About 40 years ago a Persian dictionary gave the following definition of a Sufi: “Sufi chist?  Sufi sufist.”  (What is a Sufi?  A Sufi is a Sufi.)  A person studying Sufism or attempting to follow a Sufi path is not a Sufi any more than a person studying Buddhism is a Buddha.  And in the Middle East (and more so now in the West) there are lots of imitators.  Those who follow Sufism in the hope of becoming a Sufi are called dervishes.  One of the conditions characterizing a Sufi (or a Buddha for that matter) is understanding the sense in which it is said that Jesus stands at the head of the Sufis; not as an intellectual understanding, but as an embodied commitment and associated attitude that is so deeply ingrained that it is part of a person’s being.  In Platonic terms, this sort of understanding exists in all of us, but has been suppressed to the extent that we are almost completely unaware of it.  In this regard, the work to be accomplished is to “remember” this commitment and attitude (or, allow it to emerge) by removing the veils that mask it from awareness (some what like the Zen idea of the “original face”).

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I am an ex-Surfer, is that close?

When I was doing the anthropology schtick in college we referred to them as the Sufi Saints or Sufi Mystics. They’re definitely the most overall appealing category of Muslims. Our lead Middle East cultural anthro instructor was an Afghan native, but his family moved to the States within a year or two of his birth, so he spent a lot of time there and knew the society from the inside, but was also raised here in the US—an outstanding combination for translating the two cultures to each other. I always half expect to see the guy in the background at State Department briefings when Democrats have the White House, but I doubt I’d even recognize him now.

eudemonia - 06 July 2011 07:18 AM

I am an ex-Surfer, is that close?

Gotta be in the flow or the wave will let you know.

Black Heart General - 06 July 2011 06:13 AM

On a more serious note, Sufis are generally considered considered more peaceful than other sects of Islam. For the most part this appears to be true but, as with all human endeavours, I have not found this to be the case in all circumstances during my studies. Sufi organizations were key in the early resistance to the French occupation of Algeria. I read that there was even a sort of “Ghost Shirt” rebellion there (Lapidus’ History of Islamic Societies). It sounded very similar to the Sioux religious movement. I also read that a few of the Kuomintang Chinese Generals during the Warlord era and Civil War were Naqshbandi Sufis. And again in Somalia, one of the only organizations to actually take up arms against the Wahhabi al-Shabaab militia has been the Sufi organization Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahlu_Sunna_Waljama’a).

The caveat here for me is that certainly in the first and last cases, the use of force could be justified. Any native people are likely to resist an invader, though magic shirts probably aren’t a good tactic for military victory, and al-Shabaab is pretty evil. Any halfway decent person is opposed to stoning and limb amputations, which Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a are.

I believe they were behind the Turkish Janissary as well.  I think that it’s a bit narrow to classify them as a ‘sect’ of Islam though (“Sufi chist, Sufi sufist’).  They also show up wacked out and weird in the film Jewel of the Nile (Michael Douglas, Danny DeVito).

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