Islam is a “Big Tent” Religion with Plenty of Room for Differences—Including Sufis, Who were the Target of a Recent Vicious Attack in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula
By John Mason/Arab America Contributing Writer
November 24, 2017, a group purported to be ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) attacked and killed over 300 Egyptian people. The attack occurred in the al Rawda Sufi mosque just after Friday prayers in the town of Bir al-Abed in Egypt’s northern Sinai Peninsula.
Al Rawda Sufi Mosque
The attackers entered the mosque, killing many, then sprayed fleeing worshipers with gunfire, killing old and young alike. It was described as the deadliest attack of its kind in Egypt’s history. This particular mosque was presumably selected by ISIL because some of the worshippers were members of the Sufi movement, a subset of Muslims that ISIL believes practice a form of voodoo or witchcraft. ISIL’s mischaracterization categorizes the Sufis as Muslims who’ve left the religion or – infidels. Claims for responsibility have not yet been revealed, though the pattern fits ISIL and its local affiliates, including Ansar al-Maqdis. Over 100 people were also wounded.
Aftermath of Attack
Sufis are a longstanding movement in Islam. Dating to early Islam, they are defined as mystics, representing an inner dimension of the religion. Most Sufis adhere to Sunni Islam, that division supporting the followers—not the kinsmen—of the Prophet Mohamed. Some Shia, followers of the Prophet through his kinsman, Ali, also follow Sufism. Sufis are known to be ascetics, who practice a ritual aimed at a spiritual connection to Allah. They do this through what in Arabic is called the dhikr, a ritual based on chants and dances in remembrance of Allah.
My first experience with Sufism was in Augila Oasis in the Libyan Sahara, where I did my anthropological fieldwork. It was in the form of saints that my introduction to Sufism took place. The basis for saints of the Sahara was the belief or tradition that there are holy men who dwell among the community. The origin of these saints lies in the general Islamic tradition in which these holy men (and, occasionally, a female) saints are permitted but not necessarily encouraged by Sunni Islam. It was the nineteenth century Sanusi movement with its Sufi influence that nudged Augila and much of the rest of North Africa towards a community of saints. Sufism as we noted earlier, is the inner, mystical dimension of Islam whose practitioners are members of ascetic orders that practice moderation in all aspects of life. Each order groups around a designated saint.
Typical North African Sufi Tomb
While difficult to study firsthand, since their earthly representatives are no longer with us, the local Oasis saints are represented in not only 15 tombs—but in 15 distinct stories. Earlier their tombs were constructed of typical building materials of mud brick, sand, and straw, but during my stay, some were beginning to be replaced by concrete-block structures. Saints are, in a sense, ‘created’ because their kinsmen saw in a person some outstanding, positive characteristics. These qualities were then attributed to baraka or divinely inspired grace or power conveyed by Allah.
The saints are subsequently sponsored by kinsmen and offered a feast at which the Qur’an is recited in unison and the virtues of the man extolled by an imam or prayer leader. The fatiha or opening verses of the Qur’an are read and a discussion ensues about building a tomb in honor of the deceased.
Saints are imbued with social and ethical values, which give to them a quality of the ‘ideal life.’ These values then become concrete through guideposts for the average resident to admire and, ideally, follow. Adherents believe that saints take on a supernatural form which serves as a moral force in molding their followers’ behavior. Stories abound about how Augila’s saints came to be. One story, heavily abbreviated, which is illustrative of the 15, concerns someone who had identified a thief who had stolen a goat, by placing his hand on the presumed thief’s stomach:
At that moment the culprit blurted out the ‘ma’a, ma’a’ sound of the goat, thereby admitting his guilt.
Another story concerns a man whose spring flooded neighbors’ lands:
At that moment, this soon-to-be be saint struck the spring with a stick. Miraculously and immediately, the flooding ceased.
These two shortened stories fit the category of the ‘good neighbor.’ The stories of sainthood of the Oasis’ 15 local saints are about how the community deals with a variety of life issues. Thus appear the themes of poverty, theft, and extremely limited physical resources in the stark landscape of the Desert. Occasionally these saints have become the object of inter-communal competition. This resulted in clans vying for who could out-perform the other in ‘saintliness.’ Such competition, however, wasn’t the norm during my stay.
