Furnish, T.R. 2013. Sufis v.

Salafis: Winning Friends and Interdicting Enemies in Islamic

Africa. RIMA Policy Papers, 1 1
http://muslimsinafrica.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/sufis-v-salafis-winning-friends-and-interdicting-
enemies-in-islamic-africa-dr-timothy-r-furnish/
The Islamic world is at war. But while theatres such as Afghanistan-Pakistan, Syria and Yemen are
well-known, another major zone of conflict is not. This one is simultaneously transnational and
intersocietal, cutting across almost the entirety of the ummah, or Muslim community, yet also
cutting down into individual countries, especially in Islamic Africa. It is the struggle between the
fundamentalistic Salafis and the tolerant Sufis going on right now in Egypt, Libya, Mali, Somalia,
Nigeria, Sudan and Ethiopia. The US would do well to help the latter, as the fate of truly moderate
Islam hangs in the balance.
This paper will explicate the differences, and conflicts, between Salafis and Sufis in the modern
Islamic world in general, and in Africa in particular. There are four major sections: an introduction
to the issue and its manifestations; an overview of Sufismits history, major groups, beliefs and
locations; a similar synopsis of Salafism; and a conclusion that will examine possible avenues of
exploitation for the US.
1. I. Introduction and Background
The Muslim world has been beset by sectarian conflict since shortly after the death of Islams
founder, Muhammad, in 632 ADclearly and unequivocally contra the Hadith rubrics which quote
him forbidding such a conflict in the utterances if two Muslims take out their swords to fight one
another, then both of them shall be from the people of Hell fire,[1] and none of you should [even]
point out toward his Muslim brother with a weapon.[2] These prophetic prohibitions soon fell
by the wayside and for some 1400 years the Islamic history of violence has been, in no small
measure, one of Muslim against Muslim; to name but the most notable: the Riddah (Apostasy)
Wars waged by the Arab tribes tried to defect from Islam after Muhammads death; the fitan
(civil wars) a few decades later when the fourth caliph, Ali, was rebelled against by the
Umayyads of Damascus and, finally, killed by a sectarian from the ranks of the Khawarij;[3] the
wars a century later in which the Abbasid dynasty from Khurasan (eastern Iran/western
Afghanistan) supplanted those same Umayyads; the 250 years of bloody conflict, both conventional
and assassinations, between the Sunni Abbasid caliphs and the Sevener Shi`i Fatimids of North
Africa and Egypt; the wars of conquest waged by the Sunni Ottoman Turks in the 16th-20th
centuries against other Muslims in Egypt, the Middle East, North Africa and Yemen; the vicious
conflicts between the Ottomans and the Twelver Shi`i Safavids in Persia/Iran during the 16th-18th
centuries; and the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-88. Muslims dont fight other Muslims is a piety, not a
historical reality.
In the last three decades conflict in the Islamic world has been dominated by the sectarian kind,
often within individual countries but also many times spilling across borders, due to the intrinsically
transnational nature of many Islamic movements and ideologies. The Sunni v. Twelver Shi`i
struggle has perhaps dominated the headlines[4] and the analytical world, as the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia [KSA] and the Islamic Republic of Iran [IRI] each disseminate globally their respective
sectarian da`wat (calls, propaganda agendas) and posture for leadership of the ummah, as well as
wage a cold intelligence and covert war against one another. But while many other Muslim
denominational m!les could be adduced,[5] one of the most important today is that of Salafis v.
Sufis. Salafism will be fully explored in section III, below, and thus for now a succinct summary
thereof will have to suffice. The term derives from the Arabic verb salafa, to be over, to be past
and in its verbal noun forms salaf and aslaf refers to the Islamic predecessors or ancestors,[6]
specifically of Muhammads timewho are deemed examples to be followed by modern
Muslims. This mode of thought really first developed in the late 18th/early 19th century with an
Arabian peninsula Muslim cleric, Muhammad b. Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792), whose Wahhabi
doctrines were adopted by the leadership of the Sa`ud tribe in central Arabia and, eventually, made
the state ideology. Salafis such as al-Wahhab demanded that Muslims refer to only the Quran and
the Hadiths as sources of Muslim belief and practice, although they were divided on whether to do
so via ijtihad, independent reasoning, or whether it was necessary to stick to taqlid, imitation of
previous interpretive decisions. Salafism, then, as well as its Wahhabi subset and the South Asian
variant known as Deobandism[7] (whence spring the Taliban and their ilk) is primarily a mode of
Islamic thought that rejects Western (European-American) modes of thought and societal
organization, in particular the two main ideas stemming from the 18th century Enlightenment: a
secular (non-religious) state, and unbridled faith in science and technology to solve all humanitys
problems.[8] Over against Western ideals the Salafis contrapose Shari`ah, Islamic law, as a
panacea. This rejectionist mode fully includes, today, groups such as the Taliban and Boko
Haram and, to a certain extent, the al-Qaidah network [AQN], Hizb al-Tahrir,[9] Tablighi
Jama`at[10] and the entire IRI.[11]
Sufis, on the other hand, are the mystics of Islam. The term derives from, most likely, the woolen
garments (suf) worn by the early practitioners. Their relevant historical development will be
explored more at length in section II, below, but for now the important facets of this movement are
as follows: it had developed by the late 8th century AD (although its adherents will claim
Muhammad himself was a mystic); aimed at a mystical union of the individual Muslim believer
with Allah, via intense and often lengthy prayer and ceremony, called dhikr (remembrance of the
divine)which is deemed more important than the Shari`ah; focuses on the esoteric or hidden
meaning of the Quranic revelation, as opposed to the exoteric or literal one; is divided into
hundreds of different turuq/tariqat (singular tariqah, order) across the Islamic world; and its
shaykhs and saints, both the living and the dead, are believed to possess barakah (blessing or
charisma).[12] For all these reasons, Sufis have historically been at loggerheads with those
Muslims, particularly Sunnis, who foreground the Shari`ah; and this acrimony was racheted up in
particular at two major junctures: by the great Sunni cleric Taqi al-Din Ahmad b. Taymiyah, or Ibn
Taymiyah (d. 1328), who detested Sufis in particular for their veneration of saints and shaykhs; and
by the aforementioned Abd al-Wahhab, whose beliefs were largely those of Ibn Taymiyah
redux.
Ironically, considering the bad blood between Salafis and Sufis in the early 21st century, it is a
historical fact that from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries many Sufis exhibited the same
rejectionist tendencies, and in fact Sufis manned and led some of the most violent jihads.[13] This
was because both trends were, in large measure, derived from a felt need for moral
reconstruction[14] on solidly Islamic grounds, without recourse to instrusive and unsettling
infidel (i.e., European Christian) patterns and ideologies. But eventually, by the 20th century,
Sufis and Salafisfor the most partparted ways. And note: Sufis and Salafis are not really
separate sects of Islamas is the case with Sunnis and Shi`isbut are, rather, movements within
Islam that emphasize different aspects of that religions doctrines and practice.
Thus, the Islamic world finds itself, today, plagued by extremist[15] Salafi attacks on Sufisand
the latter have begun to respond, sometimes in kind. Sufi saints tombs have been desecrated and
destroyed in Mali by the newly-powerful, Salafist Ansar ud-Dine [Ansar al-Din]; the same thing
happened in Libya recently, as Salafis literally bulldozed Sufi tomb-shrines; in Muslim
Brotherhood-controlled Egypt, some 20 Sufi zawiyas, or Sufi centers, have been destroyed since
Mubarak was overthrown; more than a dozen Sufi shrines have been bombed by the Taliban in
Pakistan in recent years; two Sufi shaykhs have been assassinated by suicide bombers in the
Caucasus-region nation of Daghestan in the last year; and the Tehran regime in the IRI is waging a
war on its own Sufi population.[16] Let us examine these conflicts in more detail.
