How true is it Sufis "reject the search for power and wealth”? To the extent that they do, it seems difficult to imagine it going "exponential." I'd put my money on more secularism.

How true is it Sufis "reject the search for power and wealth”? To the extent that they do, it seems difficult to imagine it going "exponential."

rob, these sorts of issues are complicated. many of the 'universalist' religions promote ascetism and humility, but often combine it with operational accumulation of wealth. some of the sufi orders have traditionally been very prominent parts of civil society and are relatively wealthy.

by the way, anyone know any good monographs on sufism today??? there's a lot of contradictory assertions around. some muslims will say sufism doesn't exist because it's been absorbed into mainstream islam. some 'fundamentalist' movements like tableegh have sufi associations and origins (salafists criticism the tableegh for this).

some of the sufi orders have traditionally been very prominent parts of civil society and are relatively wealthy.

Razib,
Yes, I thought so . . . . Artha has a powerful pull on cultural evolution!

also, my understanding is that a lot of the prominent sufis aren't really as liberating as you'd think. they become superstars very similar to gurus and some of them get caught up in their egos. that's natural for any religious movement, the bigger and more widespread it gets the more the corruption of the wider society creeps in.

I think that in a world where the average Muslim finds violence in the name of Islam abhorrent, and yet can’t accept a solution which counters violence with more violence, a path like Sufism has the potential to grow exponentially in the coming years.

i'm a little confused by this? muslims find violence abhorrent, and yet they can't accept pacifism? is there a typo here?

also, some sufi orders prominent in south asia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chisti (click the link to inayat khan, his movement has links to perennialism and is very close to simply being an islamic variant of pantheism)

and, this group is more "trad" so to speak. i believe some of them were prominent in "reforming" indian islam away from syncretism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naqshbandi

I think all of you will find how this Pak-Sindhi group positions Sufism to be quite interesting. Is it a branch of Islam or is it a separate religion influenced by Islam?

Bonus desi angle: Page and Plant performing "The Battle of Evermore" with ghazal singer Najma Akhtar.

Interestingly enough, the band's recent reunion (with Bonzo's son) was organized to pay tribute to the man who first signed them, who was (gasp!) Muslim.

I saw Kite Runner the other day. One of the most poignant scenes is where Amir and his father are trying to escape from Afghanistan in a truck. It's dark and frightening in there, and his father asks Amir to recite a poem. The poem he picks is by Rumi, which I'm sure is going to spur another revival of his work (the last one was about 8-9 years ago, when even Deepak Chopra came out with a CD of recordings with artists including Madonna. That was Gift of Love. For those who might be interested, this weekend, the NPR show Speaking of Faith will feature The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi as well.

>>Sufism...reject the search for power and wealth in favor of a more spiritual path

Any philosophy which bases itself on rejecting the basic nature of Man is doomed to failure from the onset.

A proper approach would be to balance the search for power and wealth with the spiritual needs of man. But then, *gasp*, it would be no different from those other Kafirs that they loath!!

M. Nam

do they still have Mosh Pits?

Yes I think, at least the last metal concert a few months back I saw had one. And though Zep may be called the father of metal, I really doubt I would want to see one at a Zep concert.

um, reform islam? as a muslim, i find that offensive. I'm not violent at all, but I can't stop other people who "say" they are muslim, acting out in violence in the "name of islam". Why should people change their religion (to be clear, sufism, is not the same religion, as wonderful as it may be) because other people don't like it?

I think "Cio Cio San's" view above is the majority view from within the faith. Sufism, Akbar the Emperor, Ahmadiyas test the boundaries and are at turns disowned and embraced to suit the needs of certain interests

Why should people change their religion (to be clear, sufism, is not the same religion, as wonderful as it may be) because other people don't like it?

islam is everyone's problem now, your coreligionists make it everyone's problem. Muslim apostates threatened over Christianity:
And yet a significant portion of British Muslims think that such behaviour is not merely right, but a religious obligation: a survey by the think-tank Policy Exchange, for instance, revealed that 36 per cent of young Muslims believe that those who leave Islam should be killed.

i know several apostates in the united states who have been subject to death threats. nothing "serious," but a religion where a large number of believers don't see a problem forcing someone to unlist their address & phone number through of intimidation and harassment really needs to change, or simply be expelled from a liberal democratic polity.

and btw, i think everyone would feel more comfortable mocking hinduism or christianity in public than islam ;-) why? it isn't because islam is so much cooler, we all know that even if the probability very, very, small, the chance of a wacko muslim tracking you down and cutting your throat are a lot higher than a hindu or a christian doing the same. as someone who mocks religions regularly i've had many people warn me to "be careful" when i mock the muslim religion (i'm talking message board comments here!). no one has everyone cautioned me about those crazy fundamentalist christians or hindus.

no one has everyone cautioned me about those crazy fundamentalist christians or hindus.

well, i'm warning you now. be careful! IT revolution in india and all, they have access to computer you know!

