Sufi spiritual leader and daugter shot, hacked to death in Bangladesh

[rangerrebew]

 Sufi spiritual leader and daugter shot, hacked to death in Bangladesh
AP
Published Mar 14, 2017, 7:46 pm IST
Updated Mar 14, 2017, 9:15 pm IST
Alam said police are still investigating the case and have not ruled out the involvement of militant groups.
 

New Delhi: Unknown assailants have shot and hacked to death a Sufi spiritual leader and his adopted daughter in northern Bangladesh, police said Tuesday.

Local police chief Hamidul Alam said the bodies of Farhad Hossain Chowdhury and his daughter, Rupali Begum, were recovered late Monday from a shrine Chowdhury ran in Dinajpur district.

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/world/neighbours/140317/sufi-leader-shot-hacked-to-death-in-bangladesh.html

[TomSea]

Horrible.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sufism

Is Sufism, more spiritual? More peaceful? Maybe there's a chance of that. You don't hear much about Sufi terrorism. That's a question for the experts.

[LateForLunch]

Horrible.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sufism

Is Sufism, more spiritual? More peaceful? Maybe there's a chance of that. You don't hear much about Sufi terrorism. That's a question for the experts.

I'm not an expert (Dr. Sebastian Gorka is an expert) but I have done some research and read a lot of posts at Jihad Watch. The truth is that any branch of Islam that opposed a violent interpretation of the concept of jihad, has been forcibly suppressed by the militant factions.

Whereas many have claimed over the years that the Sufi side of Islam is the more "peaceful, mystical" side, that is no longer true (if it ever was). Over the last many years Sufi clerics who did not bow to the militant interpretations of the Q'ran were murdered outright or otherwise forced into submission and complete silence. So Sufi clerics are generally just as much homicidal lunatics as Sunni Salafist/Wahabbi or Shiite Twelver sects.

In general, the demarcation between decent, civilized muzz and militant fundie muzz is between the Shiekists (as in Egypt, Saudi Arabia) who see nothing wrong with associating with and doing business with Western aligned nations/non-Muslims, and the fundamentalist jihadists who consider this association to be sacrilege. The latter will therefore engage in murderous violence to defend their extremist views and xenophobic preoccupation with Islamic "purity".

[Suppressed]

Is Sufism, more spiritual? More peaceful?

Yes.

That's a question for the experts.

Disclaimer: I don't claim to be an expert.

[LateForLunch]

Yes.

Disclaimer: I don't claim to be an expert.

Taqqiya. Don't be a victim of dhimmitude. The Quran encourages muzz to lie about their own religion in order to prevent it from being seen in a bad light by non-muzz. The notion that Sufiism is somehow immune to the influence of militant fundamentalism is one of those lies. It's not hard to find Sufi clerics who fully endorse terrorism against non-muzz.

That being said, there are some numbers of mostly young muzz in India/Pakistan region who are trying to dissociate from terrorism (or at least the appearance of associating with terrorism) but this latest murder is another salvo in the ongoing war over this between the militant and non-militant factions.

One of the differences between muzz in India/Pakistan and other areas of the world is that the rivalry has been ongoing for a long time and is probably more about regional competition than ideological purity. The Hindus and the Muslims have been at odds ever since the 1800s in that part of the world  (especially Kashmir) and in some places in the region, longer than that.

There hasn't been an all-out military conflict for decades in the disputed regions because both Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons and their governments (as hot headed as they are) understand the danger of a conflict escalating into all out war. So things have settled down into a slow boil with occasional border clashes, incursions into disputed areas with shelling and raiding of settlements/outposts.

For a good view of what is going on in that part of the world one may enjoy Salmon Rushdie's* "Midnight's Children". That is an enjoyable book and for anyone interested in understanding the socio-political dynamics of that part of the world, probably invaluable.

* Rushdie is a former Muslim who is now a self-described atheist. His writing reflects this lack of enthusiasm but resigned acceptance of the elements of religious zeal in his people and government.

[geronl]

Police have not ruled out foul play?

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Horrible.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sufism

Is Sufism, more spiritual? More peaceful? Maybe there's a chance of that. You don't hear much about Sufi terrorism. That's a question for the experts.

