Posted on 09/08/2012 1:01:32 PM PDT by BlackVeil
Three people have been killed in clashes in Libya between local residents and Islamic extremists trying to destroy a Sufi shrine, the interior ministry says.
Officials said residents in the eastern town of Rajma clashed with Salafist Islamists who were trying to destroy the Sidi al-Lafi mausoleum.
It is the latest in a series of attacks on shrines belonging to the mystical Sufi branch of Islam ...
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Those elusive moderate Muslims are usually Sufi.
The appropriate response would be to destroy the homes of the Salafists, and the mosques of the Gulf state-financed mullahs. The problem is that Gulf money helps arm the Salafists. What we have here is the moral equivalent of the Cold War. But during the Cold War, we actually armed anti-Communists. Here, we’re standing by while the Salafists funded by the Gulf states overwhelm the non-Salafists. What we need is a revival of the USIA, with Islamism in the cross hairs of a well-funded propaganda effort.
“Salafist Islamists
Sufi branch of Islam”
Good grief - we barely understood the difference between Suni and Shiite and now we’re supposed to know the difference between Salafist and Sufi?
Who should we be bombing now? I get confused.
They like the letter “S” so let’s just lump them all together under one name - S****!!! That’s plural!
Salafists are generally a minority.
I like your idea, and I’d combine with a promotion of Sufism as a kind of “folk Islam” (which it is, actually) on the general grounds that Sufis are far less radical (as a general rule).
They’re like neo-Platonism meets Hinduism meets Islam; Sufi doctrine borrows pretty heavily from non-Islamic sources. Presumably, that’s why the Salafists hate them so much.
Those elusive moderate Muslims are usually Sufi.
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Quite true, and they always get the short end of the stick. I had quite a few Sufi neighbors in Berlin, and they were just darned nice folks. Cheerful, helpful, and never pushy with the religion thing, and actually, quite tolerant of other religions (though they were more comfortable around Jewish and Christian folks, as opposed to let’s say, Buddhists or something else).
Frankly, the kind of folks you’d like to have as neighbors.
Yes; they're dancing. Salafists don't dance much because Salafists think that dancing (or whirling, in this case) is evil. Which is why Salafists hate Sufis. Which is why we should like Sufis.
LOL! Well some people even miss ol’Sadaam. While he was being a bad boy, and sitting on Iran’s border, he made for a balance of forces.
Great pic, and a nice reminder of heterdox Sufi culture.
They are taking quite a beating in North Africa, in Iraq, and now, of course, in Syria as well.
If there is any branch of Islam that might be domesticatable, it’s the Sufi. They value love over violence and murder.
And that's just for starters. Notice how Bin laden was identified/classified at the link.
No, I wasn’t being sarcastic but now I wonder if you are. Are you serious? You’re not telling me they kill each other because one dances and the other one doesn’t.......I know things are nuts in the world but THIS NUTS????
Now you’re forcing me to look it up and I’m ready to hang it up for the night. Our own political scene takes a lot out of a person, you know!!!
The radical Salafist groups will kill anyone suspected of pagan practices. Dancing and music could be considered as such, also maintaining shrines over the graves of holy people, having pictures of roses on a prayer rug ... all sorts of things. Some of them get worked up into a rage about quite standard Islamic practices.
They are ferious, austere reformers. They have a lot in common with the Puritans of the English Revolution. Except they are more violent.
They are active in Syria now, and I dread to think what they would do to the beautiful and varied shrines and churches of Syria.
Can the pyramids be far off?
Not to mention the Sphinx.
Oh yes that unnatural, devilish Sphinx will have to go. heh
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