Thought I should point you to this film, "I named her angel" about a young girl learning "Sema"-how to become a whirling dervish.

Razib-What does "Islam" have to do with the "36% of Muslims in the UK" thinking that leaving Islam should be a punishable offense?

Didn't you once tell me before basically that it matters not what religious texts actually say or what "airy priniciples" they claim, it's what religous people actually do?

So in this case, how should the airy concept of "islam" change to fit into a liberal democratic polity? How do you expell a whole "religion"? What about the 64% of Muslims in the UK that don't beleive that?

And since we're in America, can "Islam" really be the issue when polls have found Muslims in America to be quite alright with living in America , living well in a liberal democratic polity?

from the link referred by razib "They put their loyalty to Islam above any love for me,"

Razib-What does "Islam" have to do with the "36% of Muslims in the UK" thinking that leaving Islam should be a punishable offense?

they identify as muslims. do you claim takfir against them?

Didn't you once tell me before basically that it matters not what religious texts actually say or what "airy priniciples" they claim, it's what religous people actually do?

exactly. like most religious people you don't understand what i'm trying to say: texts can be used to justify anything. so the key isn't the texts or the abstract principle of a "true islam." it is how muslims behave and what their propensities are, which manifests in a distribution of views.

And since we're in America, can "Islam" really be the issue when polls have found Muslims in America to be quite alright with living in America , living well in a liberal democratic polity?

this is a statistical, not apodictic argument. the muslims who aren't violent are irrelevant so long as enough muslims who are violent are threatening to non-muslims. as an example, most muslims in bangladesh are not
incorrigibly hostile to hinduism, but for hindus the fact that is significant is that a large minority are rather hostile.

How do you expell a whole "religion"?

an i'm talking kulturkampf obviously. americans did to to catholicism so that it was protestantized. and judaism too. unlike the germans we won.

What about the 64% of Muslims in the UK that don't beleive that?

they should happy when public pressure is to put to bear against the psycho minority.

to be clear, sufism, is not the same religion

I think this is the main point, and the basic flaw (sorry Abhi) in Abhi's argument. If sufism were to grow significantly, there'd be an Islamic backlash against it...not to mention that its appeal is limited amongst Muslim anyway by virtue of being perceived as unislamic already.

And since we're in America, can "Islam" really be the issue when polls have found Muslims in America to be quite alright with living in America , living well in a liberal democratic polity?

i'll give you a specific extreme example. during the middle ages there was a group in the rhineland who called themselves 'jew burners.' you can figure out their agenda. the jew burners tended to be rabble and lesser nobility, and periodically they would get whole towns to burn jews in their synagogues. in this way the lesser nobility didn't have to deal with debts and so forth. the church and the high nobility proactively attempted to, and succeeded in, defending jews many times, they opposed the acts of jew burning. now, the fact is that not all, or even most, christians were down with tolerating pogroms against jews during this period. but, if you are a jew you're obviously going to focus on the fact that a substantial number of christians are jew burners. if you're a jew, what st. augustine says about tolerating jews and 'true christianity' is irrelevant. you just want the christian authorities to reign in the nuts. which they eventually did.

Amitabh, there are many sufis who are quite orthodox muslims. a universalist monistic hypermysticism is only one extreme. like i said, some fundamentalist reformist movements have sufi origins.

and Amitabh, the same logic which would allow you to accept the claims of a muslim that sufism is a separate religion would allow me to accept the claims of hindus that sikhs are really hindus. there's always a lot of debate around these definitions, so just be careful (i think most muslims would accept sufis as muslims for the reasons i gave above).

>Amitabh, there are many sufis who are quite orthodox muslims. a universalist monistic hypermysticism is only one extreme. like i said, some fundamentalist reformist movements have sufi origins.

Some Turkish professionals in New York I've socialized with in New York sound like their religious philosophy stems from the Bhagavad Gita rather than the Q'uran. I ascribe this to the Sufi substrate amongst the Turkish elite. However, the universalist monism preached by some New Age Hindu gurus is overenthusiastic in its appropriation of Sufism into its monistic world-cult. I recall reading of one Turkish Sufi who said "we have nothing to do with passive vegetarian Hindus" when questioned about the relationship between Surfism and Vedanta.

