On the OSU shooting: A Sufi News Editorial

Our hearts go out to the victims hurt by Abdul Razak Ali Artan, the Somali OSU criminal. And to the victims, their famlies, to all non-Muslim Americans, and to all Muslims in the US and over the world who are suffering on account of this criminal's action: we who are following the Sufi way of Islam are with you in your grief; and we are with you in your rage.

 We urge you to use whatever resources you have in your cultures (such as counseling and psychotherapy) and in your religions (such as the contemplative, meditative, or devotional dimensions of religions) to heal the wounds now aching, wounds that for some are even seething inside you.

If you do not know how to access such resources, find out before it is too late. To the degree that you are successful at healing such wounds in your heart, you will decrease the likelihood that you too (like the criminal Artan) will one day become deluded into thinking that in order to acheive your goal, it is necessary for you to hurt or even kill innocent people.

 In contrast, this criminal and those who influenced him, one of whom is reported to have been the criminal Anwar al-Awlaki, only knew Islam as a set religious doctrines, behaviors, and prohibitions. They were not aware of how to practice Islam in such a way as to heal the wounds of the heart.

 We pray that this tragedy will not be a cause of hatred but rather that it will be a cause of healing, a wake-up call for everyone to regain and actualize the healing wisdom that the human race has often lost sight of but which it fortunately possesses.

Amin/Amen