Posted on 11/25/2004 2:46:56 AM PST by BlackVeil
The world is a different place today. And people like to believe that we have come a long way. But as far as tolerance is concerned, we have only gone backwards
I have been told not to write this piece. For I have a Shia name and Shias are being killed these days. But each time I pick up the newspaper or turn on the TV, something gnawing away at my soul tells me that staying quiet, this time, would be a sin.
Last weekend I attended a series of lectures at LUMS given by an American scholar on Islam, a sheikh whose mureeds (disciples) had invited him to Lahore to speak on Sufism. Having heard the eloquent Martin Lings and R S Kazimi speak on the same subject less than two months ago, I had high expectations.
And so I walked into a hall split down the middle by a white kanaat, men on one side and women on the other. Headscarves were being handed out to women — attending the lectures bare-headed was not an option.
By the end of the weekend, however, all veils around the Sheikh’s beliefs had been lifted. He stated that hijab was obligatory as were beards for all those who dreamed of entering heaven. He said that TV was haraam, music was haraam, and all pictures and statues were haraam. When I told him I was a journalist and pictures were necessary visual aids for some of my writings, he said that if I wanted to go to heaven I would find a way to learn to write without them.
Yet none of this bothered me. For these are all personal choices individuals make that do not harm others. Then someone asked him a question about Shias. And he let loose.
He described Shi’ism as bid’a (innovation, or heresy) and referred to Shia beliefs as haraam. He spoke of how Shi’ism was spread by the sword and there was no such thing as “Shi’ism” until 600 years ago when that term was first coined by Shia clergy. And as final proof of his belief, he noted that Shias were guilty of “gross” actions. As such, he instructed his disciples to be “nice” to Shias, but not to associate with them.
As I sat there listening to his tirade against Shias on the 7th of Moharram, a few days after the suicide bombing in Rawalpindi and a few days before the Ashura massacre in Karbala and Quetta, I couldn’t help wondering, in the midst of all his judgements, what happened to his Sufism?
Sufism is about love, about the recognition that we are all humans, all God’s creatures and therefore all entitled to God’s love as well as the love of our fellow human beings.
For a true Sufi, there is no action “grosser” than believing in one’s own self-righteousness to the point where you deny the humanity of other people. How can one reconcile the Sufi teachings of love, compassion and tolerance with the position that all those who do not share your particular perspective are doomed to hellfire? And since when has it become man’s divine duty to judge and punish those he considers to have misguided beliefs?
Shias who come under attack often console themselves with the thought that bigotry is the product of ignorance and that once people read and learn more, such prejudice will slowly die out. But if educated people who lecture at Harvard start preaching division, then what hope is there for people preaching in the villages, let alone the people listening to them?
Words are not innocent; they can be weapons in themselves. A person who teaches his students to look at other Muslims as heretics does not have the luxury, at least in this country, of subsequently denying responsibility for the acts of violence which will inevitably occur against those declared “heretics.”
Between the Taliban and the Wahhabis, Islam already has an image problem as a religion of intolerance. There are many Sufis who are trying to change that perception, to argue that Islam is a religion of peace. But if their counterparts start preaching bigotry, then we run out of options.
And so I ask, what is it about Muslims that makes them want to kill other Muslims? It is no answer to say that 500 years ago Christians used to kill Christians with equal glee. Muslims do not live in a different era from the rest of the world. Instead, we share the same world, we share the same space and we breathe the same air. Maybe it’s time we started adhering to the same rules.
The reality, whether we like it or not, is that we live in a pluralistic world. It is only insecurity that begs uniformity. When will we stop demonising all that is different — when we have killed everyone who is not like us?
A few months ago, I attended a lecture in which an R S Kazimi, from England, spoke about the universality of Islam. He ended his talk by narrating the story of a group of Christian priests who visited the Holy Prophet (pbuh). According to tradition, they asked the Prophet (pbuh) for space to pray and he invited them to worship in the Masjid e Nabavi. And so, in this holiest of mosques, there was a Christian mass, one in which the Trinity was mentioned as was Jesus as the son of God.
The world is a different place today. And people like to believe that we have come a long way. But as far as tolerance is concerned, we have only gone backwards.
A good read. But isn't there a Sufi Brotherhood of some sort that is a terrorist group?
There sure is, you are right.
Actually the term Sufi can mean all sorts of things. Mainly, it means mystics who join religious orders and follow a spiritual code.
But it can mean nutters who join cults, and "follow my leader" style outfits.
After reading Rumi several years ago, I got acquainted with some Turkish Sufis living in Los Angeles, one of whom had translated Rumi in two small books of poetry and went back to Turkey to translate volumes of his "divans." The group taught me dervish dancing, which can be quite ecstatic. I think that afficionados of Rumi are on a good spiritual path.
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