The poem he picks is by Rumi, which I'm sure is going to spur another revival of his work (the last one was about 8-9 years ago,

Rumi outsells Shakespeare in these United States. he is the most popular poet by far.

risible, well, human psychology is complex. a korean friend of mine explained how the catholic and buddhist television channels would seem the same if you are not of either religion (people in robes chanting a lot). but, if you are a catholic or buddhist you would object to that characterization. consider the muslim ritual around the kaba, muslims are violently iconoclastic, but many non-muslims see the ritual as nothing but idolatry, an obvious remnant of paganism. so it's a matter of perception. some sufism does seem a lot like hinduism to me too, but i think almost all sufis (aside from the world sufi movement or whatever) would get really offended by the comparison. the reason that there are similarities is that i think mysticism is constrained and channeled by universal cognitive parameters. all mysticism looks the same to non-mystics.

they identify as muslims. do you claim takfir against them?

So do the 64% that don't beleive you should kill apostates. If I said that the 64% beleived that because of Islam, you would say "No." However, the 36% you go on and say "Islam" needs to change. You can't have it both ways.

exactly. like most religious people you don't understand what i'm trying to say: texts can be used to justify anything. so the key isn't the texts or the abstract principle of a "true islam." it is how muslims behave and what their propensities are, which manifests in a distribution of views.

Really anything? Can you justify eating humans from the Quran? Can you read the Quran and justify idol worship? Having sex with your mother?

You are saying "Islam has to change or be expelled" but then youre definition of Islam is a group of people in the UK. How do you go from "36% of UK muslims " to "Islam needs to change." You're still not detailing this transition here. And you make it even harder by saying that "Islam" cannot be defined by the Quran and hadiths.

The distribution of views are largely peaceful by the way.

Whats the numbers of Muslims in the UK acting on these beleifs? (Harassing former Muslims, harassing non-Muslims in general for criticisin Islam). Do you have any stats?

this is a statistical, not apodictic argument. the muslims who aren't violent are irrelevant so long as enough muslims who are violent are threatening to non-muslims. as an example, most muslims in bangladesh are not
incorrigibly hostile to hinduism, but for hindus the fact that is significant is that a large minority are rather hostile.

No, it's really more the nature of weapons and technology. 1 violent Muslim can have the same impact as a hundred Muslims simply by strapping a bomb to his chest.

To that you will say, Muslims are more likely to blow up shit than Christians. OK, but instead of going into the various factors as to why that is, you would rather say "Islam is to blame." And then you try to superficially deconstruct what most people's working definitions of "Islam. " is by denying the importance of the texts.So basically there is no "Islam" but somehow "Islam" is to blame.

Let's bring it back to bin Laden and the infamous fatwa. How much of the fatwa was fiqh and how much was political polemic? Why is that you never ever ever address the reasons as to why certain Muslims are blowing shit up?

Razib: Check out Carl W. Ernst's "Sufi Martyr's of Love" which whilst focused on the Chistiyya tariqa provides good material on other tariqas (at the very least in regards to differences in practices). His introduction should in my opinion be a must read for anyone working in South Asian Studies. Some of the salient points are mysticism is the essence of all religions ergo tassawuf is inseparable from Islam. ALL movements (espesh in South Asia) have been influenced by and are syncretic in nature so to consider them as island's does great disservice to the genius of their preceptors. There is a great monograph and lecture by him (on mp3) on the web somewhere that goes into depth on the yogic practices used in zikr which seems to be his area of focus now.

MoorNam: Ascetic practices and voluntary poverty were recommended for Qalandars and dervishes. The religion of the kafirs (of which I'm a member myself) says artha and kama should be in line with dharma. It is absurd to suggest one way is somehow more balanced than another. A drive from the Mumbai International airport to the domestic terminal should suffice to dispel any notions of how much the kafirs "practice" this balanced "philosophy".

Might I suggest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH8BgubvXWM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na00sKwpcGc
http://www.apnaorg.com has translations of the kafis.
Muzaffar Ghafar's "Within Reach" series on the Punjabi Sufi poetry.

Generally on some saturdays,when "Dam mast kalandar" by Nusrat is playing on the music system and the joint is passed around in the room, all of us get totally Sufi-fied.

Let's bring it back to bin Laden and the infamous fatwa. How much of the fatwa was fiqh and how much was political polemic? Why is that you never ever ever address the reasons as to why certain Muslims are blowing shit up?

