Do you love rose petals and music? Dancing with bells on your feet? How about free food? If you enjoy all these things and were reading the New York Times yesterday, you may have been surprised to find out that you are actually a Muslim. A Sufi Muslim, to be exact. Headlining the New York Times’ online edition was a heartwarming story of hippies…er, um…Sufi Muslims in Pakistan who wish only to dance, sing, practice tolerance and eat free food. If you took the New York Times’ word for it, you might think the Sufi Muslim’s only troubles in life were attacks from what the New York Times refers to as “hard-liners.” Considering that I hold to strict Catholicism, I couldn’t help but wonder if they were referring to me in their “hard-liner” reference.
What the New York Times does not mention is that while Sufism today may be rather relativist in many areas, there are actually Sufi Muslims who are themselves “hard-liners.” In August, Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch, pointed this out in a story about Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf who is a Sufi Muslim.
In reality, Sufis from al-Ghazali to the present day have taught the necessity of jihad warfare, and have participated in that warfare. And in January 2009, Iraqi representatives of the Naqshabandi Sufi order met with Khaled Mashaal of Hamas, praised his jihad, donated jewelry to him, and boasted of their own jihad attacks against Americans in Iraq.
He wrote a treaty which he called Kitab al-jihad li kulli man qala Rabbi Allah thumma istaqam (Holy War to all of those who say My Lord is God’ and follow the Straight Path). Kitab al-jihad is an overtly political work that was inspired by the fall of the Atlantic port of Asila to the Portuguese in 876/1471. It was written to exhort the ulama of Morocco to awaken the social and political crises that plugged their region and to undertake the reforms that were necessary to unite the Muslim community in its defence. The book consisted of admonition, encouragements and summons to Jihad, and ended with a poem of 170 verses which urged the Muslims to engage in jihad. The beginning of Kitab al-jihad is written in the style of khutba, a Friday sermon, and evokes a stark image of impending doom.
We can all certainly be hopeful that people of good will, many of whom are individual Muslims, will find it in their hearts to work alongside others to promote more peace and good will in the world. Portraying Sufism as objectively peaceful and tolerant is dishonest, however.
You will pardon me for agreeing with my Pope on the best way to promote peace in the world today. It is not by pointing to a particular sect of Islam as “good” and “holy,” hoping that people will adopt it. Rather, it is by calling upon all people to use their sense of reason.
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature.
While I would argue that Judaism and Christianity are religions of peace, I would not expect a secular newspaper like the New York Times to post a headline article characterizing that belief as an absolute truth. Their decision to point to Sufism as peaceful lacks basic reason. As such, it indicates that the New York Times is contributing to the most pressing problem of our day — rejection of the willingness to use reason as our primary tool to protest violence committed in the name of religion.