Can Sufi Islam be an alternative to Radical Salafism?

Can Sufi Islam counter the Taleban?

Some believe that Pakistan's mystic, non-violent Islam can be used as a defence against extremism (Photos: Kamil Dayan Khan)

a corner of the upper courtyard at the shrine of Baba Shah Jamal in Lahore, famous for its Thursday night drumming sessions.

It's packed with young men, smoking, swaying to the music, and working themselves into a state of ecstasy.

This isn't how most Westerners imagine Pakistan, which has a reputation as a hotspot for Islamist extremism.

Devotional singing

But this popular form of Sufi Islam is far more widespread than the Taleban's version. It's a potent brew of mysticism, folklore and a dose of hedonism.

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Inside the Sufi drumming session at the shrine of Baba Shah Jamal

Now some in the West have begun asking whether Pakistan's Sufism could be mobilised to counter militant Islamist ideology and influence.

Lahore would be the place to start: it's a city rich in Sufi tradition.

At the shrine of Data Ganj Bakhsh Hajveri, musicians and singers from across the country also gather weekly, to perform qawwali, or Islamic devotional singing.

Qawwali is seen as a key part of the journey to the divine, what Sufis call the continual remembrance of God.

"When you listen to other music, you will listen for a short time, but the qawwali goes straight inside," says Ali Raza, a fourth generation Sufi singer.

"Even if you can't understand the wording, you can feel the magic of the qawwali, this is spiritual music which directly touches your soul and mind as well."

But Sufism is more than music. At a house in an affluent suburb of Lahore a group of women gathers weekly to practise the Sufi disciplines of chanting and meditation, meant to clear the mind and open the heart to God.

One by one the devotees recount how the sessions have helped them deal with problems and achieve greater peace and happiness. This more orthodox Sufism isn't as widespread as the popular variety, but both are seen as native to South Asia.

'Love and harmony'

"Islam came to this part of the world through Sufism," says Ayeda Naqvi, a teacher of Islamic mysticism who's taking part in the chanting.

"It was Sufis who came and spread the religious message of love and harmony and beauty, there were no swords, it was very different from the sharp edged Islam of the Middle East.

"And you can't separate it from our culture, it's in our music, it's in our folklore, it's in our architecture. We are a Sufi country, and yet there's a struggle in Pakistan right now for the soul of Islam."

Sufism is a mixture of music, chanting and meditation

That struggle is between Sufism and hard-line Wahhabism, the strict form of Sunni Islam followed by members of the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

It has gained ground in the tribal north-west, encouraged initially in the 1980s by the US and Saudi Arabia to help recruit Islamist warriors to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.

But it's alien to Pakistan's Sufi heartland in the Punjab and Sindh provinces, says Sardar Aseff Ali, a cabinet minister and a Sufi.

"Wahhabism is a tribal form of Islam coming from the desert sands of Saudi Arabia," he says. "This may be very attractive to the tribes in the frontier, but it will never find resonance in the established societies of Pakistan."

So could Pakistan's mystic, non-violent Islam be used as a defence against extremism?

An American think tank, the Rand Corporation, has advocated this, suggesting support for Sufism as an "open, intellectual interpretation of Islam".

There is ample proof that Sufism remains a living tradition.

In the warren of Lahore's back streets, a shrine is being built to a modern saint, Hafiz Iqbal, and his mentor, a mystic called Baba Hassan Din. They attract followers from all classes and walks of life.

'Atrocities'

The architect is Kamil Khan Mumtaz. He describes in loving detail his traditional construction techniques and the spiritual principles they symbolise.

Huge crowds are attracted to Sufi gatherings

He shakes his head at stories of lovely old mosques and shrines pulled down and replaced by structures of concrete and glass at the orders of austere mullahs, and he's horrified at atrocities committed in the name of religion by militant Islamists.

But he doubts that Sufism can be marshalled to resist Wahhabi radicalism, a phenomenon that he insists has political, not religious, roots.

"The American think tanks should think again," he says. "What you see [in Islamic extremism] is a response to what has happened in the modern world.

"There is a frustration, an anger, a rage against invaders, occupiers. Muslims ask themselves, what happened?

"We once ruled the world and now we're enslaved. This is a power struggle, it is the oppressed who want to become the oppressors, this has nothing to do with Islam, and least of all to do with Sufism."

Sufi people are often actively engaged in social welfare programmes

Ayeda Naqvi, on the other hand, believes Sufism could play a political role to strengthen a tolerant Islamic identity in Pakistan. But she warns of the dangers of Western support.