I HAVE, YOU SIMPLY NEVER READ THOSE POSTS!!! why do you never read ALL my posts so you can characterize me with accuracy?
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/08/dying-to-win.php

.So basically there is no "Islam" but somehow "Islam" is to blame.

no, muslims are to blame. it is fundamentally irrelevant that muslims believe they have cause, the problem is that when you import a group with world wide connections you import their interests. the same arguments used with jews apply to muslims. any nation with a large muslim and jewish population is going to have to deal with proxy political wrangling between these two groups. that's why i encourage jews to secularize and muslims to make their religion like a protestant denomination.

Really anything? Can you justify eating humans from the Quran? Can you read the Quran and justify idol worship? Having sex with your mother?

yes, i probably could. you can work by analogy.

So do the 64% that don't beleive you should kill apostates. If I said that the 64% beleived that because of Islam, you would say "No." However, the 36% you go on and say "Islam" needs to change. You can't have it both ways.

what about a statistical distribution don't you understand? that's why linked to the definition of apodictic. i assume you read it?

Whats the numbers of Muslims in the UK acting on these beleifs? (Harassing former Muslims, harassing non-Muslims in general for criticisin Islam). Do you have any stats?

no, i am curious as to stats. the only things you have are stories from sensationalizing press and those who claim that all is well and muslims are a religion of peace so that it isn't about religion but domestic violence.

Generally on some saturdays,when "Dam mast kalandar" by Nusrat is playing on the music system and the joint is passed around in the room, all of us get totally Sufi-fied.

Amen brother.

To that you will say, Muslims are more likely to blow up shit than Christians. OK, but instead of going into the various factors as to why that is, you would rather say "Islam is to blame."

because the major factors, israel, relationship with oil kleptocracies, isn't something anyone in america will change. the israel lobby is too powerful. muslims aren't powerful and we can still modify the immigration stream or persuade community leaders. non-muslims don't care about these sorts of injustices, just as muslims don't care too much about the famine and genocide in the congo, so the way to minimize conflict is simply to minimize the impact of those who care.

islam is everyone's problem now, your coreligionists make it everyone's problem. Muslim apostates threatened over Christianity:
And yet a significant portion of British Muslims think that such behaviour is not merely right, but a religious obligation: a survey by the think-tank Policy Exchange, for instance, revealed that 36 per cent of young Muslims believe that those who leave Islam should be killed.

Interesting numbers.

There have been some studies which show that even though a non-significant number of Americans are ok with the death penalty, only a very few of them would be willing to take the job of an executioner. Likewise, few Muslims in the 36% would actually take the steps to kill an apostate even if it were legal to do so.
Of course wide spread acceptance of the notion of killing apostates is going to posion any community and will evetually lead to more intolerance in issues of religious practice.
I need to look it up but Scott Atran has some very interesting numbers comparing the views of Muslims in Europe and Christians in the US and their similarities.

because the major factors, israel, relationship with oil kleptocracies, isn't something anyone in america will change.

Thats true.

Razib did you happen to see Scott Atran in Beyond Belief 2 who gave a rather novel presentation on the pathologies of European terrorism.

One of us - Salman Ahmed - is a Pakistani who was born in Lahore and spent his adolescence in Upstate New York. Led Zeppelin was a sonic voyage home for Salman. When he first saw the band at Madison Square Garden during its US tour in 1977, it was a spiritual awakening. There was something deeply familiar in the music. Once he returned home for medical school he realized that the band had channeled the Sufi music of South Asia through the blues to create rock 'n' roll.

Salman Ahmed is the guitarist for Junoon, the Paki-pop band. So wait a minute, it was only when he *saw* Jimmy Page of Led Zep that he had his epiphany? What about the 8 years of listening to Zep's music? That didn't do for him apparently. This sounds like a wonderful straight-to-TV prime-time special on ZTV.

Soon enough, Salman traded in his stethoscope for an electric guitar. If Led Zeppelin frontmen Jimmy Page and Robert Plant immersed themselves in the blues, Salman studied with the Pakistani musical legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who coming from the opposite trajectory offered a similar message of harmony and brotherhood.

I'm so not-convinced that Salman studied with Nusrat. Now that NFAK is dead, heck, even I can claim that I cooked mutton curry for NFAK.

The other one of us - Mark LeVine - is a New Yorker born in New Jersey. For him, hearing Led Zeppelin as a young child initiated a lifelong love affair with the music and cultures of the Muslim world.

