At Time, Ishaan Tharoor asks if Sufism can be used to defuse terrorism and radicalism:
…[W]hile Sufism is no doubt fascinating in its diversity and complexity, can it really bend terrorist swords into plowshares? The question is most urgent in South Asia, home to more than a third of the world’s Muslims and the historic cradle of Sufi Islam. Shrines of Sufi saints are ubiquitous in India and Pakistan and still attract thousands of devotees from all sectors of society. Yet the Taliban in Pakistan have set about destroying such sites, which are anathema to their literalist interpretation of the Koran. “Despite our ancient religious tradition,” says Ayeda Naqvi, a writer and Sufi scholar from Lahore, “we are being bullied and intimidated by a new form of religion that is barely one generation old.”
Still, she and other academics are wary of any government using Sufism to fight its political battles. As in the past, foreign meddling would likely do more harm than good. “What is needed today, more than the West pushing any one form of religion,” says Naqvi, “is a propagation of the underlying values of Sufism—love, harmony and beauty.” There is no easy way to achieve this, especially in Pakistan, where poverty, corruption and the daily toll of the global war on terrorism simmer together in a volatile brew. Set against this, the transcendental faith of Sufi mystics seems quaint, if not entirely impotent.
Read the full article here, as well as a previous here & there post on this topic and a discussion of the Sufi Advisory Council (SAC) in Pakistan, an attempt to use Sufism to fight extremism.