Mali is a large northwestern African nation of some 15 million people, 90% of whom are
Muslims.[17] The country is currently torn by a de facto civil war, following a coup in April 2012
caused by a separatist movement of northern Tuaregs agitating for an independent nation of
Azawad, and a Salafist group, the aforementioned Ansar ud-Dine [AD],[18] which wants a more
strictly-Shari`a observant state in Mali.[19]
The Azawadians and their NMLA (National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad), or MNLA in
French, are primarily separatist/nationalist and, as such, anathema to Iyad Ag Ghali and the
staunchly-Salafi AD. In addition, the former are more Sufi-influenced and disposed than the
latter. Furthermore, the situation is complicated by the varying tribal allegiances to each
movement. AD also appears to be cooperating with al-Qa`idah in the Islamic Maghrib [AQIM],
going so far as to rule jointly with the latter in Timbuktu,[20] although there are also reports of pro-
Sufi, anti-AD/AQIM protests and marches there.[21] Algeria is also possibly involved in stirring up
these groups against one another, since the leadership of that country looks unfavorably on a
Tuareg-Berber state that could siphon off support from Algerias population.[22] Other factors to
consider are the outflow of weapons and fighters following al-Qadhafis ouster in Libya,[23] as
well as perhaps even climate change and quickening desertification in the Sahel.[24] But whatever
the reasons, AD and its Salafi sympathizers are increasing their induced strict Shari`ah compliance,
to include amputating limbs, whipping people in the streets and stoning to death a couple accused
of adultery.[25] They are even reported to be recruiting and deploying child soldiers,[26] and of
course their war on the Sufiswhose existence in that part of Africa long predates Salafisms
continues apace: last week, also, Salafists razed the tomb of Almirou Mahamane Assidiki, near
Timbuktu, using shovels and pick-axes.[27]
Large but thinly-populated Libya[28] was already the stage for Salafist and jihadist activity
even before US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other embassy personnel were killed on
September 11, 2012a result of the ongoing failure of the post-Qadhafi government there to
consolidate, get a handle on the various militias and, in general, to provide security. Libya has a
long history of political and military activity by Sufis, particularly the Sanusi order, and while
during Mu`ammar al-Qadhafis rule (1969-2011) both Salafists and Sufis were suppressed,[29]
internecine warfare between the two strands of Islam has resurfaced. That Salafis re-commenced
activity in Libya even before al-Qadhafis overthrow and execution was obvious to anyone with
eyes to see,[30] and in the past few months the Salafis and/or jihadists have thrown off their
moderate masks and exhibited their anti-Sufi tendencies, in activities such as desecrating and
destroying Sufi shrine-tombsincluding the 400-year old one of Abd al-Salam al-Asmar in Zlitan,
and the mosque-shrine-tomb complex of Abd Allah al-Sha`ab in downtown Tripoli.[31] Many
Libyans suspect the arch-Salafi Katibah Ansar al-Shari`ah (Battalion of the Defenders of Islamic
Law) [KAS] is behind both the attacks on the Sufi centers, and the killing of the US Ambassador
and the other Americans in September 2012.[32] And while KAS may have dispersed, or gone to
ground, since those attacks[33] it remains a clear and present danger to Libyans in general, and to
Sufis and Americans in particular.
Nigeria, Africas most populous nation whose 160 million people[34] are almost evenly
divided between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south, is home to perhaps the most
dangerous Salafi movement on the continent: Boko Haram [BH].[35]
BH is even making inroads into neighboring Niger, and perhaps Chad,[36] propelled by the same
factors that have helped AD in Mali. But while like Ansar al-Din and Katibah Ansar al-Shari`ah,
Boko Haram is vehemently opposed to any and all Sufis, unlike them it has so far focused the vast
majority of its attacks on Christians (perhaps because, comprising close to half of Nigerias huge
population, they are seen as a greater threat than heretical Muslims). In late September 2012
Nigerian Federal Government forces in Kano and Maiduguri killed a number of BH members in
shootouts, and arrested dozens more, following BH bombings of churches and, curiously, cell
phone towers.[37]
On the opposite African coast from Nigeria, Somalias 10 million people are beginning to
emerge from several decades of civil war and de facto anarchy with the help of Ethiopian, African
Union and Kenyan forcesthe latter of which, in early October 2012, occupied Kismayo[38]at
the behest of the US. This is a far cry from just a few years ago, when the latest incarnation of
violent and intolerant Salafism, al-Shabab, was in control of much of the country and advancing an
austere, anti-Sufi agenda. The Sufis of Somalia, led by the shaykhs of the Qadiriyah, Idrisiyah and
Salihiyah orders, came together and created a Pan-Sufi political and, eventually, military
organization called Ahl al-Sunnah wa-al-Jama`ah [ASJ], Family of the Sunnah and
Community.[39] While the ASJ was not loathe to actually take up arms against al-Shabab, whose
members razed Sufi tomb-shrines and practiced suicide bombings and beheadings of those Muslims
deemed insufficiently Shari`ah-compliant, the movement would not be enjoying the success it has
were it not for the fact that al-Shababs vision is anathema to many, if not most, in this
predominantly-Sufi country. However, while al-Shabab may be down,[40] it might not be knocked
out but simply transmogrifying into a rural, rather than an urban, Salafi-Takfiri[41] movement[42]
which prefers staging hit-and-run attacks rather than attempting to hold citiesand which will
likely move some operations into Kenya.
In Ethiopia, Africas second-largest nation in population (some 91 million, majority
Christian but 1/3 Muslim),[43] the relationship between Salafis and Sufis is rather different from all
the previously-examined cases, in that the Sufis of Ethiopia (assisted by the government) created an
anti-Salafi organization prophylactically, rather than in response to Salafi attacks; furthermore, they
did so by importing back into Ethiopia an offshoot of the Rifa`iyah and Qadiriyah orders, known as
al-Ahbash (the Ethiopians), which merged with Jam`iyat al-Mashari` al-Khayriyah al-Islamiyah,
or Association of Islamic Charitable Projects in 1983 in Lebanon under the leadership of the
Ethiopian shaykh, Muhammad b. Abd Allah b. Yusuf al-Harari al-Shibi al-Abdari, also called al-
Habashi (the Ethiopian). AICP, or the Ahbash, as they are more popularly know,
syncretistically blend Sunni, Shi`i and Sufi doctrines, and present themselves as apostles of
moderationa desirable alternative to the Islamists doctrinal strictness and political
militancy.[44] At least one US-based Ethiopian Muslim organization, the First Hijrah
Foundation, is strongly opposed to Addis Ababas support for the Ahbash,[45] but no less a figure
than former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi defended Ahbashs tacit alliance with the Ethiopian
government, prior to his death in August 2012.[46] This deterrent deployment of a Sufi group to
head off Salafi influence and encroachment might be a feasible path to be followed in other
venuesas will be explored in IV, below.
Egypt, the most populous Arab country with some 84 million (90% Muslim),[47] is
currently ruled, post-Arab Spring and toppling of Mubarak, by an Islamist government dominated
by the Muslim Brotherhood but with a large minority of Salafis. The Sufis of Egyptwho have an
ancient presence there and may number between 7-10 million[48]are not (yet) experiencing the
sort of persecution and pressure that has manifested in other North African states, but in June 2012
the Shakyk Zuwayed Mausoleum in North Sinai was completely destroyed in a third attack, which
the Sufis blamed on Salafis.[49] And some analysts believe that Egypts Sinai Peninsula is a new
jihadist haven, posing a threat not just to Sufis but to Israel,[50] in the form of Ansar Bayt al-
Maqdis (Defenders of Jerusalem), the members of which are both Sinai Bedouin and Egyptians
from the Nile Delta region.
Even in Sudan, which has had a large Sufi presence for centuries, there have been violent
clashes between the Salafi Ansar al-Sunnah and Sufis, most notably on the occasion of the latter
celebrating Muhammads birthday.[51] Despite the fact that Sudan has an Islamist government
the National Islamic Front, a more severe version of the Muslim Brotherhood, akin to Salafi, in
factthe Sufis have fought back against Ansar al-Sunnah, throwing stones and even burning their
meeting tents.
Out of Africa, two major salients of Salafi intransigence are South Asia and the Caucasus. In
Pakistan, where 17%[52] of the 191 million population[53] identifies with a Sufi order, the South
Asian version of Salafisknown as Deobandisare often not just opposed to, but engaged in
shootings and assassinations of, the main Sufi group, the Barelvis.[54] And in the Muslim-majority
Caucasus regions of Dagestan as well as Tatarstan, Sufi shaykhs are being attacked and assassinated
because of their outspoken opposition to Salafism.[55]
In order to understand Sufism well enough to assess which of its many variants might be
suitable for working with as an antidote (or perhaps vaccine) for Salafism, it is necessary to
examine in some detail the range of Sufi dissemination, organization and doctrines. It is that to
which we now turn.