Mark Levine is the ghora bassist of Junoon. He is the total token white boy, but I give him props for liking Zep. Anyways, what does Zep have anything to do with Muslim music? Pardon me, I know everything there is to know about Zep since the time I first listened to them in '88. They are a very Celticy band, and they happened to have had Indic-sounding songs (Black Mountain Side, White Summer, Kashmir). If Zep initiated his love of Muslim culture/music, than Weezie Jefferson will make him want to eat food on banana leaves.

Most rock legends mined the blues. But the bends in Page's guitar solos and Plant's vocal melodies stretched beyond the "blue" of such greats as Johnny Copeland and Dr. John (with whom Mark was fortunate to perform as a young guitarist). In Led Zeppelin's music, there were hints of the Arabic ruba', or quarter tone, and Persian koron, or neutral third.

I have a feeling that Dr. John is also dead, and hence this passage is unverifiable. Oh yeah, my dad played guitar with Hendrix. My opinion is that if anyone wants to hear hints of Arabic ruba (actually he maybe referring to the Afghanistani instrument), quarter tones (which is found in all music which has a vibrato in it - i.e. vocal, bended guitar strings, harmonica, tuba, etc.), neutral thirds in Zep's music, than you'll also be able to find these hints from your dryer...or Tupac...or Biggie. Neutral Third? I'm not aware of any Zep songs which this is prominent. If it's prominent in Zep, than it's prominent with the Back Street Boys!

The soaring minor and major scales that Plant and Page embellish in songs such as "Kashmir," "Going to California," "Four Sticks," and "Friends in the Light" [sic] are, to our ears, drawn from traditional vocalizations of qawwali, a Pakistani form of Sufi devotional music.

NOTE: This is supposed to read "Friends", and "In the Light".... Anyways, "Kashmir" is an Indic sounding song. None of the other songs are Indic (or "Muslim"). Ironically, the song "Kashmir" can't be played in many parts of Kashmir. If Salman is amazed at Jimmy Page's use of a microtone, than he should be Sufi-heaven with 72 flavors of ice-cream when he listens to Dr. Dre.

Led Zeppelin's ability to move between Western and Muslim cultures was evident when Page and Plant went to Morocco to record songs for their 1994 "No Quarter" album and DVD. Finding musicians performing in a market in Marrakesh, Page and Plant were able to bond with them musically - and with an immediacy that produced some of the albums most alluring tracks, such as "Yallah" and "City Don't Cry."

Led Zeppelin does *NOT* equal to Page and Plants '94 recording. Zep ended in '80. Page/Plants '94 tour didn't feature John Bonham (he died just after I taught him how to play double bass) or John Paul Jones.

Today's Muslim rock and heavy metal artists, in turn, have been powerfully influenced by Led Zeppelin. The band's music echoes their own history and culture, helping them create new hybrids of rock, metal, and Islam, and through it, some of the world's lushest, and most innovative and powerful rock 'n' roll.

It can be re-written as: "Today's rock and heavy metal artists..." Jimmy Page affected Parsis (i.e. Freddie M.), Hindus (i.e. Kim Thayil who can kick Salman's kundi to Sufi 72), Jews (i.e. Beastie Boys sampled Page), etc.

It's about time the world starts listening; the next Led Zeppelin is as likely to come from Casablanca, Cairo, or Karachi as it is from London or New York.

I think that you're more likely to see the people of these great cities more likely to design a lead zeppelin, given that their science hasn't evolved much in the last 1350 years or so. In many cities of Pakistan, music is banned. Salman actually came on NPR talking about how the mullah's prayers are actually musical since they are in a minor musical mode.

I believe that Salman is such a philosopical-Renaissance-Man-wannabe poseur. He probably also is a vegetarian just so chicks think that he's sensitive and cute. He probably gets all the chicks... I can't stand him...

#22: There has been many syncretic faiths which attempted to reconcile Islam with X. Raja Akbar did so in a faith called 'Din all ah" or something like that. He was threatened for this as a heretic. Sikhism is purely a syncretic faith which even refers to god as Allah and Hari. Heck, the Sikhs even copied the Pashtun's and Rajput's dress/costumes (turban and beard like pashtun and kada like Rajputs). Bahai's are an off-shoot of Shiite Islam, and they are *hated* by the Muslims.

It's time that the Muslims meet other faiths half-way.

It's a hopeful idea. yet I don't think it's going to have a major impact for at least a decade. Sunni/Shia Islam, especially in the Gulf is far, far too strong (and supposedly under western attack) to evolve by turning to mystical sufism, despite measures such as the Alliance of Civilizations.

I think this discussion is of little value becuase the actions attributed to extremist Muslims as they are called are done so by vaguest of media like an annonymous phone call , an email , a so called website attributed to a group projected as an enemy.