Category Archives: Sufism

Good Sufi, Bad Muslims

Islam in America, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media, Sufism


by Omid Safi, Sightings, January 27, 2011

One of the lower points in the Park51 Center controversy was the comment by New York Governor David Paterson: “This group who has put this mosque together, they are known as the Sufi Muslims. This is not like the Shiites…They’re almost like a hybrid, almost westernized. They are not really what I would classify in the sort of mainland Muslim practice.”

In a few short sentences, the governor managed to offend Sufis, Shi’i Muslims, as well as westernized Muslims, non-westernized Muslims, and “mainland Muslims” (whoever they are). Paterson overlooked the fact that some Shi’i Muslims are mystically inclined, and that six million American citizens are Muslims, thus there is no question of “westernizing” or “almost westernizing” for them. There is a more disturbing implication hiding in his assertion: the ongoing way in which the general demonization of Muslims, of the kind now routine on Fox News, is accompanied by an equally pernicious game of Good Muslim, Bad Muslims.

There are many versions of this game, but the basic contour stays the same: The assertion that the general masses of Muslims are evil, terrorist-supporters, anti-western, patriarchal, misogynist, undemocratic, and anti-Semitic; and that these masses are set off and defined against either the solitary, lone Muslim good woman or man. The “Good Muslim” is often an individual, or a small circle, because to admit that the larger group of Muslims could be on the right side of the human-rights divide is to have the house of cards of the Muslim demonization game collapse on itself. Continue reading Good Sufi, Bad Muslims →

Islam and the Goal of Love

Ethics, Islam: Introduction, Muhammad, Qur'an, Sufism


Islam and the Goal of Love

by William C. Chittick, The Huffington Post, November 6, 2010 08:20 PM

Muslim scholars who claimed that Islam specifically and religion generally are based on love were not simply talking through their hats, as many readers of my previous post seem to think. They offered plenty of evidence. In order to see its logic, however, we need to remember the two axioms upon which all Islamic thought is built: the reality of God and the messengerhood of Muhammad.

The first axiom does not depend on the Quran. It needs to be accepted before there is any reason to consider Muhammad and the message. If God is not real, then God’s “messages” will be even less real.

This first axiom states that there is only one true reality. Everything else — the universe and all it contains — derives from it. What we call “realities” are in fact non-realities dressed up in fancy clothes.

In the language of Islamic theology, this axiomatic notion is called tawhid (pronounced “toe-heed”), meaning “the assertion of unity,” that is, the unity of the ultimate reality, which is commonly called “God.” Any close reading of the Quran (and the works of practically any Muslim theologian, Sufi or philosopher) will show that tawhid is taken as self-evident to any healthy intelligence. If people miss it, the problem is “forgetfulness,” the outstanding characteristic of the human race. According to the Quran, Adam did not “sin”; rather, “He forgot” (20:115). Continue reading Islam and the Goal of Love →

Ibn Tufayl’s Fable

Books You Should Read, Environment, Islam and Christianity, Islam in Europe, Islamic History, Islamic Sciences, Literature, Scholars, Sufism


What would happen to a child growing up on an island outside any human society? In real life such a scenario would be absurd. No child could survive from birth on his or her own, despite exotic accounts of feral human babies being reared by animals. But as a thought experiment, it makes an intriguing story. Such is the philosophical fable spun by the Andalusian Muslim scholar Ibn Tufayl over eight centuries ago. I have just finished teaching this text and the lessons in it are fresh in my mind.

If you have never read this classic fable, it can be found online in the original 1708 translation into English by Simon Ockley. A more recent translation by Lenn Evan Goodman is available from Amazon. The author was a distinguished Muslim intellectual who borrowed from the earlier Greek icons Aristotle and Plato, as well as the commentaries by earlier Muslim philosophers like Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and al-Farabi. His fable combines logical arguments, inductive scientific observation and a form of intuition that leads to a union with the One. Continue reading Ibn Tufayl’s Fable →

Of Dervishes, Fools and Prime Ministers

Iran, Orientalism, Poetry, Sufism


The poet Robert Browning left a large corpus, including his translation of Goethe’s masterful West-östlicher Diwan. One of his longer poems is an Oriental tale entitled Ferishtah’s Fancies. Recently in a used book shop I bought a copy of the 1885 edition published in Boston by Houghton, Mifflin and Company. There is an ironic epigraph for this Orientalist tale from Shakespeare’s King Lear (Act III, Scene 6) at the forefront:

You, Sir, I entertain you for one of my Hundred; only I do not like the fashion of your garments: you will say, they are Persian; but let them be changed.”

Browning’s verse is as antiquated today as the tale he spun, but still worth looking at if only for the nostalgia of Victorian English prose. Here is an excerpt from the encounter of Dervish Ferishtah with a former high official now beggared:

The Mellon-seller

Going his rounds one day in Ispahan, –
Half way on Dervishhood, not wholly there, –
Ferishtah, as he crossed a certain bridge,
Came startled on a well-remembered face.
“Can it be? What, turned melon-seller – thou?
Clad in such sordid garb, thy seat yon step
Where dogs brush by thee and express contempt? Continue reading Of Dervishes, Fools and Prime Ministers →

Madrasa in Sufi Hands

Sufism, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


Students at Dar al-Mustafa in Tarim, Hadramawt

The image of the Islamic madrasa is severely tainted in the West. One of the oldest educational institutions in the world, and a pedagogical system that had influence on the evolution of colleges in medieval Europe, is generally portrayed in the media as a reactionary base for hateful anti-Western propaganda. Now that Yemen has surfaced as yet another “terrorist haven,” the idea of Islamic education in Yemen is likewise viewed negatively. One of the most important historical centers of Islamic education in Yemen remains Tarim in the Hadramawt valley. Yes, indeed the very Hadramawt from which the ancestors of Osama Bin Laden migrated. But Tarim has an international focus that many people are not aware of. For centuries Hadramis, including Sufi missionaries, have established strong ties with the people of India and Indonesia. The largess of Hadramis abroad has led to substantial support for schools back in Tarim. These are not backward enclaves with firebrands but devout Sufi masters who have long preached tolerance and the quest for spiritual truth. There is a video report posted on Al-Jazeera by Hashem Ahelbarra on “Students in Yemen fight Stereotypes” that is worth watching. For more information on Dar al-Mustafa, which is featured in the video, click here.