1. II. The Major Sufi Orders and Relevant Background
Sufism may be a relatively new aspect of Islam for military and intelligence analysts, but it has for
centuries been a favorite topic of Western, especially European, scholars.[56] The extensive corpus
of writing on Sufism and its myriad tariqat/turuq (orders) contains much on Sufi doctrines and
mystical practices that is frankly superfluous to the purpose at hand. Accordingly, this section will
plumb more relevant information, such as which orders are located where and whether they have a
history of jihadist violence, or are historically more prone to quietism and peaceful articulation of
Islamic beliefs. In addition, since herein the target areas of Sufi-Salafi conflict are all African,[57]
the Sufis of Mali, Nigeria, Libya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan will be the focus. A final
preliminary word on the differences between Sufi orders: they are not of the same magnitude as, say,
those between different sects of Islam (Sunni and the various Shi`i subsects) or even between the
four major interpretive schools of Sunni Islamic law (Hanafi, Hanbali, Shafi`i, Maliki).[58] But
they are real, nonetheless, and while all Sufis do share certain basic mystical proclivities[59] there
are discernible, and sometimes quite important, variations between orders which could very well
impinge on whether any particular order and its members might oppose Salafisand if so, to what
degree. So in discussing, much more so in approaching and working with, Sufis it is incumbent
upon the interlocutor to know WHICH Sufis one is dealing with, and what their positions are on
certain issues (which, yes, will often include their beliefs and doctrinesthere is no way of getting
around that inconvenient truth). And that is possible only if one grasps at least the rough outlines of
Sufi history.
Besides the aforementioned Sufi doctrinal and worship practice disputes with Salafis, Wahhabis and
Deobandis,[60] the aspect of Sufi history most relevant to the issue at hand is that for almost half a
millennium (the 16th through the early 20th century), the main source of revolutionary resistance
ideology in the Islamic world was Sufism.[61] And these mystical jihads were fought not just
against encroaching Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, British and French forcesbut against Islamic
rulers deemed insufficiently pious (secular) or even heretical; for example, in 19th century India
the Naqshabandiyah Sufis fought not only against the British but against the Muslim Mughal
Empire. The following map,[62] while hyperbolic and overly pro-Naqshbandi, gives some idea of
this phenomenon:
The Naqshbandi-Mujaddadi order, originally of Tajikistan and quite popular in the Middle Ages
among both the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks and later in the Indian subcontinent,[63] was perhaps the
jihadist Sufi order par excellence in the Islamic heartlandsand not just in the past, either, as
Naqshbandis took up arms against US forces during our post-Saddam occupation of Iraq.[64] But
in Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries, jihad was waged extensively by certain leaders and
members of other Sufi orders: the Qadiriyah, Tijaniyah, Sanusiyah, Khatmiyah and Salihiyah, to
name but the most prominent.[65] Prominent in sub-Saharan western Africa were jihadist leaders
such as: al-Hajj Umar (d. 1864), a jihadist who deemed himself charged with the duty to
imposeperfection on the imperfect Islam of the Sudan[66] and thus led the creation of a Sufi
Jihad state in what is now Mali and Mauritania; Maba Diakhou (d. 1867), who fomented his own
jihad in Gambia; Shaykh Amadu Ba or Cheikhou (d. 1875), who preached and led jihad against
the infidel French in Mali; and al-Hajj Muhammad al-Amin (d. 1887), leader of Islamic holy
war against impious Muslims and the French in what is now Senegal and Mali.[67] All four of these
men were members of the Tijaniyah order. However, their jihadswere intellectual as well as
military movements.,[68] aimed not just at military conquest but at revitalizing Islamic society
by reviving the ostensibly correct doctrines and practices of the Islamic prophets time.
Outside of west Africa, there were two major Sufi-led jihads in the early 20th century. In
what is now Libya, the Sanusi order based in the eastern (Cyrenaica) and southern (Fezzan) regions
of that country fought a guerrilla war between 1923 and 1937 against the occupying Italians, led for
many years by one Umar al-Mukhtar (d. 1931).[69] And in the east African Horn, a Salihi Sufi
shaykh, Muhammad b. Abd Allah Hassan (d. 1920), preached and led a jihad against the colonial
occupiers (mainly British, but also Italian) from the late 1890s until his death.[70]
Two other African Sufi jihadist leaders of the 19th century towered over all these others:
Muhammad Ahmad (d. 1885) of Sudan, the self-styled Mahdi[71]eschatological rightly-
guided one who will create Islamic rule over the entire planet, according to Muslim beliefsand
Usman don Fodio (d. 1817) of what is now Nigeria, creator of the Sufi-based Sokoto Caliphate
which encompassed modern day northern Nigeria and Cameroon. Muhammad Ahmad was a
Sammani Sufi who, by 1880-81, was convinced by dreams and visions that he himself was the
Mahdi, whereupon he led not just a pan-Sufi but an apocalyptic jihad against the occupying
Ottoman Egyptians and their allies the British, defeating them and establishing a jihad state that
included most of modern Sudan and part of Ethiopia and that would last until 1898 (although the
Mahdi died, probably of malaria, in 1885). On the other side of the African continent, Shaykh don
Fodio was a member of three Sufi ordersQadiriyah, Khalwatiyah and Shadhaliyahand led an
ultimately successful Hausa[72] jihad against other Muslims and ethnolinguistic groups of that
West African region, resulting in the creation of the Sokoto Caliphate.[73] Unlike Muhammad
Ahmad, Shaykh don Fodio claimed not the Mahdiyah but rather merely the office of mujaddid
(arenewer of Islam predicted in some Islamic hadiths to come every century)this despite the
fact that belief in such a renewer clearly had end-of-time overtones.[74]
Thus between ~1850 and 1920, the African region encompassing the target countries of this
studyMali, Nigeria, Libya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudanwitnessed at least eight major Sufi-led
jihads, proving the vacuuity of the conventional wisdom which claims Sufism is inveterately
peaceful and quietist. (Note that while Egypt is the lone exception, it was intimately involved in the
Sudanese Mahdism affair, not least because Muhammad Ahmad declared more than once his
designs on Egypt and the Mahdists periodically raided north.[75]) Five of the eightal-Hajj Umar,
Maba Diakhou, al-Hajj Muhammad al-Amin, Shaykh Don Fodio and the Sudanese Mahdi
directed their ire in whole or in part against other Muslims. So an Islamic African tradition of Sufis
engaging in both literal and rhetorical combat against co-religionists has deep roots. To this day
many Africans in general, and Sufis in particular, are quite aware of this Sufi oppositional history.
No one knows how many Sufis, or Sufi orders, there are today in the Islamic worldalthough
millions and hundreds are good ballpark estimates, respectively. And no global map of Sufism
and Sufi orders existsunlike the Sunni v. Shi`i population concentrations, for example. However,
some reasonable extrapolation can be made using the aforementioned Pew data,[76] which
surveyed Muslims in 38 different countries as to whether they belong to a Sufi order. The overall
average for these 38 was 18.7%, which comes out to about 300 million Muslims who say they are
Sufi in some fashion. This includes Egypt, where 9% of the population identifies as such. But for
the 15 sub-Saharan African countries surveyed, the Sufi numbers are much greatersome 35.6% of
their populations say they belong to a Sufi order, ranging from a high of 92% in Senegal to a low
of 8% in Mali. Two other nations currently at issue, Nigeria and Ethiopia, register 37% and 18%
Sufi, respectivelymeaning about 56 million Nigerians[77] and 16 million Ethiopians[78] are
Sufis. Certainly, these numbers indicate that in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Egypt Sufis are, or should be,
a force we can do business with.[79] Even Malis 1.2 million or so Sufis could prove a valuable
counterweight to the likes of Ansar al-Din. And while no quantitative data exists for Sufi numbers
in Libya and Sudan, reliable qualitative information from historical sources clearly shows that Sufi
orders have been hugely influential in both those countries, and could very well be again, especially
considering that both the Libyan Sufis and the Sudanese ones were famed and loved for their wars
against, respectively, Italian colonial occupiers and Ottoman/British oneslegacies and martial
proclivities which could be deployed against Salafis (if they arent being so already).