"I think if it's done it has to be done very quietly because a lot of people here are allergic to the West interfering," she says.

"So even if it's something good they're doing, they need to be discreet because you don't want Sufism to be labelled as a movement which is being pushed by the West to drown out the real puritanical Islam."

Back at the Shah Jamal shrine I couldn't feel further from puritanical Islam. The frenzied passion around me suggests that Pakistan's Sufi shrines won't be taken over by the Taleban any time soon.

But whether Sufism can be used to actively resist the spread of extremist Islam, or even whether it should be, is another question.

Pakistan's mystical Islam thrives

By Asim Butt, Karachi

The Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine is a magnet for devotees

The mystical form of Islam espoused by Sufi saints for hundreds of years continues to thrive in Pakistan despite opposition from religious hardliners and the authorities.

As the sun sets on a Thursday evening, hundreds of working class people descend on a shrine to the eighth-century mystic, Abdullah Shah Ghazi, in Karachi.

The shrine is located on a hill in the upmarket Clifton district of Pakistan's financial capital, flanked by swanky shopping malls and the posh residential area of Defence.

In the grounds below the shrine gather electricians, plumbers, construction workers, vagabonds, transvestites, prostitutes. Encircled by a cheering crowd, men take turns in a weightlifting competition.

Another circle dances to the drumbeat of the shrine's dhol players.

Devotional singing, or "qawali", emanates from an enclosure adjacent to the open grounds, yet another crowd swaying under its spell.

Holy nights

The men, for this public space is overwhelmingly male-dominated, belong to all the ethnicities and sects that make up Pakistan, mixing freely in a city rife with divisions.

Many homeless people are drawn to the shrine's grounds

Food stalls, bonfires, stereo-players, huddles of ganja-smoking men, smaller ones of heroin users, others swigging local brews, make up this multi-ethnic weekly party that rocks into the early hours of the morning.

Although Thursdays are traditionally holy nights when devotees pray at Sufi shrines, the revelry at Shah Ghazi seems to have little to do with prayer.

Music, dance and drugs, though proscribed by orthodox Islam, are the traditional vehicles of devotion here - as they are at most shrines in Pakistan.

Sufism has historically provided Islam with an alternative to orthodoxy and has won it most of its converts.

Sufi saints created mass appeal through their merging with pre-existing faiths of the region and their ability to align themselves with popular interests.

The mass appeal of saints like Shah Ghazi and others persists in spite of 200 years of opposition from puritanical reformers and the state.

From the late 19th century on, reformers sought to purify Islam by rejecting elements they believe had crept in through Sufism.

Exiled

Under the colonial regime, although landed Sufis were used as intermediaries between government and subjects, ascetics were seen as a threat and criminalised.

The shrine is also a centre of entertainment

Similarly, while ancient Sufis were viewed as genuine agents of spirituality, living mystics were dismissed as frauds.

The 19th Century Sufi, Mewa Shah, also buried in Karachi, was jailed and eventually exiled by the British.

According to legend, Mewa Shah alighted the ship taking him into exile, said his prayers on the waves of the Arabian Sea and mounted a large fish which took him back to the shores of Karachi.

Post-colonial Pakistan has had a schizophrenic policy towards Sufi shrines.

By subsuming them under the Auqaf department, the state has sought to weaken the powers of the spiritual heirs of the saints.

Established under Ayub Khan in 1959, the Auqaf department received its charter from Javed Iqbal, the son of Pakistan's founding visionary poet, Mohammad Iqbal, who actually bemoaned the superstitions of Indian Muslims.

Karachi's dispossessed come for free food

The pamphlets published by the department expunged the miraculous from the legends, repainting the lives of Sufi saints in a modernist light.

The powers of the department were expanded further under the pseudo-socialist government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1976 and have persisted through Zia ul-Haq's Islamist dictatorship and Pervez Musharraf's rule of "enlightened moderation".

Meanwhile, state functionaries and politicians have continued to seek legitimacy from the shrines by turning prayer visits into public appearances and photo opportunities.

Although tributes paid by devotees are siphoned through the Auqaf department, alms are also received by the dozen or so kitchens that run along the front of the shrine.

The money is used to provide two daily meals to anyone in need. The most destitute thus encamp outside the shrine, among them glue-sniffing runaway children, heroin addicts and other homeless men and women.

The Sufi shrines offer the underclass spiritual sustenance, a social valve of entertainment, and a safety net of free rations.

It is a bond that has not been loosened by militant Islam.