Will Sufism of Iraq be able to correct what it has corrupted?

Sarah Rashad

The statements of Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi at the end of last year about eliminating the existence of Daesh can not be translated into a real end to the organization. The confrontations that followed this statement proved the existence of sleeping cells, in which the organization is still able to work.

Even if we confess that the organization has ended in Iraq, this will not negate the chances of its return again. That will renew talk about the so-called “intellectual confrontation”.

Sufism is one of the closest possibilities whenever the debate is opened on how to deal with extremist thought, and the Sufism of Iraq in particular is the cradle of Arab Sufism and it has been said that Sufism in Iraq like the sun and the moon for the people.
Will Sufism be effective in post-Daesh era? Is it able to repair what has been destroyed?

The reality is that the Iraqi Sufi situation remained until 2003 (the US invasion of Iraq) with a kind of stability that allowed it to spread its thought and practice its religious rites under the auspices of the Iraqi state. However, the situation changed until Iraqi society turned from its Sufism to the takfiri situation which was crowned by the emergence of Daesh and announcing its state in June 2014.

With the apparent demise of the organization according to official Iraqi statements, the question remains: Are the Sufi methods able to address the ideas of the organization?

The statements that come out of those associated with the Sufi methods in Iraq all indicate their willingness to participate in the clash with Daesh. However, the status quo indicates that the occurrence of this is unexpected in light of the confusion experienced by the Sufism of Iraq.

In addition to the old Sufi discourse in its content and form, and in light of the technological progress achieved by the Daesh organization on the level of the media in terms of the accuracy of the message and thus its impact and spread, the preference remains to Daesh on Sufism, which relies on dancing in Moulids (celebrations organized by Sufi routes on a seasonal basis to commemorate religious events).

In addition, the Arab Sufism situation in general suffers from the fragility of its approach since it abandoned the ideas of its founders and committed itself to formative matters of Sufism. Here we can refer to the experiences of some Sufi methods, which attempted to renew the original curricula of Sufism, like the Naqshband method in Syria (in relation to Muhammad Baha al-Din al-Naqshband of Bukhari and which spreads in the city of Aleppo north-western Syria). That method was exposed on the background of its experience to criticism of other Sufi methods, which reflects the fight against the renewal of the Sufism approach within Sufism itself. That means that Arab Sufism has not yet reached the stage of awareness of crises.

Among the manifestations of Sufism confusion in Iraq was a segment of Iraqi Sufism being affected by the state of violence that dominated the scene since 2003. We find that Sufism, which calls for peace, has tended to take up arms. This is embodied in the experience of Naqshbandi army, the sons of Naqshbandi (Sufi method spread in Syria Iraq and Turkey), which was founded in 2003, and classifies itself as a Sunni resistance faction coming out to resist the American occupation. However, it continued even after the emergence of Daesh and was a faction involved in the scene.

This shift in Sufi thought is due to the carrying of weapons, in light of the criticisms received by the Sufis during the period after 2003, as it received accusations that it incites people to laziness and just to sit in mosques and abandon resistance of the occupation.

In 2006, the Iraqi websites circulated reports of a statement attributed to the Qadiriyah method (an Iraqi method involving Arabs and Kurds), in which it announced the formation of a battalion of its men called “Abdul Qader Jilani Jihadi Battalion.”

As we ended up with the conclusion that the Iraqi Sufis withdrew from the scene leaving the Iraqis to reflective jihadist thought, that has come in stages. The beginning was the path of the Salafi approach to Iraq with the emergence of what is known as the phenomenon of the Afghan Mujahideen who are Arabs getting access to Afghanistan to face Russia in Afghanistan under American auspices, under the name of “Jihad for Islam.”

This situation was reinforced by the financial situation caused by the economic embargo imposed on Iraq at the end of the 1990s by the West, which led the Iraqis to flee to religion.

With the US invasion in 2003, calls for “Islamic Jihad against the occupation” escalated as the Sunni-Shiite schism deepened, eventually leading to the withdrawal of Sufism from the scene, and the rise of the Salafi movement, which finally reached the savagery of the terrorist ” .