Malis Sufi orders include the Qadiriyah,[80] its offshoot the Mukhtariya,[81] and the
Hamalliyah[82] branch of the famous Tijaniyah.[83] Even today, despite Malis aforementioned
rather low percentage of actual Sufi population, certain practices tied to Sufism, Sufi orders and
their leaders, including the veneration of certain persons with reputations as saints and the use of the
Islamic esoteric sciencesremain central to what it means to be Muslim for many Malian
Muslims[84]as the newly-regnant Salafi/AQIM-affiliated Ansar al-Din is finding out
there. Mali is striking because traditional Sufism is taking on new forms there: on the one hand,
leaders like Cheick (Shaykh) Soufi Bilal are syncretistically blending older Qadiri and Tijani
forms and practices and using modern marketing to promote them;[85] even more novel, Sufis like
Adama Yalcouye who calls himself a Sufi but is not a member of any Sufi order[86] preaches a
strict moral code of conduct and calls for the unity of all peopleMuslims, Christians and other
non-Muslims.[87] Both of these neo-Sufi leaders in Mali are avowedly apolitical,[88] but it is
quite safe to assume that neither would be looked upon kindly by Salafis.
Nigeria likewise has long had a sizable Qadiri[89] and Tijani presence, as well as two major Tijani
sub-orders: the Salgwa[90] and the even larger and more imporant Niassiyya.[91] Post-World War
II the Qadiri and Tijani orders to a large extent transformed into mass movements, and Sufi
networks [became] conveyor belts of political activity, especially voter registration.[92] Also, a
fused Tijani-Nasiri[93] network was created by Shaykh Ibrahim Salih of Maiguguiri (Borno) and
came to extend across not just northern Nigeria but parts of Chad, Central African Republic, and
eastward to the country of Sudan. Nigerias Qadiriyah, from the 1980s, led the struggle against the
anti-Sufi Yan Izala,[94] the first real Salafi threat to them there. Sectarian strife in Nigeria has thus
gone through three major phases: the aforementioned Sufi jihad of Shaykh Don Fodio; a subsequent
period of Qadiri v. Tijani struggle that lasted until independence from Britain in 1960; and the
modern period of Sufism v. Salafism that kicked off with Yan Izalas emergence in the
1980s,[95] in which the formerly-feuding Tijanis and Qadiris largely buried their differences in the
face of the Salafi threat. Sectarian disputes in Nigeria, post-Sokoto Caliphate and up to modern
times, have often taken place in polemics about Islamic doctrines[96]although these have
sometimes led to violent literal clashes as epitomized today by the attacks of the neo-Salafi Boko
Haram on allegedly-miscreant Muslims such as Sufis (when they are not blowing up Christian
churches).
Libya is almost exclusively the province of the Sanusiyah,[97] and in fact when Libya was created
as a separate nation after World War II the head of the order, Sayyid Muhammad Idris b.
Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Sanusi (d. 1983), was made king, in large measure because of the orders
cachet stemming from its long battles against Italian occupation, 1923-37and ruled until al-
Qadhafis military coup in 1969. The Sanusis were pan-Islamists and supporters, in general, of the
Ottomansalthough they did favor a non-Turkish, preferably Arab/Berber caliph (probably
someone much like the head of the Sanusi order). After he came to power in 1969 Colonel
Muammar al-Qadhdhafi [Qadhafi] repressed the Sanusis as well as the Muslim Brotherhood and
the Salafists in the name of his heterodox, self-indulgent Green Book and its quasi-socialist
teachings. But shortly before his ouster and death in 2011, Libyas dictator was espousing Sufism
and in fact hosting pro-Sufi conferences (as he did in February 2011)hoping thereby, most likely,
to succor favor among Libyas populace and undermine the growing Salafi/MB influence. However,
as noted above, since Qadhafis overthrow Sufi sites in Libya have been attacked.
Somalia[98] has long been home to not just the ubiquitous Qadiris and the Idrisiyah[99] but also
the Salihiyah[100] and the Ahmadiyah,[101] both of which by the late 19th/early 20th century
overshadowed the older Qadiriyah there. The Salihiyah in particular, much like the Sanusis in Libya,
are famous for fighting colonial (British and, to a lesser extent, Italian) occupation under the
leadership of the so-called Mad Mullah, Muhammad Abdille Hassan (d. 1920)although Hassan
also detested the Qadiryah and even ordered the assassination of one of their leaders.[102]
Ultimately, Muhammad Hassans impact on the Somali was essentially political rather than
religious[103] quite likely because his teachings stemmed in large part from Wahhabi Salafism,
which he imbibed on hajj in 1886: [104] besides opposing Christian (British and Italian) incursions,
Hassan preached against tea, coffee and qat, as well as lax Islam; he also advocated rebellion
against instituted authority.[105] In these latter areas Hassans Dervishes are comparable to the
Sudanese Mahdists and Don Fodios jihadists, as well as the Wahhabis.[106]
Several of the same Sufi orders are extant in Ethiopia as in Sudan:[107] the Tijaniyah,
Mirghaniyah (or, sometimes, Khatmiyah in Sudan[108]), Sammaniyah,[109] Shadhiliyah[110] and
Madjhubiyah.[111] Sudan also has at least one order unique to it: the Ismailiyah.[112] Strangely,
Qadiris are present in Ethiopia but not in Sudan, however. And, as mentioned previously, a 20th
century-created order, the Ahbash[iyah], is also influential in Ethiopia. Interestingly, and relevantly,
after Muhammad Ahmads followers brought him to power in 1880s Sudan, he began to lay
emphasis on the ideas of the Salafiyya movement. He abolished the madhhabs [interpretive schools
of Islamic law] and called for a return to the origins (usul) of the faith, the Quran and the sunna, as
the basis of the Islamic community.[113] And the Sudanese Mahdi went even further; although
himself an ardent Sufi, he ordered the dismantling of all Sufi orders in Sudan (and those parts of
Ethiopia he ruled).[114]
As for Egypt, the question is not really which orders exist there, as which ones do notso
intertwined is the history of Egypt with Islamic mystical orders. The largest Arab nation is home
(at a minimum) to the following orders:[115] Arusiyah, Azmiyah, Badawiyah, Baziyah, Habibiyah,
Hamidiyah, Hanifiyah, Hasihmiyah, Idrisyah, Jawhariyah, Khalwatiyah[116] as well as its offshoot
the Bakriyah,[117]Makiyah, Mawlawiyahs Whirling Dervishes,[118] Muhammadiyah,
Qadimiyah, Qawuqiyah, Rifa`iyah,[119] Sabtiyah, Shaibaniyah, Shadhiliyah, Sha`raniyah (or
Sha`rawiyah), and Wafa`iyah-Shunbukiyah. In modern Egypt[120] the most influential ordersat
least as measured by such metrics as membership by professionals, perceived integrity and personal
pietyare the Rifa`iyah, Badawiyah and Shadhaliyah. There are also regional variations, with
different orders popular in, for example, Cairo and Alexandria. In all, the members of Sufi orders
outnumber the members of Egyptian political parties. Some researchers estimate membership of
Sufi orders at 10 million.[121] (This figure is higher than Pews aforementioned 9% Sufi
population of Egypt, which would mean some 7.38 millionassuming a population of 80 million
that is 90% Muslim. It is considerably lower, however, than other estimates, which peg Egypts
Sufis at 20% of the Muslims.[122]) Whatever the number of Sufis, it is certain that Egypts
Islamic religious establishment is strongly Sufi in character and that, since Mubaraks ouster, Sufis
identify with the [this] state-controlled religious establishment and are driven by a consuming fear
of Salafis and Islamists in general.[123] In Egypt in recent decades Sufism is appealing to many
because it is tolerant, in a society in which religious loyalties are increasingly expressed as
intolerance and even violence.[124]
Who are these Salafis that oppose, and even strike fear into the hearts of, Islams Sufis?
1. III. Salafism: Relevant Historical Background
As noted earlier, one of the major bones of contention between Sufis and Salafis is
Quranic exegesis, or interpretation, and the degree to which Muslims canif at allutilize tawil,
esoteric or non-literal readings of Quranic verses.[125] Many, if not most (albeit not all) Salafis
dislike this, and prefer instead following taqlid: imitation of previously-determined
interpretations. Salafi clerics thus insist on reading the Islamic scriptures solely through a zahiri,
surface or literatlist lens; many Sufis, on the other hand, allow and even encourage ascertaining
the batini, inward or esoteric meaning. (Sufis are joined in this byrather ironicallyTwelver
Shi`is and many members of Islamic sects such as Alevis, Druze, and Ismailis, or Sevener
Shi`is.)
