Faith and Ecstasy

March 4, 2009 11:51 AM

Pakistan's believers in Islamic mysticismembrace a personal approach to their faith and a different outlook on how to run their country’s government. The BBC asks "Can Sufi Islam counter the Taleban?" The Economist reports "Of Saints and Sinners".
Meanwhile from two in-depth reporters; William Dalrymple : Pakistan is a country staring disaster in the face); and Moni Mohsin: A personal history of Pakistan on the brink.
The counterinsurgency tactics that seem to have worked so well in Iraq could backfire in Pakistan. (more articles from Nicholas Schmidle)
posted by adamvasco (34 comments total)

Sri Lankan cricketer Sangakara wrote about the teams recent experience in Pakistan.
posted by chunking express at 12:13 PM on March 4

Just FYI, Sufism is not a hippie movement. This guy was a famous Sufi who killed lots and lots of Russians. He was also a total badass.
posted by Burhanistan at 12:17 PM on March 4

And more recently the Chechens who took those kids hostage in Russia a few years ago were Sufi as well.
posted by PenDevil at 12:23 PM on March 4 [1 favorite has favorites]

Haven't the terrorists just shot themselves in the foot?

I mean, no international tours on Pakistani soil for the next decade or so isn't going to go down very well with a cricket-mad nation.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:32 PM on March 4

And wasn't Hasan-i-Sabah - the founder & leader of the historical hashasheen (assassins) - also a mystic?
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:34 PM on March 4

Sabah had no sense of humor. Sufis on the other hand... but really, that's why they're not taken so seriously. The mystique of the madman in the desert has been lost in a pillar of fire (to use an allegory).
But Sufism isn't for everyone. Like asking a fundie christian to embrace gnosticism or some such mystic christian element. Hell, sufism isn't for a lot of folks calling themselves sufis either.
Schmidle has some points. But Pakistan is really lost in terms of identity (I've written on this here before), so little wonder tribal allegiance trumps all others.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:51 PM on March 4 [1 favorite has favorites]

Sabah had no sense of humor.

Are you kidding?!??

"Hey, Marco, watch this!"

"Huh, what?"

"You there, up on that tower - jump to your death!"

*guy jumps*

If that's not hilarious, I don't know what is.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:54 PM on March 4

But Sufism isn't for everyone. Like asking a fundie christian to embrace gnosticism or some such mystic christian element. Hell, sufism isn't for a lot of folks calling themselves sufis either.

Further, I can't imagine the west being seen as trying to convert Muslims from one practice of the religion to another is going to go over very well anywhere. I'd imagine that those in north-west Pakistan, who are the people the west (or Pakistan, encouraged by western governments) would be trying this on, would be particularly unimpressed.
posted by oostevo at 1:01 PM on March 4

There are some pretty gross distortions on what Sufis are and are not. Most of the Sufis that I have met are fairly indistinguishable from "regular" Muslims, excepting that they tend to be more pious and smell nicer. The "madmen" sufis tend to be the majdhub who have more or less lost their sense of keeping up appearances in everyday routine life.
posted by Burhanistan at 1:02 PM on March 4

(And the majdhub are very rare--most Sufis I know are professional types)
posted by Burhanistan at 1:03 PM on March 4

"You there, up on that tower - jump to your death!"

*guy jumps*

"THAT is strength, boy! THAT is power! The strength and power of flesh! What is steel, compared to the hand that wields it? Look at the strength in your body, the desire in your heart, I gave you this! Such a waste. Contemplate this on the tree of woe. Crucify him!"
posted by homunculus at 1:23 PM on March 4 [5 favorites has favorites]

That story about Sabah making people jump to their deaths as a sign of obedience is largely apocryphal, as is the linking of hashish to the Al-Assas or Assasins.
posted by Burhanistan at 1:30 PM on March 4

Great post—I normally groan at multilink posts, but these are all well-chosen, thoughtful articles, and the first (by Nicholas Schmidle, who I wasn't familiar with and whose byline I will be looking for) is the best, which is the way to go when creating a post. A couple of the others were a tad superficial, concentrating on sex and drugs and personal stories, but they all contribute to an understanding of the situation. I didn't like this, from the Economist piece, though: "Scholars like these are Sufism’s true keepers. But in the undergrowth of popular Sufism, it is remarkable how little of their prescriptions survive." Sufism's true keepers are the Sufis who practice it; the scholars just record it, and sometimes try to impose their own partial vision.
posted by languagehat at 1:43 PM on March 4

But Burhanistan, there wouldn't be such a thing as counterfeit gold if there were no real gold somewhere.
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:33 PM on March 4 [1 favorite has favorites]

The real gold is in the dhikr, akhi.
posted by Burhanistan at 2:36 PM on March 4 [1 favorite has favorites]

An American think tank, the Rand Corporation, has advocated this, suggesting support for Sufism as an "open, intellectual interpretation of Islam".


