for 13 years.

He also dismissed reports of baton-charge on people at distribution centres of subsidised flour, blaming impatient people for the mismanagement. He urged the people to remain calm as his government was committed to providing people flour at Rs 10 per kg.

He termed the law and order situation in the province satisfactory, rejecting the Sindh IG’s assertion that travel in the province had become insecure, particularly the public transport.

Earlier, the chief minister opened the two-day Urs by putting a floral wreath on the Mazar. Addressing the people at the Sachal shrine, the chief minister said Sufism and mysticism were the heart of Sindh and during the period of Sufis, peace and tolerance ruled the land.

As against this, he added, terrorism, gun rule and Kalashnikov culture brought miseries to the people.Qaim said people in every part of the world had particular affection to books and music. He said Sufis had converted this affection into love and towards greater peace of mind of the people through their special tone and rhythm.

Qaim said in their poetry, the Sufis did not discriminate among people and enthral everyone with their message of love. He said it was the same rhythm that had inspired the lives of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Shaheed Benazir Bhutto and they laid down their lives upholding the dignity of Sufi land.

The chief minister announced a grant of Rs 500,000 [USD 6058.--] for the Sachal Yadgar Committee and constituted an special inspection team to monitor development work in and around the shrine.

Qaim also gave away awards to Sufi singers, writers, poets and others. The chief minister also laid the foundation stone of the Sachal Complex.

[Picture: Sachal Sarmast Shrine. Photo: http://sachalsarmast.org/main.asp]

Outstanding Contributions

By Iqbal Ahmad, *Kashmir’s Sufi Traditions* - Kasmir Watch - India
Sunday, September 6, 2009

Historians have always taken the arrival of Sufi saints, Syed missionaries and other envoys of Central Asia to Kashmir very seriously and have written numerous accounts on the works and teachings of these missionaries, whereas the frequent visits made by Kashmir based scholars to Central Asian regions had never been given so wide coverage.

Undoubtedly, the arrival of Central Asia envoys was not a mere visit, they initiated a change, a sort of social change.

They carried with them Islamic-teachings and enlightened the whole Kashmir by Islamic enlightenment. Not only this, Kashmiri masses who were facing hardships due to the unstability of Hindu rajas rule, were provided with a stable sultantship. Dying economy was restored back and to provide education to the people, educational institutions were opened wherein teachers from Central Asian regions were appointed. It was the result of these efforts, that Kashmir produces its own scholars.

Many famous scholars from Kashmir went to Central-Asian Schools to acquire masters in Islamic jurisprudence, Arabic grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Philosophy, History, Arabic and Persian literature. The famous institutions at Samarkand and Bukhara had on their rolls many of the outstanding scholars from Kashmir, no doubt they went there to acquire higher education in their respective fields, but they were not mere students.

They were great thinkers of their times and their contributions were no less as compared to others. Mention may be made of Sheikh Yaqoob Sarfi and Mull’a Mohsi Fani of 16th Century. Every Kashmiri must be proud of these two names.

Sheikh Yaqoob, a man of international reputation for his learning scholarship and piety, was the son of Sheikh Hassan Gani. Born in 928 AH, Sheikh committed hafiz the whole of Quran, when he was only a child. He studied basic education from Mulla Ani. Mulla Bashir was his next teacher. It was Mulla Ani who was Sheikh’s primary teacher, who had prophesized that Yaqoob would in course of time rise to the literary eminence of a second Jami.

Mulla Ani’s prediction turned but to true, Sheikh Yaqoob became the statesman of international reputation. He made an appreciable contribution to the Arabic and Persian-literature. Sheikh Yaqoob after completing his education in Kashmir went to Khawarazim (Central Asia). According to Mulla Abdul Qadir Badyani Sheikh became the spiritual successor of Sheikh Hussain. From here Sheikh had an opportunity to visit other Central Asian places and represent Kashmir in different literary and religions institutions.

Leading Central Asia’s scholars from Khawarazim, Bukhara, Samarkand and other places had a great regard for Sarfi. Coming into contact with several scholars and learned men in Central Asia, he returned to Kashmir. As reported Badayuni, the Sheikh was an illustrious figure and taken as an authority in all branches of learning: Sheikh Ahmad Sarhindi used to receive instructions from him in Hadith and Sufism'. Abul Fazal says the Sheikh was well acquainted with branches of poetry.

Sheikh Yaqoob left for heaven on 18th of Ziqadh in the year 1Q03 AH in Srinagar and lies buried in Zaina Kadal Mohalla.

Another outstanding Kashmiri scholar, Mulla Mohsin Fani, the author of Dabistan-i-Mazahib, after having his basic education in Kashmir went for higher studies to Central Asia.

He was interested in learning of various sciences, especially philosophy and literature. With his interest and outstanding efforts, he was able to enlist himself in the list of the most learned and erudite philosopher and the poets of the day. His book, Dabiston, is a famous work on the religious and philosophical creeds of Asia, which consists of twelve main sections, called Talim. These include Parsis, Hindus, Qaratibbatis, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Sadiqis, Wahidis, Raushnais, Illahis, Philosophers and Sufis.

Fani, in Central Asia, wen to different madrases and stayed there for a number of years.In Central Asia, Fani went to Balkh and received the reward of higher qualifications, he took service in the Darbar of Nazar Mohad Khan. Later returned Hindustan when he was well equipped in all branches of philosophy and literature.

In Hindustan Dara-Shikoh appointed him in his own Darbar. He continued in the Sadarat of Allahabad, till the political turmoil expelled Dara-Shikoh. Fani was then deprived of all his privileges and he returned back to his country, where he established a school of thought in his house. He used to deliver moral and philosophical lectures, but when he wrote Dabistan-ul-Mazahib (school of thoughts), the Ulema of Kashmir condemned him for it and he was declared murted (apostate). Later on as reported by Khaqaja Azam in his Tarikh-i-Kashmir Azami -Fani repented for his work.

Likewise there are many other sufi saints who have made outstanding contributions in religious, philosophy and Sciences, but those people have been ignored in their own lands.