Re: The Flame and the Shadow
Sufism: modern fantasies ?
**
Sabieh Anwar**
**
****The fruits of Sufism are too often cut adrift from their Islamic
**roots, becoming something to consume but failing to
transform
http://ravi.lums.edu.pk/sabieh/suf-fantasies-20-02.pdf
First, modern Sufism is Sufism decontextualised. This is the shadowy
glitter that attracts educated yet lost young people. These youth are
generally disillusioned and visionless, and modern Sufism takes them to
a distant oasis of mirages. Their thoughts are scattered like bits of
broken glass; modern Sufism picks up these shards and assembles
them into nothing more than a mirror. Minds are bent upon questioning,
but modern Sufism throws them into further confusion. The new Sufism
is cannabis for escapist minds, and offers refuge in a synthetic
tranquillity.
Among some, this phantasmagoria becomes a fashion. Pop music
fused with the tunes of Sufi voices can intoxicate the masses. Even as
the melodies of Christian Gnostics are unsung and unheard, Rumi’s (d
1273) words enjoy a reincarnation in the West. As poetry becomes an
expensive luxury for spiritually poor societies, collections of Rumi’s
verse shatter the half-million sales mark. The Muslim mystic from Iran
and Afghanistan, fleeing to seek refuge from an imperialist Genghis and
the warmongering of the Crusades, becomes representative of an Islam
that Americans can love.
Is it acceptable to be thus burnt by a mysticism based in religion without
ever entering the fire? Followers of this fashionable mysticism attempt
to drown while wearing their lifejackets. This attitude, this buffet
mysticism teleports a Muslim saint like Rumi out of his cultural and
deeply religious context. But do we forget that Rumi’s *[FONT=Arial,Italic]Mathnavi *was so
impregnated with religious fervour, that the later Sufi poet Jami (d 1492)
called it the “Quran of the Persian language”?
The second observation, which I find more important and is not
unconnected to the first, is about a resurgence of interest in the mystic
way by imperial powers. There was a time when mystic fraternities in
Algeria, Central Asia, Sudan, Libya and the subcontinent were the
breeding grounds for anti-colonialist movements. Hence the Algerian
Abd-al-Qadir (d 1883) and the Daghestani Imam Shamil (d 1871) fought
the French and the Russians respectively. While the desert or
mountain-dwelling Sufis were considered uncivilised by the colonisers,
there was a blossoming of understanding between the allied powers
and the Wahhabi-inspired Arab royalties after World War I. But more
recently, the scenario has reversed. Now the imperialist West has few
problems with accommodating Sufism, yet it is suspicious of the
reactionary streaks of Wahhabi Islam. An unchallenging doctrine is
what suits injustice best. In this respect, inaction is an imperialist’s best
friend and sponsored Sufism can always be a means to preach a
tolerance that suits one party only.