I'm feeling really sorry for the sufists at this point, civil war anyone ?
posted by sgt.serenity at 2:47 PM on March 4

Speaking of militancy and Taleban and sufism.

I have heard it said that the Taleban are influenced by the Deobandi movement (a strain of Islam in India that has Sufi influences). However, I have heard this mainly through apologists for Wahhabism, so I don't put too much stake in the claim.

That said, is there a connection? Do the Taleban follow some Deobandi teachings? Have they gone far beyond the Deobandi thought system?

Is Deobandi thought truly sufic?
posted by symbioid at 2:50 PM on March 4

That Rand report was just utter tripe, and the fuel for many pointless arguments within the Muslim blogosphere last year.
posted by Burhanistan at 2:52 PM on March 4

The Venn Diagram of Deobandis and Sufis overlaps but does not envelop.
posted by Burhanistan at 2:55 PM on March 4

"THAT is strength, boy! THAT is power! The strength and power of flesh! What is steel, compared to the hand that wields it? Look at the strength in your body, the desire in your heart, I gave you this! Such a waste. Contemplate this on the tree of woe. Crucify him!"

Ha! My Afghan father immediately identified Tulsa Doom as Hassan-bin-Sabbah (which is actually pretty fun to say really fast) when we first saw Conan.

On a separate note, Sufism as demonstrated by people visiting the shrines of various Sufi saints or Pirs is very popular in Pakistan. It's part of everyday life. I doubt they define themselves as Sufis only. They probably call themselves good Muslims and these practices are part of a longstanding local tradition.

The article is a joke in a lot of ways. There seems to be clear misunderstanding of Sufism as a belief or a practice. Just because the venal Bhuttos were from the Sindh and consider Qalander their patron saint, does not mean they are Sufis. Sufism is not "good Islam" posited against fundamentalism as "bad Islam". It's not just dancing and singing. Sufism is sacred and profane; an idiot mullah making you laugh and think at the same time; it's planting a spiritual garden.
posted by nikitabot at 4:01 PM on March 4 [2 favorites has favorites]

I want to hear nasreddin's take on this... he bears the name of a Sufi character, after all.
posted by Krrrlson at 5:50 PM on March 4

And more recently the Chechens who took those kids hostage in Russia a few years ago were Sufi as well.

The Beslan massacre? No, that travesty was under Shamil Basayev's direction, Basayev being distinctly anti-sufi and a big recipient of Saudi funding. The rebel leader upholding sufi tradition in Chechnya was Aslan Maskhadov, may he rest in peace.

Most anti-colonial resistance in muslim lands was sufi-led: Imam Shamil in Chechnya, the Mad Mullah in Somalia, Shaykh Omar Mukhtar in Libya, numerous uprisings in Indonesia, etc. The problem is that they were ultimately unsuccessful, leading the angry and discontented to look elsewhere. Sufi Islam is really nothing more or less than traditional Sunni Islam before the modern era. There is such a thing as scholars of tasawwuf, despite the romantic scholar/saint dichotomy that Idries Shah and Pir Vilayat love to emphasize, and more to the point, the scholars who are preserving and transmitting the orthodox sunni religious sciences are practictioners of tasawwuf virtually to a man.

It is nice to finally see some recognition of sufism as a vital active force in Islam, and it does most definitely represent the front lines of counteracting the nihilistic militancy of the modern salafi jihadists. But there is a real risk of making sufis appear as collaborators by funding or backing them explicitly. With the utter lack of human intel that the US brings to the table, I can imagine it backfiring with the worst possible consequences. Much better would be the US finally breaking off its "special relationship" with the house of Saud, blocking Gulf money to Salafi fronts in a more concerted way, and letting things take their course from there.
posted by BinGregory at 7:32 PM on March 4 [4 favorites has favorites]

From the article by Sangakkara:

We only found out afterwards that a rocket launcher just missed us as we began moving and turned for the stadium gates, the rocket blowing up an electricity pylon. Khalil saw a hand grenade tossed at us that failed to explode. (emphasis mine)

Was busy with work and wasn't checking the news closely, but HOLY SHIT, was this close! A rocket launcher, goddammit; had the driver not moved the bus in time, the team would have been blown to pieces.

I mean, no international tours on Pakistani soil for the next decade or so isn't going to go down very well with a cricket-mad nation
As much as I wish it wasn't so, there are definite consequences for South Asian cricket in general. Murmurs about IPL being postponed this year, but if it is, then there'll be quite a bit of economic consequences as such.

Meanwhile, on an entirely unrelated note, I absolutely do not know what to make of this Fox news report.
posted by the cydonian at 8:49 PM on March 4

If you genuinely want a feeling for contemporary Sufism -- and especially if you have both the need and capacity for some unexpected hope for the world, try these links.

An example of what it is doing.

