Re: Secrets of Islam
"secret Order of the Seekers of Wisdom"
In my recent visit to Pakistan, I had the chance to meet a large number of these “seekers”. They mostly belonged to the upper middle class, highly educated and often had a different view about the religion, known to common people as Islam. Some of them openly follow the basic rules of Islam and but few totally refuse that any rituals should be performed in Islam, or as if it holds any practical meaning. If you talk to them you would find a mixture Sufism, Shiaism and some blend of Khwarji tendencies in them. In the inner circles they would firmly believe that in every age and time there is an army of pious people who are running the whole show. Somewhat based on the concepts presented in the book by Ali Hajweri almost a thousand years ago, they would site a lot of tales about Awais Qarni and would almost undisputedly agree that, Ali (ra) was the supreme leader of this "Seekers of Wisdom" army after the holy Prophet (PBUH).
The whole concept, if you look at it is an age-old debate between the "shariat" and "Tareqat" concept. So is this any secret cult or any thing, I don’t think so, the emphasis has always been on helping others as individuals and less on working as an organized help group. But there is a flip side to it as well, there are a lot of educated people who simply use this as an excuse to reject the very religion from which this philosophy stems from.