This matters because Quranic interpretation directly affects how the violent passages of the
Quran are understood and deployed.[126] For example, there are two passages in the Quran than
enjoin beheading of unbelievers: Sura Muhammad [XLVII]:3ff, when you encounter the
unbelievers on the battlefield, strike off their heads; and Sura al-Anfal [VIII]:12ff, I [Allah] will
strike dread into the hearts of the unbelievers. Strike off their heads, then. No Muslim cleric
Sunni or otherwisehas ever, to date, explicated those passages to mean anything other than what
the text literally says.[127] Likewise, the predominant Sunni (and Salafi) exegetical view is a
literalist one of the Quranic ayas, verses, that promote violence against non-Muslims,[128]
violence against women,[129] and afterlife rewards for dying as a shahid, martyr[130]
primarily because mainstream Sunni Islam has never developed an exegetical paradigm which
allows for allegorical, historical-critical, or any of the other myriad of hermeneutical
interpretiveapproaches that have long been applied to the Bible by both Jews and
Christians.[131] Thus, a Sunni Muslim is unable, and a Salafi unwilling, to explain away the
aforementioned beheading directives as only applicable in Muhammads time, or mandating only
rhetorical decapitation. The only choices, according to Salafism, are either total, literalist
acceptance of the Quranor total rejection of it.[132] By contrast, a Christian reading, for
example, Luke 10:19wherein Jesus grants the 72 Disciples power over snakes, scorpions and evil
spiritshas a centuries-long tradition of non-literalist understanding of that text to call upon
(although there are some few churches which still take it literally[133]). Furthermore, apparently
peaceful passages in the Quran are often deemed superseded by those parts allegedly revealed to
Muhammad later in time, under the millennium-old doctrine of naskh, abrogation.[134] Thus, in
the paradigmatic example, Sura al-Tawbah [IX]:5, when the sacred months have passed,
killcapturebesiegeambush the polytheists[135] wherever you find them, supplants
chronologically-earlier verses revealed to Muhammad advising being friends with Christians,
etc. Both of these hermeneutical imperatives in Sunni Islamtaqlid and naskhempower the
Salafis in their dual quest to present themselves as true Muslims and to impose strict
interpretations of shari`ah law. The Salafis, in effect treat the Quran as a wooden legal
documentwhereas the Sufis deal with it more spiritually[136] and tend to see their opponents as
representative of mere power-seeking Islam.[137]
It should be noted that the politicization of Quranic exegesis is not a development of
modern times,[138] but rather has existed since the text of Islams holy book was first
redacted.[139] The Sunni dynasty of the Umayyads cherry-picked certain texts, and practiced
tendentious interpretation, to support their reign over against the shi`at Ali, faction of Alithe
early Shi`is. The same was done by the Abbasid dynasty, which supplanted the Umayyads in the
8th c. AD, as well as the Sunni Ottomans vis--vis the Twelver Shi`i Safavids of Iran, 16th-18th
centuries. Likewise, Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini practiced dueling exegesisor at
least their minions didvia competing fatwas over who was truly descended from Muhammad. In
fact, Quranic exegesis has become point-scoring. By quoting a well-known exegete, you can
back up your politico-religious standpoint.[140] One major position held by a majority of both
mainstream (Sunni and even Shi`i) and Salafi exegetes is the punishment for al-riddah, apostasy
from Islam. Maliki, Shafi`i, Hanbali and Twelve Shi`i interpreters of Sura al-Maidah [V]:54[141]
have long since deemed the punishment for converting out of Islam to be deatha position shared
(sometimes gleefully, it seems) by Salafis and their ilk. Only the Hanafis disagree, holding the
position that the punishment for apostasy can be delivered by God alone in the
hereafter.[142] Likewise for the rather important issue of jihad: all the Sunni exegetical schools,
as well as the Twelver Shi`i one, understand the relevant verses of the Quran as mandating jihad to
be a fard kifayah, communal duty, that can be carried out by duly-appointed Muslim
representatives (the caliphal army, for example); or a fard `ayn, individual duty, which is
incumbent upon every individual mature Muslim anda sin if a Muslim does not take part in
it.[143] Some Sufi orders are fond of reading the Quranic sword verses through the prism of a
hadith (alleged utterance of Muhammad, outside the Quranic revelation) in which the founder of
Islam differentiated between the greater jihad (struggle against ones own sins) and the lesser
one (holy war). This idea still holds sway among some Sufis, despite having two strikes against it:
its absence from any of the six authoritative hadith collections, and its ranking, even in the one
where it does appear, as suspect in terms of historical legitimacy.[144]
One of the major opponents of the idea of greater jihad being personal Muslim striving for
piety and purification, and a proponent rather that it means primarily taking up the sword against
non-Muslims, was the influential Sunni cleric Taqi al-Din Ahmad b. Taymiyah (d. 1328 AD), or
Ibn Taymiyahthe intellectual godfather of modern Salafism, as his views were taken up, recast
and eventually disseminated by the aforementioned Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and the Saudi
Wahhabis.[145] While all Salafis are not Wahhabis, it is safe to say that all Wahhabis are
Salafis. As noted earlier (p.3), Salafism is the attempt to practice Islam in what is believed to be the
same fashion as was done in Muhammads time by the Islamic ancestorsthe Islamic version, if
you will, of those fundamentalist Christians (usually Protestant) who belong to Apostolic or
Primitive churches. As such, it is not so much as modern innovation in Islam as a re-pietization
movement that wishes to institute rather puritanical Islamic norms, binding on all Muslims (and, via
imposition of the dhimmah system, on non-Muslimsparticularly Jews and Christiansas
well). The early Islamic community, under Muhammad and then the first caliphs, was clearly a
theocracy of sorts, in which very little, if any, distinction was made between religion and
politics.[146] A few centuries after Muhammad lived Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 855 AD), founder of
the Hanbali school of interpretation and deemed perhaps the greatest Sunni theologian ever, who
over against the Islamic rationalists[147] denied that the Quran was created and affirmed the
transcendent authority of the written word for whom the Caliph was merely the executor of the
Islamic community, subservient in matters of Islamic law to the scholars and clerics.[148]
Some four centuries later these proto-Salafi views would be re-articulated and disseminated by Ibn
Taymiyah (who lived in Damascus, then Cairo: his [Ibn Taymiyahs] whole endeavor was
designed to cleanse Islam of the dross accumulated during centuries of decline: in theology (toward
a more literalperception of the deityas against pantheistic mystics); in matters of ritual (against
pilgrimages.); as well as in legal affairs (stricter application of the Shari`a.This brought him
into collision, above all, with the religious establishmentrationalistic theologians, lax judges,
Sufis and dervishes.[149] But while it is true that [n]ever did Ibn Taymiyya challenge the
legitimacy of any particular sultan,[150] it is clearly the case that he considered as murtadun
(apostates) those rulers who called themselves Muslim but failed to uphold shari`ah, contravened
Islamic teachings on non-Muslims (by not enforcing the second-class citizenship for Jews and
Muslims required under dhimmah rubrics) and, most of all, neglected jihad as holy
war.[151] Likewise, while he never condemned Sufism in itself, Ibn Taymiyah nonetheless
portrayed Islamic mysticism as ipso facto beyond the pale because of what he saw as inadmissible
deviations in doctrine, ritual or morals.[152] Regarding Quranic interpretation, Ibn Taymiyah did
in theory allow for ijtihad, or independent judgement,but in practice his insistence on the
absolute supremacy of the Quranic or Hadith text[153] meant that a literalist reading of those
sources would be binding. The role of the Islamic state, according to Ibn Taymiyah, is to follow
such a reading in enforcing Islam because without the coercive powerof the State, religion is in
danger.[154] It is impossible to overestimate just how influential Ibn Taymiyah remains, almost
700 years after his death; in fact, hes very likely one of the three most important thinkers in Islamic
history (after Muhammad).[155]
Ibn Taymiyahs major conceptsopposition to impious rulers; fusion of mosque and state;
state enforcement of shari`ah; Quranic (and Hadith) literalism; anti-Sufism; and militant jihad
were influential but rarely state policy for the next four centuries. That changed with the founder of
Wahhabism, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab who, from central Arabia beginning in the mid-18th century,
resurrected Ibn Taymiyahs critique of the ummah, and asserted that the overwhelming majority of
Muslimsin the whole Muslim world, had fallen into state of religious ignorance[156] which
could only be rectified by a reassertion and recommitment to tawhid, the unity of Allah as laid
down in the Quran without interpretation.[157] Tawhid was vitiated by unislamic practices,
which he deemed abda` (singular bid`a), innovations, such as almost anything done by the Sufis,
as well as by Ottoman Turks (the rulers of Arabia at the time), like alchohol and hukkah tobacco
smoking. Eventually al-Wahhab gained the support of the ruler of Najd, Muhammad b. Sa`ud (d.