Yes, it generally is.  The Ahmadi movement is also peaceful, although some other Muslims dispute their status as Muslims.  The wonderful shopkeeper in Scotland who was murdered by radicals last Easter -- after publicly wishing his "beloved Christian nation" a Happy Easter, was an Ahmadi.  If the Muslim world was just Sufis and Ahmadis, we'd all get along just fine.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3509367/Muslim-shopkeeper-stabbed-death-hours-posted-happy-Easter-message.html

[bigheadfred]

Read up on Sufis from a Sufi:

https://iamheart.org/about_iam/sufism.shtml

[LateForLunch]

Read up on Sufis from a Sufi:

https://iamheart.org/about_iam/sufism.shtml

I read it and it's sort of interesting. That being said, I get the notion that the author is trying to minimize the fecklessness of so-called "peaceful Islam" in general and trying to represent Sufi Islam as some sort of main-stream esoteric, advanced, all-inclusive doctrine of syncretism. It's not. It's far closer to a doctrinaire muzz fundamentalism which is utterly and absolutely intolerant of modification or adulteration in any way.

That rigid inflexibility is what results in the xenophobic refusal of the jihadists to tolerate any compromise or collaboration with people who do not believe as they do and furthermore their willingness to commit the most heinous murderous atrocities to preserve this imagined "purity" PTUI!! Daesh!

The reference to Muslim Sufism accepting Vedantism is utterly laughable. The overwhelming view of the most powerful muzz clerics is that Vedantists (Hindus) are contemptible infidel animals worthy only of subjugation or slaughter because they are pantheists (believers in the existence of more than one God).

There are some Muslims such as the sort that Malcom X was, who have very civilized values and who are mostly non-violent. It is perhaps notable that Malcom X was assassinated by other Muslims.

Let's be frank, any strong influence by self-described peaceful, non-militant Sufi sects in the greater movement of Islam (and its more than 1 billion adherents) has been utterly and completely marginalized/suppressed by the Salafist/Wahabbi and Twelver sects who flatly do not tolerate any ideological movement within Islam that seeks to marginalize or harshly criticize jihad as an external, wholly-physical waging of actual wars of aggression in which mass murder is the product.

There is no significant "reform" movement in greater Islam. The best the non-militant factions can do is maintain some marginal influence over the greater religion and hope that they can individually avoid becoming targets themselves for the militant members who dominate and control it. 

[bigheadfred]

I'm at work @LateForLunch so i can't do the research, but I bet the before islam sufis were the ones that were running and maintaining those great arab universities of the past. Once those sufis were purged those places were destroyed too.

That is what islam is. That is what they want. The entire world to be a craphole. Anyone who doesn't understand that deserves islam.

[LateForLunch]

I'm at work @LateForLunch so i can't do the research, but I bet the before islam sufis were the ones that were running and maintaining those great arab universities of the past. Once those sufis were purged those places were destroyed too.

That is what islam is. That is what they want. The entire world to be a craphole. Anyone who doesn't understand that deserves islam.

Yep, absolutely correct! The term "purity" became corrupted to mean "rigid doctrinaire" in Islam after the Caliphate progressions were sundered. Because of the proliferation of fundamentalist (xenophobic) Muslims in the ruling authority of the religion for so many long years, nations dominated by Islam became unable to keep up with the rest of the civilized world in terms of technology and culture. This reached a nadir when the industrial revolution hit around the turn of the century and it took the efforts of Kamal Ataturk in Turkey to overturn the puritanical muzz clerics and steer his own nation in a different direction after the last official (11th) caliphate the Ottoman Empire was dissolved by the allies after WWI because they sided with the losers (Germany). 

Ataturk modernized both the culture and infrastructure of Turkey by suppressing the militant fundamentalist muzz, who had by that time become the dominant force and who had coopted Sufism to mean "doctrinaire xenophobia" and "purity" to mean "paranoid hostility to all things not firmly rooted in antiquated, anti-Western interpretations of the Koran".

Sadly, Turkey's muzz clerics have once again slipped back into the sort of "purity-obsessed" forms of Sufism which align with Salafist (Wahabbi) and Shiite Twelver ideology, jihadists all and which PM Erdogan tacitly validates and supports by his pro militant Islamic policies.

Erdogan has even resurrected the notion that the Muslim-majority nations in his region should create their own economic entity made up of former member states of the Ottoman Empire.