Sufism in the West… Spirituality versus the lone wolves

Sara Rashid

After September 11, 2001 attacks, the world looked for a new face of Islam, to destroy the extremism ideas, and the needy for an intellectual opponent was inevitable.

At this time, the Western research centers began to work to find this intellectual opponent, finally they considered the Sufism may be the closest proposition.

Sufism was polished and pushed to the forefront of the political scene in the Arab region as an alternative to the Misinterpreted Islam, but that not success.

Now the situation is more complex. The extremist groups access to a lot of countries. Some of them have moved to the heart of Europe and recently managed to persuade some of the Europeans and develop the term “lone wolves”. Is the Sufism become again the choice for the West to confront these hungry wolves?

The European countries recommendations to confront the lone wolves, with legal controls, indicate that there is a plan to push the moderate entities to hold an intellectual confrontation with the ideas of Takfiri.

The old western trends towards Sufism indicate that it is possible that the latter will once again be the moderate faction that relies on intellectual confrontations with the Takfiris, but is it qualified?

The reality is that the mission is not simple as the radical organizations have made progress in persuading their constituents by providing them with electronic speeches based on pseudo-doctrines, or through the jurisprudential library on which they rely to justify their logic of fighting the ruler, Which means that intellectual debates will not be easy, and need the strength of the opposite approach to refute their ideas.

Sufism.. Spirituality versus blood

In his words about Sufism, Imam Abu Hamed al-Ghazali said: “The instrument of knowledge is the heart and not the senses. Divine love is a state of intense love in which the lover yearns for Allah”. Sufism seems to be a clear contrast to the ideas of extremists who know nothing about God’s love, or the heart, considering that Loving Allah is killing the people.

Essam Mohiuddin, Secretary-General of Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Sufi, said that Sufism is the most capable to confront extremism, as the Sufism has the justification to refute the ideas of extremist organizations.

He referred to the Sufi library, which he said was able to respond to Daesh Library, which the organization succeeded in producing in the period from 2014, considering that Sufism is widespread, ancient, and has power to reduce extremists.

The Sufi scene seems brighter in the West than its Arab counterpart. The European situation has reasons to make Sufism strong in European Islamic circles. It is one of the sections through which some Europeans turned to Islam such as the French scholar Eric Jouffreau.

In addition to the reasons for the attraction of Westerners to Sufism, the frozen image presented by non-Sufi sheikhs about religiosity, as summarized in prayer, purity and fasting, away from reaching Allah by heart and faith.

In contrast to the situation in the Arab world, Sufism in the West has a rich intellectual output, as many writings are published between books and studies, including “Sufism: The Way of Islam” published in 2016 by the French scholar Eric Jouffroua. The researcher studied Sufism historically.

The Moroccan researcher “Aziz al-Kubaiti Idrissi”, in 2008, handle with the Islamic Sufism in the West, in a book about the Moroccan impact in Britain, as was «Idris Shah», which issued in 1989 the book “Method of the sufi”.

So is Sufism being accepted in Europe as one of the ways to save Europe’s youth from drifting behind the emails of militant organizations?

Saeed Menouache, said that Sufism is the best way to engage with “daesh”. He said that the Sufi approach guarantee the victory over the ideas of blood and extremism.

He pointed out that Sufism has a special status in Europe, for reasons including the space left by Western governments, expected to expand this area until Sufism reach the largest possible number of Europeans and then fight the extremist ideas that have become popular in recent times.

He also said the spiritual vacuum in the European community, is the reason behind Daesh success in Europe.

He said: “Moroccan Sufism produced a cultural intellectual that appeared in books and research in Europe”.