1765), and was put in charge of religious instruction there. After al-Wahhabs death, and into the
19th century, the Saudi state, and Saudi Wahhabi da`wah, missionary, activities increased
despite Ottoman opposition, sometimes militaryand after World War I the newly-created,
peninsular Saudi state made Wahhabism its official Islamic ideology. Then Wahhabism went
global after 1979 when, in the wake of the abortive Mahdist revolution that year of Juhayman al-
Utaybi and Muhammad al-Qahtani, the Wahhabi clerical establishment demanded, and got, a state
commitment to massive funding for, in effect, planetary Wahhabi da`wah.[158]
The biggest influences on modern non-jihadist Salafism are both 20th century Egyptian
Islamic thinkers: the founder of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin, the Muslim Brotherhood [MB][159],
Hassan al-Banna (d. 1949); and the modern MB martyr, Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966).
The former was an inclusive Fundamentalist who wanted to rehabilitate society from
within by making it more Islamic and accepted the theoretical possibility of reconciling Islamic and
Western political theory.His ideological offspring was Qutb, an exclusive Fundamentalist, who
wished to overthrow society and create an Islamic state; he rejected the coexistence of Islam
with Western ideas like multiparty democracy. Al-Banna was assassinated and Qutb was executed
by the Egyptian government.[160]
In essence, the modern Muslim Brotherhoodparticularly in its current ruling form in
Egyptseems to adhere more closely to al-Bannas idea that Islam and democracy are compatible,
while the Salafis (in Egypt and elsewhere) are devotees of Qutbs concept of hakimiyah, rulership
or dominion of Allah aloneover against which Qutb, borrowing from Ibn Taymiyah, set
jahiliyahliterally the pre-Islamic period of ignorance that Qutb now posited as regnant
wherever Islamic law is not paramount.[161]
Finally, jihadist Salafis have been greatly influenced by Abu Muhammad al-
Maqdisi,[162] born in the West Bank in 1959; while before him Salafism had mostly been a
quietist version of Islam whose adherents were subservient to their rulers, al-Maqdisi used the tools
that Salafism offered him against those very same rulers. This way, he turned the seemingly
obedient Salafi ideology upside-down and revolutionised it.[163] Usama bin Ladin, Anwar al-
Awlaki and Ayman al-Zawahiri have really only fine-tuned this approach, most notably in their zeal
for attacking the far enemy (mainly the Crusader US, the font of all the ummahs problems)
rather than the near one (faux Muslim rulers).[164]
In sum, the differences between the Wahhabis, MB and Salafis are largely ones of
degree, not kind. In varying degrees, all three support Ibn Taymiyahs agenda:
1) Opposition to impious (insufficiently Muslim) rulers
2) Islamic polities, leading eventually to a re-established caliphate.
3) State enforcement of shari`ah
4) Quranic (and Hadith) literalism
5) Jihad as holy war as well as personal piety
6) Distate for Sufism, often presented as a Wahhabi-esque obsession with tawhid.
Wahhabis tend to be seen as intimately tied to the Saudi regime, and thus corruptgiving
Wahhabism per se the cachet of a general Arab, and specifically tribal Saudi, movement for many
(but certainly not all) non-Arab Muslims. The transnational MB, while also Arab, nevertheless
manifests a wider range of attitudes and is partly for that reason seen as more pluralistic and
cosmopolitan: striving for an Islamic brand of democracy (albeit with shari`ah overtones), which
shades into Salafism on the peaceful side of the spectrum while, on the other, remains clearly
distinguishable from those Salafis who support (and engage in) militant jihad against non-Muslims
and apostate Muslims (Sufi and otherwise), as well as call for implementation of harsher shari`ah
punishments. (Thus, those commentators who describe the MB as terrorist clearly do not know
what theyre talking about.) Salafis sometimes deride MB members for putting politics ahead of
Islam; the latter return the favor by pointing out that a narrow focus on religion is nave and
ineffective.
The Salafi situation in Africa is even more complicated.[165] Despite a paucity of empirical
data on numbers, Africa is rife with Islamist/Salafist organization; yet, at the same time, probably
an overwhelming majority of sub-Saharan Africans are still Sufis[166]many of whom, in
colonial times, cooperated with colonial authorities, a point which Salafis make to their advantage
in places like Nigeria. In fact, West Africa in general and Nigeria and Mali in particular have been
remarkably receptive to Wahhabi-Salafi da`wah,[167] disseminated by students returning from the
hajj and/or from studying in KSA.[168] Salafism is seen as something new, exciting and part of
the larger Muslim world, in contradistinction to Sufism, which because of its long history in Africa
is often deemed parochial and old schoolalbeit still worthy of respect. A major strength of the
Islamist Salafis is their organizational ability, rivalling (or even surpassing) that of the African Sufi
orders andironicallyoften modeled on Christian missionary organizations and which work
independently (and are thus often opposed to the official state-sponsored organs, such as Nigerias
Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, which are heavily-Sufi-staffed).[169] Salafis are also often
seen as very pious, unlike wealthy, polygamous Sufi shaykhs; and they are also often highly-
educated laymen, again quite in contrast to the traditional Sufi clerics of sub-Saharan Africa. And
they feel no qualms about using Western-style mass media, another drawing card for them. Salafi
knowledge of Arabic also helps African Muslims tap into the wider Islamic world, even as it
undercuts the Sufis influence and cachet. [170] However, the support that some Salafis receive
from KSA creates some doubts among African Muslims, because the Wahhabis are seen as too
conservative, and the Kingdoms ties to the US are also suspect.[171] Likewise, the historical
memory of Arab involvement in the slave trade sometimes tamps down pro-Salafi fervor and
reminds many Africans, particularly in West and East Africa, that Sufism counteracted [such]
Arab dominance and racialism.[172] In response to the Salafi encroachment, indigenous Sufis
started forming pan-Sufi organizations, like, in Nigeria, Usmanyiyah (composed of Qadiris and
Tijani) and Fityan al-Islam (made up of Sufi youth from several orders). As a general rule in sub-
Saharan, particularly West, Africa, the Salafis are seen as more modernizing, while the Sufis are
deemed more conservative.[173] Such Purist Salafism in the Sahel and the Maghreb [sic] as a
whole stems from the eastern Salafist movement, especially the movement of Imam Muhammad
bin Abdul Wahhab and its different branches, influenced byIbn Taymiyyah.It is still difficult to
determine whether [this] Purist Salafism represents a marginal backyard of extremism, or the
primary branch of increasingly combatant organisations. It is likewise difficult[174] to detach
theologically based Salafist thought from thejustifications for Islamist militants attacks.[175]
Egypt, of course, is the modern wellspring of Salafi and MB thought and influence in Africa
(and elsewhere)[176] and, considering the high proportion of Sufi orders in that country, it should
come as no surprise that Salafis and Sufis have clashed thereintellectually, rhetorically and, at
times, even literally. Even a century ago, the great and powerful Egyptian Islamic reformer
Muhammad Abdud (d. 1905), who was for a time rector of al-Azhar (Sunni Islams highest
institution of learning), criticized the Sufis and their pursuit of ilham, direct inspiration from
Allah.[177] Abduh was counter-attacked by some Sufi shaykhs for being a Wahhabi, although it
was not until the eve of World War I that Wahhabism became the most important challenge facing
Sufism.[178] Between the world wars Abduhs student Rashid Rida (d. 1935), although himself a
Naqshbandi, was a formidable critic of Sufism in Egypt[179]although he was careful to attack
only what he called false Sufism: for example, the Tijani claim that some of their prayers, having
been imparted to their founder in a dream, were more effective for salvation than the normal
Muslim ones. Rida famously and caustically observed, regarding Sufis, that if you see a man
flying, do not place any confidence in him until you know whether or not he obeys the
Shari`ah.[180]
After World War II King Faruq appointed a non-Sufi (and in fact a former student of Abduhs) as
chief shaykh of the Sufi orders in Egypt, and the kings man, Ahmad al-Sawi, set about reforming
Sufism in Egypt.[181] The Council created to oversee this reform process was dominated by MB
members, and in 1952 the head of the MB Hasan Ismail al-Hudaybi, declared that the
Council had presented proposals to the Ministry of the Interior concerning a general prohibition of
the Sufi orders in Egypt, which needless to say brought about the most acute confrontation
between the Sufis orders and the Brothers.[182] The mufti (chief religious authority) of Egypt
issued a fatwa in favor of the Sufi orders and the Revolutionary Governmentwhich
deposed King Faruq in 1953dissolved this Council, right before banning the MB in
1954.[183] Starting in 1955 the Revolutionary Government became aware of the use that could be
made of mystical Islam and of the administrative organization of the Sufi orders to combat the
opposition inspired by the Brothers as well as to strengthen and widen its own base of
support.[184]thus kicking off a period of official Revolutionary Government support for
Sufism, in the form of funded conferences, Sufi publications, and public Sufi ceremonies,
etc.[185] This regime support for mystical Islam continued through the ascendancy of the famous
Arab Socialist leader Jamal Abd al-Nasir [Nasser] and continued under his successsor Anwar al-
Sadat[186] (who was assassinated in 1981)a situation which contributed to the growing
cleavage between mystical [Sufi] and anti-mystical [Salafi/MB] Islam in Egypt from the nineteen-
seventies onwards.[187] However, under the rule of Hosni Mubarak (1981-2011), the
involvement of Sufi orders in political life was limited, as they were encouraged by their leaders to
remain apolitical and non-confrontational toward the regime.[188] With Mubaraks removal from
power, that has changed (again) as Sufis, in reaction to the political power of MB and, in particular,
Salafis, have re-entered the public square through entities such as the pan-Sufi Hizb al-Tahrir al-
Misri, Party of Egyptian Liberation.HTM has even publicly denounced Salafis for their
destruction of Sufi shrines in Egypt. The founder of HTM is the head of the Azmiya order in Egypt,
Muhammad Ala al-Dine Abu al-Zayem, who has often been critical of the stances of the Muslim
Brotherhood and Salafist movements vis--vis other religious communities, including Christians
and Muslim minorities. The current chair of HTM is a layman, Ibrahim Zahran, an international
expert on petroleum and natural gas and a strong opponent of Egyptian gas exports to
Israel.[189] HTM was a resounding failure in the latest elections in Egypt, however, as the
Freedom and Justice Partya front for the MBtook 38% of the Majlis seats, while the allied al-
Nour Partythat of the Salafistook another 28%. And of course the MB candidate, Muhammad
Morsi, was elected President. As long as the MB and the Salafis remain the dominant political
ideology in Egypt, Salafism will appeal to many in Africa because of Egypts cachet on the
continent. But Egypt is also, as noted, a bastion of Sufism.
