Comments on Blog of Lema Nal: Muslim Cults

It might be that Sufis in traditional Muslim count...

2009-05-12T19:57:00.000-07:00

It might be that Sufis in traditional Muslim countries and regions where there are many Sufis are better protected from abuses of shaykhs than in non-Muslim countries. In Sufi literature, I often found warnings against false and self-proclaimed shaykhs. Shaykhs are supposed to have a special permission to be shaykhs that they get from their own shaykhs. Also, in this literature, it is mentioned that all the tariqah are considered equal in their purpose, but different in their practices. So, murids are allowed to change their tariqah or their shaykh. It is similar with madhabs. All the four Sunni madhabs are considered orthodox in Sunnism, and Muslims is allowed to change madhabs either for a long time or just for some actions.

Of course, I do not think that in Muslim countries, including those where there are many Sufis, there are no Sufi cults. I think it very much depends on shaykhs. In my opinion, it is a problem that the figure of shaykh is very important in Sufism and that murids have to depend very much on their shaykhs for their spiritual progress. When shaykhs are ethical, this might be fine. However, when they are not ethical, there are possibilities for many abuses.

I think that Sufi groups in the West do, for the m...

2009-05-12T01:09:00.000-07:00

I think that Sufi groups in the West do, for the most part, have some strong cult-like components, and some of them are outright cults. The isolation or alienation of Muslims from the mainstream society encourages this behavior. Religious Muslims are, in a sense, forced to rely on shaykhs and such people, although most people do not join tariqahs (brotherhoods). Based on my experience, the majority of members are second generation children of immigrants and
Western converts to Islam. The stricter, Islamically, the cult or tariqah is, the more it seems to attract the young adult children of Indian and Pakistani immigrants, while the more liberal ones attract more European (white) converts. This is a generalisation, of course. There are racial and ethnic mixtures in these groups.

Thankfully, this past year, 7 years after 9/11 and a growing sense of victimisation, indignation and isolation in Muslims seems to have turned somewhat, and though small in numbers still, there are people leaving these cults and speaking out about them.

In 2001, there were people who left the Shadhili tariqah of Sidi Jamal of Jerusalem, although precious little is left online about their experiences. In 2007, there was a swarm of young Westerners who left Damascus and the Shadhili tariqah under Muhammad Yaqoubi. In 2008 until now, there have been quite a few young Westerners leaving Nuh Keller, an American Sufi shaykh in Jordan. They have not been quiet as far as writing on blogs about some of their experiences, and I think we will see more with both the Shadhilis and people continuing to leave other culty tariqahs that recruited heavily in the West, such as the Ba'Alawiya and the Naqshbandiya, as well as the more liberal tariqahs that place far less emphasis on Islam and attract upper middle class non Muslims.

My hope is that someday, there is a book or guide of some sort out there for Muslim survivors of Islamic cults, and that others out there can recognise that Salafismand Wahabism are not a cult in the same way that Sufism is - they are religious / political movements that do not center on a charismatic leader, for example - and that some attention can be focused on the cults of Sufism.

And if any survivor of these tariqahs reads this - know that you are not alone. There are others out there, and they can be found.

Thank you for letting me know.

2009-02-10T21:49:00.000-08:00

Thank you for letting me know.

You may be interested by a page I wrote using Intr...

2009-02-10T14:59:00.000-08:00

You may be interested by a page I wrote using Introvigne's use of Lifton's new criteria (not the old 8 ones) and related mostly to Islam-based fanaticism, at http://bernie.cncfamily.com/acm/terror_in_manhattan.htm