In Egypt, I did research on a Sufi movement, including interviews with a Muslim Sufi leader and observation of Sufi rituals. The Sufi leader, a Shaikh, headed a large movement of followers belonging to the Tariqa Burhaniyya Shazliyya, a spiritual order with roots in the Sudan. As alluded to earlier, Sufism aims to deepen the spiritual experiences of Muslims, in part through the formation of fraternal orders. The thirteenth century saw the greatest spread of Sufism across the Muslim world, including Spain, Turkey, Iran and Central Asia. It was accompanied by the creation of some of the most popular mystical poetry, including that of Ibn al-Arabi of Spain and ar-Rumi of Persia. The mystical experience of Allah is achieved by a spiritual journey that includes ecstasy or intoxication. The theoretical end of this journey is the annihilation of one’s personal qualities and a loving union between man and God.
The Shaikh of the Sufi Order, Burhaniyya Shazliyya, and I agreed that I’d follow him about as he carried on his leadership duties. So I’d join him and his fellow Sufis in the popular Sayeedna Hussein mosque near the well-known Cairo bazaar, Khan al-Khalili. The mosque was named after Hussein, son of Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law, and hence Mohammed’s grandson. He was also a martyr who died in the struggle for control of the Caliphate, following the Prophet’s death in 632. The momentous split of the followers from the kinsmen of the Prophet was in 680 AD.
Hussein Mosque, Cairo
The focus of the Sufi activity at the Hussein mosque was a tomb presumed to contain some fragment of the slain Hussein’s body. Though these Sufis were Sunni Muslims, they still revered Hussein, the founder of the Shia sect. In their ritual they would circle round-and-round Hussein’s tomb at a brisk pace, occasionally stopping to kiss his resting place. They would then move to a room off to the side of the main hall where they would perform ecstasy-inducing dances. The dances included a continuous vertical bouncing movement as if the dancer was jumping on a pogo stick. They would bounce high into the air and come down, almost weightlessly, only to project heavenward over and over.
Known as the zikr or dhikr, meaning remembrance of Allah, this Sufi form of worship included a rhythmic chant. As the devotees chanted, they hyperventilated; this involved the rapid sucking in
of air, then expelling it; at the same time, they repeated in unison the name of Allah. This ritual is difficult to replicate, to pronounce Allah’s name as you suck in the air then expel it. I’ve tried it and can only imagine that accompanied by extreme physical exertion, it can lead to a state of semi-consciousness. In addition, such perpetual motion, rhythmic chanting, and oxygen-deprived breathing had a mesmerizing, if not hypnotic effect on the Sufis. It induced many into what was described as an ecstatic state. This state was assumed to be as close as any Muslim could ever get to God, with the exception of the Prophet Mohamed, who seemingly had a direct line.
Sufi Ritual of Dhikr
These brief accounts of Sufism in Libya and Egypt show quite different paths to the objective of communing with Allah. The desert oasis approach in Libya was highly ascetic, mainly achieved by saints who arose from everyday life in a desert environment, serving as models of how to get along in sharing scarce resources under harsh conditions. In Egypt, the Sufi Order, comprised of 6 million Muslims, representing a political force, was an amalgam of working and professional class men who created a sense of fraternity through a mystical path to their God. Both of these Sufi approaches, I thought, were laudable for their inclusion of both the poorest members of the population as well as the well-to-do, and in their spiritual attempts to create a sense of heaven on earth.
This, mind you, is in contrast to those noted at the outset, the ISIL’s of the world. It is they who would exclude Sufis from Islam, and in so doing inflict their own sense—not of heaven—but of hell on earth. May the Sufis of this world win this battle of good vs. evil. Amen.
John Mason is the author of LEFT-HANDED IN AN ISLAMIC WORLD: An Anthropologist’s Journey into the Middle East, New Academia Publishing, 2017.