While in Egypt the battles between Salafism and Sufism are largely still rhetorical, in Mali there is
a full-fledged civil war which, currently, Salafis were winningat least in the northern and eastern
2/3 of the countryuntil the French intervened with some 4,000 soldiers in February, 2013,
effectively halting the Salafi-al-Qa`idah advance. Although France is now (April 2013) beginning
to withdraw its forces,[190] Mali remains effectively partitioned between Salafists, led by Iyad ag
Ghalis Ansar al-Din, and the provisional government of President Traore, who (for now) has the
backing of the Malian military and the French in Bamako. Ansar al-Din, along with the Movement
for Unity and Jihad in West Africa and AQIM,[191] effectively hijacked the Tuareg nationalist-
separatist National Movement for the Liberation of Azwad and has begun imposing strict Salafi
strictures, including limb amputations for theft,[192] on large swathes of Mali.[193]
Also active in Mali are the following militant Salafist organizations: the Algerian-based GSPC
(Groupe Salafiste pour la Prdication et le Combat); the Masked Battalion; the al-Furqan
Squadron; and the Tariq b. Ziyad Battalion, the most fundamentalist and radical.[194] However,
over against these militant Salafists stands there is another group called Ansar al-Din, which is
decidedly non-Salafi and Sufi, headed by the respected cleric Shaykh Ousmane Madani
Haidara[195]who even has a Facebook page!
Nigeria of course is home to the ber-Salafi Boko Haram [BH] movement, founded by
Muhammad Yusuf, an eccentric and conservative but non-violent imam, who demanded strict
adherence to the Koran [sic], rejected Darwinian evolution and taught that the earth is
flat.[196] He built up a disciplined sect that provided free food, education and hope to its
followers, only to be attacked by the governmentwhich some see as the reason for BHs
transmogrification into a jihadist group. Yusuf himself was killed in 2009 and by the next year
[w]hat had started as a religious protest movement turned into a full-blown insurgency,
committed to the imposition of severe shari`ah. And while there are those who insist that BH is
mainly a product of economic inequality,[197] its undeniable that BHs Salafi agenda and
aspirations are nothing new in Nigeriaalthough its level of violence against Christians may
be. All the way back in 1978 a similar organization, Jama`at Izalat al-Bida wa-Iqamat al-Sunnah,
Society for the Eradication of Innovation and the Establishment of the Sunnah, or Yan Izala, was
created by the prominent cleric Abubakr Gumi (d. 1992).[198] While not as extreme as BHYan
Izala grudgingly approved Western-style education, for exampleYan Izala was puritanical and
Quran-literalist. Regarding the populaces view of such movements, unlike in Mali, it seems that
many Nigerian Muslims support the goals, if not the methods, of such Salafi groupsbased on data
from Pew:[199] 88% say its good that Islam plays a large role in politics; 48% hold a favorable
view of AQ; 58% identify themselves as fundamentalists, over against modernizers (only in
Egypt was the percentage self-identifying as part of the former group larger); and regarding crime
and punishment, 56% support stoning for adultery, 65% whipping and/or amputation for theft and
51% the death penalty for apostasy from Islam. Thus, the alleged extremism of BH might be
overblownit may be that that group accurately reflects the views of a substantial number of
Nigerian Muslims. It seems that in Nigeria, since independence (1960), Wahhabi [Salafi]
influences [have] gradually diminished the power of Sufism, in contradistinction to another West
African nation, Senegal, where the centrality of Sufism has apparently confined the influence of
the Wahhabis to the margins.[200] Of course, Senegals population is 92% Sufi, while Nigerias
is only 37%[201] (although, since Nigerias Muslim population is some 80 million, and Senegals is
about 12 million, the real number of Nigerian Sufis is far higher).
Salafism in Libya[202] has come out of the shadows since al-Qadhafis ouster. The several
Islamist groups in the country, both pre- and post-Arab Spring, are divided between Salafis
willing to work within a democratic system and those who would rather fight than run and
vote. Its fortunate that the Salafi trend in Libya, despite being larger in size than the [Libyan]
Muslim Brotherhood and the LIFG [Libyan Islamic Fighting Group],[203] suffers from a lack of
leadership and organizational structure[204]quite unlike the Salafis in neighboring
Egypt.[205] Ansar al-Din does not seem to have existed until after the revolution, although it
shares views and methods with militant Salafis in the National Front for the Salvation of Libya
(NFSL), the Islamic Rally Movement (IRM) and The Martyrs (al-Shuhada).[206] Currently in
Libya much of the violence suggests a movement in search of a cause; failing to achieve local
resonance, Libyan Salafis have expanded beyond their traditional turf of social issues and are now
grasping at foreign causes they believe will excite Libyans emotions.[207] However, Salafis in
Libya seem to have a hard time gaining traction in no small measure because of the long history of
Sanusi Sufi influence there, as aforementioned. And note that the Sanusis in Libya are also seen,
quite accurately, as progenitors of Libyan nationalism, in fighting colonialist Italians, as well as
supporters of orthodox Islam. In fact, Sanusi and Wahhabi/Salafi doctrines share enough overlap
such that the usual criticisms levied by the latter at the former hardly seem credible in Libya. For
example, Sanusis: adhere closely to the Quran alone as interpreted without recourse to the ijma,
consensus opinion, of scholars; reject the more outlandish Sufi orders views about direct unity
with Allah, opting instead for spiritual identification with the Prophet Muhammad; downplay the
veneration of saints tombs as shrines; and disapprove of music, dancing, singing, tobacco and
coffee. [208] And both Wahhabis/Salafis and Sanusis have been quite political, even
jihadist. Therefore, the usual Salafi censure suspects have tended not to work when directed at
Libyas Sanusi Sufis.