Much deeper, but requiring a commitment of a few hours: Webcasts by Pir Zia Inayat-Khan of the Sufi Order International, especially the three part series on "Interreligious Reconciliation."

I'm an active Unitarian who's been overwhelmed to discover that wisdom traditions of this depth and power are active in the world.
posted by namasaya at 9:07 PM on March 4 [1 favorite has favorites]

I absolutely do not know what to make of this Fox news report.

"mash'allah! screen goes vertical, screen goes horizontal, screen goes vertical, screen goes horizontal, screen goes vertical..."
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:39 PM on March 4

"...active Unitarian who's been overwhelmed to discover that wisdom traditions of this depth and power are active in the world."

Pick up some Attar and Rumi.
(I've got some translations by Barks, et.al. Rumi's poetry is really good stuff)

"If that's not hilarious, I don't know what is."
*sigh* UbuRoivas, this was before 'Yakkity Sax' existed to really evoke the comedy. Oh, sure, we can argue whether the old man of the mountain would have used 'Yakkity Sax' to play grab ass through Alamut, but y'know, his organization was pretty bureaucratic, as exotic as it may seem. Now the Nizari Ismailis under the Aga Khan, those guys were comedy gold, pushing the ta'wil way way over the edge.
posted by Smedleyman at 9:45 PM on March 4 [1 favorite has favorites]

Great. Now I can't get the image of Hasan chasing the maidens around his secret garden - to the tune of Yakkity Sax - out of my head.

Only, in my version it's played on a shehnai.
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:07 PM on March 4

"Do the Taleban follow some Deobandi teachings?"

Yes. Many of their hard-core recruits (as opposed to the Pashtun tribesmen along for the ride) were Pashtun exiles educated in Deobandi madrassahs in Pakistan during the jihad against the Russians. As far as I know, and I'm wandering a little beyond my depth here, there's not much patience for Sufism amongst the Pashtun though - and anyway, the teaching of Islam in tribal Afghanistan is far from the classic teaching of Islam because it gets filtered through tribal norms.

Sufism is not a way out of the Afghan conflict, and Rand are being naive to suggest it. First, we can't impose it from outside; second, there's no drive for it in Afghanistan; third, to overlay another dimension of division on an already fractured, factional and ethnicised conflict would be disastrous.
posted by YouRebelScum at 6:59 AM on March 5

not much patience for Sufism amongst the Pashtun

There are several sufi orders that are prominent in Afghanistan among the Pashtun, the Naqshbandis being perhaps the biggest. Common family names like Naqshbandi, Mujaddidi, Rabbani, Jailani are all signs of sufism's influence. During the war against the soviets, sufi affiliation was strong, and the early Taliban included moderate-by-comparison sufi leaders. If I recall correctly from previous threads, you've been on the ground in Afghanistan, so I defer to your experience as to the strength of sufi presence these days, but historically and in the immediate past, it was an active force.

Part of the problem with recognizing sufism in its setting is evident in the articles: dope-smoking mendicants and unbescarved women in dance-trances are the sufism the west is in love with, but it is not the sufism of the muslim majority, and it is not the sufism we need to engage with to tilt the ship back in the right direction.

Even if we can recognize the right players though, you're absolutely right that sufism is not a way out of the conflict now; it's way way too late for that. Just like in Chechnya, the west delayed and delayed when sufis had the ability to influence the direction of the emerging State, refused to recognize sovereignty, refulsed to engage constructively, and allowed radicalizing money and personnel from the Gulf to fill the vacuum. Now we're at war; you can't pursue soft power after already giving people the boot. Witness the seriously ill spectacle of Ramzan Kadyrov's Russia-subsidized support for Sufism in Chechnya.

But maybe, just maybe, if engaging with sufism is a change in strategic direction in dealing with the muslim world at large, not a one-off variant of divide and conquer in one war theater, it may bear fruit down the road. When the RAND report came out during the Bush administration, it was dead on arrival. Obama, now maybe he can do something useful with it.
posted by BinGregory at 8:47 PM on March 5 [2 favorites has favorites]

Trippy anthropology article on Naqshbandi spirituality based on encounters with Pashtun tribesman in the Khyber Tribal Area, from 1991.
posted by BinGregory at 1:05 AM on March 6

Obama to talk with the Taliban: no mention of sufis particularly, but this photo and caption from Dreaming of Splitting the Taliban is priceless. Can you pick the sufi out of the lineup, ma'am?

Happy Mawlid Nabi everybody.
posted by BinGregory at 4:16 AM on March 8

Wahhabi radicals are determined to destroy a gentler, kinder Islam.
posted by adamvasco at 11:44 AM on March 8 [1 favorite has favorites]

Pakistan Political Crisis Deepens.
posted by adamvasco at 12:46 AM on March 10

Hundreds Arrested in Punjab; Suspension of Civil Liberties
posted by homunculus at 1:49 PM on March 12