Islam, Devouring Its Own

"Shirk literally means association. It is the act of associating God with other entities."
"What they [Islamic State] take the Sufis to task principally for is the intercession, the use of other media, to access God."
Jacob Olidort, Islam scholar

"They [Salafists; Islamic State and al-Qaeda terrorists] believe Sufi shrines are the most egregious expressions of that shirk."
"They think the society is moving in the wrong direction and Sufis are aiding and abetting the authorities on this corrupt path. In ways, their reasons are very much political. They say, 'If Sufis support this, we will be against them,' more or less."
"The opponents of Sufism see the shrines and these living saints as idols. Their existence and their worship violates the main principle of Islam, which is the uniqueness of God and the uniqueness of the object of worship."
Alexander Knysh, Sufism scholar, professor, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

"Our main focus ... is to wage war against the manifestations of shirk and bid'ah [heresy], including Sufism."
"Shirk has become very widespread [in Egypt]."
"[Sufis in Egypt are forewarned, they are mushrikin [polytheists], [their] blood is filthy and permissible to shed."
Islamic State emir of Islamic State religious police, Rumiyah magazine

The Rawda mosque, roughly 40 kilometers west of el-Arish in Egypt's Sinai, after a gun and bombing terror attack, on November 24, 2017. (AFP/Stringer)

Strange that the experts focus on Islamic terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and their war on the "disease" of Sufism, the mystical wing of Islam which threatens no one. The veneration of martyrs within Sufism as a manifestation of the divine in Islam is viewed as apostasy, a heretical, vile mockery of Islam by the virulently fundamentalist terrorists who flog Islam as the sole legitimate expression of the Almighty's presence as a spiritual being whose monotheistic divinity all humankind is expected to submit to.

And shedding the lives of the heretics is on prominent display. As when in February the shrine in southern Pakistan was targeted by an ISIL jihadist with a projectile-packed explosive vest that killed over 80 people when the detonator was hit. The worshipers were praying at the shrine of the Sufi philosopher Lal Shabaz Qalandar, a revered saint; a frequent practise when the faithful visit such tombs, targeted in Libya, in Mali and elsewhere by Islamic State where mass executions of Sufi faithful take place.

On November 24, over 300 Sufi worshippers at a mosque in the Sinai Peninsula were attacked by a dozen ISIL terrorists in a well coordinated event that injured a hundred others of the faithful. Each time an attack of that nature takes place, it creates a stir of confusion from outside the Muslim community and dismay within. How and why could it be explained that Muslims slaughter other Muslims? When one only has to look at what official Pakistan does in persecuting Sufis and Amadiyah Muslims, along with Christians.

Islamic State in Syria and Iraq target Yazidis for very special treatment, killing the men and boys en mass, and enslaving women and children as  sex slaves. Both the Salafi school of Islam (Islamic State proponents) and the Wahhabists (al-Qaeda group) view Muslims outside their recognized mainstream of majority Sunni Islam as irregular, unacceptable. Shiite Muslims, the other mainstream of Islam is a minority branch deplored by the majority Sunnis, while Shia Muslims consider Sunnis 'illegal', leaving them implacable enemies.

The puzzled outside world looking in with horror at the ongoing slaughter of Muslim upon Muslim, viewing the plight of Islam's refugees fleeing in terror from al-Qaeda- and ISIL-linked groups such as the Taliban, al-Shabaab and Boko Haram in their rampages across the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa, find it difficult to distinguish why it might be that the Muslim world is in such violent ferment.

On the other hand, while the answers are right there in the Koran and the Hadiths, it has become too indelicate for scholars of Islam and politicians in the West to point out the reality that Islam will not recognize the legitimacy of the presence of other religions; their very existence calls out for jihad. Jihad which calls the faithful to their duty to promote and advance Islam in a universal campaign to ensure that Sharia becomes widespread and Islam reigns supreme.

A general view shows people gathering outside the Mar Girgis Coptic Church in the Nile Delta City of Tanta, north of Cairo, after a bomb blast struck worshippers gathering to celebrate Palm Sunday on April 9, 2017. (AFP Photo/Khaled Desouki)