Re: Islamic Spirituality - The Forgotten Revolution
You can't really justify or defend a movement based on people who CLAIM to practice it. Which is what you're doing. Just because certain historical figures claim to have embraced sufism doesn't mean their lives were a living illustration of what it really means to be "sufi". You forget the human component. Most people who subscribe to any given movement X, will take what they will of X and mix in with it some of their own style of existence. If you want to analyze sufism, or any other practice of Islam, you have to go by the definitions in place for it.
This same logic is what everyone in the world is using against muslims worldwide, currently. We're all being painted out to be jihadi war-mongers desperate to strap ourselves with bombs and blow ourselves up. So will you do the same injustice by b*****ng people with a stereotype based upon some figures out there who claimed they were sufists, just as terrorists today claim they are muslims?
You mentioned one thing that disturbed me: that Islam is far from non-violent. Please clarify, lest even more people walk away from your commentary believing muslims are horrid people.