Bringing al-Zabîdî to Light and to Life

Books You Should Read, Egypt, Languages, Literature, Scholars, Sufism, Sunni, Tihama, Traditions (hadith literature), Yemen


19th century Cairo mosque illustration from Henry Van-Lennep’s Bible Customs.

Those of us who spend hours using Arabic lexicons would be at a loss without the massive Tâj al-‘Arûs min jawâhir al-qâmûs of Muhammad Murtadâ al-Zabîdî. Completed by this consummate Muslim scholar in 1188/1774 after fourteen years of diligent research, the recent Kuwait edition comprises 40 volumes. Ironically, what took al-Zabîdî fourteen years to write and dictate seems a rapid turn-around, given that the Kuwait edition began in 1960 and was not completed until 2002 [There is a copy available for only £2,463 from Abe Books…, but I suggest you go to Lebanon, where the 40 volume set is only $325 from Fadak Books I am not aware of any online version of Tâj, although Lisân al-‘Arab is available online in searchable format.] Those of us who could never afford to house the 40 volume edition have managed to get by with reprints of the 19th century Cairo edition, funky font presence that it sheds. I remember buying my copy of the thick black-cover volumes in 1981, filling a suitcase with the hefty weight, paying the porter a handsome bakshish for his back-breaking effort at Cairo airport, and then having the suitcase implode from the weight as I crossed the threshhold of my home back in New York. I like to think that my own account would have made its way into al-Zabîdî’s inquisitive notes. Continue reading Bringing al-Zabîdî to Light and to Life →

Tarim Journal

Osama Bin Laden, Sufism, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


Tarim, a remote desert valley in Yemen with towering bluffs and ancient mud-brick houses, is probably best known to outsiders as the birthplace of Osama bin Laden’s father. Photo: Bryan Denton

Tarim Journal
Crossroads of Islam, Past and Present

By ROBERT F. WORTH, The New York Times, October 15, 2009

TARIM, Yemen — This remote desert valley, with its towering bluffs and ancient mud-brick houses, is probably best known to outsiders as the birthplace of Osama bin Laden’s father. Most accounts about Yemen in the Western news media refer ominously to it as “the ancestral homeland” of the leader of Al Qaeda, as though his murderous ideology had somehow been shaped here.

But in fact, Tarim and its environs are a historic center of Sufism, a mystical strand within Islam. The local religious school, Dar al-Mustafa, is a multicultural place full of students from Indonesia and California who stroll around its tiny campus wearing white skullcaps and colorful shawls.

“The reality is that Osama bin Laden has never been to Yemen,” said Habib Omar, the revered director of Dar al-Mustafa, as he sat on the floor in his home eating dinner with a group of students. “His thinking has nothing to do with this place.”

Lately, Al Qaeda has found a new sanctuary here and carried out a number of attacks. But the group’s inspiration, Mr. Omar said, did not originate here. Most of the group’s adherents have lived in Saudi Arabia — as has Mr. bin Laden — and it was there, or in Afghanistan or Pakistan, that they adopted a jihadist mind-set. Continue reading Tarim Journal →

Islam, Sufism and the Heart of Compassion

Conferences and Talks, Ethics, Film and Video, Music and Dance, Sufism


left to right: Michael Sells, John Henry Barrows Professor of Islamic History and Literature in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago; Taoufiq Ben Amor,a Tunisian vocalist, percussionist, oud player and Professor of Arabic at Columbia University; William C. Chittick, Professor of Religious Studies in the Asian and Asian American Studies Dept. at Stony Brook


Islam, Sufism and the Heart of Compassion: Living the Teachings of Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi

The New York Open Center and the Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society will co-present a conference titled “Islam, Sufism and the Heart of Compassion: Living the Teachings of Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi” on November 6,7, 2009

This conference will examine the heart of Ibn ‘Arabi’s teachings and in the process seek to deepen understanding of Islam here in the West in the light of one of its most profound, original and universally relevant thinkers.The conference will open with a series of talks on Friday evening and Saturday morning and will be followed by afternoon workshops, ending with a concluding presentation including a music ensemble. The presentations will cover such themes as: Ibn ’Arabi and the Quest for Human Perfection; Suffering and Spiritual Growth in Ibn ‘Arabi’s Futuhat; The Wisdom of the Heart; Ibn ‘Arabi in Dialogue with the Confucian Tradition; and more. The presenters include some of the leading Ibn ‘Arabi scholars in the world from the U.S., Europe and the Middle East. Confirmed speakers include:

• Salman Bashier
• William Chittick
• Sashiko Murata
• Mohamed Haj Yousef
• Stephen Hirtenstein

You can download the symposium brochure here. (This is an Acrobat pdf file, 3.5mb.) Continue reading Islam, Sufism and the Heart of Compassion →