Salafism in the Horn of AfricaSudan, Somalia and Ethiopiashares many similarities,
albeit with country-specific aspects.[209] The areas closer proximity to both the MB center of
Egypt, as well as the Wahhabi nexus in KSA, made it more easily penetrated by agents of
each. Sudans National Islamic Front is arguably closer, ideologically, to the MB than to the Salafis
and, while its leader Hassan al-Turabi has sometime held high political office, Khartoums de facto
alliance with the Twelver Shi`i Islamic Republic of Iran shows that Sudanese Sunni political
Islamists are limited in power and influence.[210] Also, well over half of Sudans people are
affiliated with Sufi orders, while perhaps only 10% are involved with Salafism, so although
Wahhabism was in Sudan by the 1930s at the latest (in the form of Ansar al-Sunnah al-
Muhammadiyah [ASM], which still has ties with Riyadh),[211] Sufism proved to be something of a
vaccine against its spread. In recent decades ASM has spun off two other Wahhabi-Salafi groups:
Jama`at al-La Jam`ah [JLJ], the Non-Group Group; and Ansar al-Sunnah al-Islah [ASI]. The
former is dedicated to being apolitical and the rather abstruse topic of eradicating spurious Hadith
collections thereof. The latter is a takfiri[212] organization that criticizes the NIF/MB. There is
also in Sudan a moderate Salafi party, the Islamic Centrist Party, which eschews political
involvement and yet promoted democracy and womens rights. While this group derides the
aforementioned as extremists, it itself is seen by many Sudanese as merely diluted
Salafism.[213] And over against all these groups there exists jihadist Salafism, largely the product
of Usama Bin Ladins tenure in the country in the 1990s and the attendant influence of jihadists
returning from Afghanistan. This mode combine[s] the doctrinal content and approach of Salafism
and organisational models from Muslim Brotherhood organisations.[214] Jihadist Salafi clerics
regularly issue fatwas calling for the death of Hassan al-Turabi, Shi`is, Sadiq al-Mahdi (great-
grandson of the Sudanese Mahdi, and head of the Ummah Party) and Communists.
Next door to Sudan, MB ideas were first brought to Ethiopia by Shakyh Muhammad Qatiba
in the 1940s; after having studied at al-Azhar for many years, he tried to reform some of the more
excessive Sufi practices and although he is today regarded as an icon for the Salafi movementit
would be incorrect to label him a Salafi, not least because he never sought to abolish Sufism as
such.[215] Salafism-Wahhabism actually came to Ethiopia in the early 1960s, with the Saudi
establishment of the Muslim World League and the bringing of Ethiopian Muslim students to
matriculate at the Islamic University in Medina. A former student, Shaykh Abubakr Muhammad,
returned to Bale, Ethiopia in 1969 and made it his mission in life to reform Islam there along
Wahhabi lines.[216] In subsequent years, he has been joined by other like-minded Salafis
although these have not gone uncountered. Perhaps the most outspoken opponent of Wahhabism
and Salafism in Ethiopia is the aforementioned Sufi group al-Ahbash, and in return Salafis there
have charged its members with being not just Sufis who practice shirk (idolatry or polytheism)
but crypto-Shi`is (perhaps hoping to exploit the fact that al-Ahbashs founder lived for many years
in Lebanon, a predominantly Shi`i country). The al-Ahbash are also accused of colluding with the
United States. (Much of this debate is carried out on various Internet sites. ) Otherwise, the usual
suspects of Salafi-Sufi polemics come into play: createdness/uncreateness of the Quran; the issue
anthropomorphizing Allah; whether its acceptable to visit shrines and tombs; and whether Muslims
in non-Muslim-ruled/majority countries should abide by the laws of the infidels (al-Ahbash say
yes; Wahhabis-Salafis say no).[217] The confrontation between the Ahbash and the Wahhabiyya
is arguably harsher than the clash between Muslims and non-Muslims. The Ahbash represents a
moderate interpretation that developed in countries[218] where Muslims experienced lengthy
dialogs with Christians. The Wahhabis developed their puritan concepts in the desert and recently
have combined with branches of the Muslim Brothers to reemerge as leaders of transnational
fundamentalism.[219] And finally, it is worthy of note that Salafi movements in Ethiopia (and
Eritrea) are looked down upon as step-brothers by the MB and Salafi groups in places like Egypt,
because they are operating in a majority-Christian context and so are perceived as having little
chance of ever obtaining political power in the near- or mid-term.[220]
Much like in Ethiopia, Wahhabi-Salafi ideology came to Somalia in the 1960s and 1970s
thanks to returning Somalis funded by the MWL to study in Saudi Islamic universities.[221] And
although an undetermined, but anecdotally high, percentage of Somalis Muslims are Sufi-affiliated,
Salafism has made powerful inroads into that countryperhaps because of its two-decade-long
failed state status, which has allowed the better organized (and funded) Salafists like al-Shabab to
gain the upper hand politically and militarily.
1. IV. Conclusion
The prominent American convert to Islam and Sufism, Stephen Sleyman Schwartz, contends that
Sufism isan indispensable element in any real solution to confrontation between Islam and the
West, and that while Sufis will not serve as Western mercenariesthey can promote intellectual
diversity, a renaissance of Islamic thought, and an Islam of liberty, along with genuine and
transparent cooperation with Christians, Jews, and other believers.[222] Another very influential
Sufi living in America, Shaykh Hisham Kabbanihead of the of the Islamic Supreme Council of
America and a shaykh of the Naqshbandi-Haqqani orderis ever more blunt: it is very simple: the
United States must reach out to non-Wahhabi Muslims if it wants to succeed in this battle. Its a
no-lose proposition![223] Rather than working with Wahhabis and Salafis, the US should ask the
right people to find individuals who are moderate Muslim scholars and see their policy relevant
suggestions.[224] The eminent scholar of Islam Bernard Lewis agrees, white cautioning that
Sufism is peaceful but it is not pacifist.[225]
Indeed, as the many examples of Sufi jihad delineated earlier in this paper demonstrate, seemingly
peaceful Sufi shaykhshave the potential to provided a religio-dogmatic legitimization for jihad
under appropriate circumstances.[226] Thus, Sufism may very well prove a mode of Islam that
the West in general, and the US in particular, can do business with in both the kinetic and non-
kinetic realms; Schwartz is very likely correct that Sufis cannot be enlisted as mercenaries, but that
is not to say they will not fight on their own behalfand in fact they are already, as the example of
the ASJ in Somalia clearly shows.
Western policy makers heretofore have advanced the idea of helping Sufi orders over
against Salafi-Wahhabi-extremist groups,[227] but such advice is usually limited to the
socioeconomic dimension (help fund the Sufis to out-charity the Salafis). That avenue is useful,
but a more effective approach would range from merely helping Sufis disseminate their Islamic
ideology, on one end of the spectrum, to possibly funding and actively supporting them, on the
other. For example, the aforementioned Sufi Ahmad b. Idris (d. 1837) wrote extensive Arabic
critiques of Wahhabism.[228] Why not make sure this work is available to any `alim or imam who
wants it, in Timbuktu, Mogadishu, Kano and Khartoum? Likewise for a book by the aformentioned
living Sufi, Kabbani. His seven-volume Encyclopedia of Islamic Doctrine might be a bit much for
a lesser-educated cleric in Mogadishu or Benghazi, but surely editors could be found to pare it
down to one-volume size, or at least to put out pamphlets delineating the Shaykhs systematic
doctrinal challenge based on Quran and Hadith that counteracts the Salafis?[229]
A number of Islamic countries already promote Sufism as both an antidote to, and vaccine for,
Salafism. In Morocco, the government supports Sufism by airing dhikrs, or Sufi memory services,
and sponsoring public lectures on Islamic mysticism as well as Sufi music
performances.[230] Algeria does much of the same, encouraging Sufis to help take care of
orphans, teach the Koran [sic] and distribute charitable donations. And Sufism has a much longer
history in Algeria than Salafism, which is seen by many as a foreign import.[231] Mauritania,
too, sponsors forums for Sufi shaykhs to disseminate their views.[232]
How might such activities transfer to the target countries of this study? Regarding Egypt, what
harm could there be in inviting, for example, Muhammad Ala al-Din Abu al-Zayem, the head of
the Azmiyah order and the founder of the HTM (Sufi) party, to speak at a high-profile venue in the
US, Britain or France? It makes perfect sense, especially if his topic were something along the lines
of a critique of the recent and risible call by the Salafi Murgan al-Guhari to destroy the Pyramids
and Sphinx as idols.[233] Or, in a more theatre-specific activity, meetings could be arranged
between Western military chaplains and, specifically, Sufi-adherent analog chaplains in the
Egyptian (or any other) militaryas was done recently between US Army chaplains and South
Sudanese ones.[234] And perhaps the State Department, US Agency for International Development
or US Institute of Peace could find a way to at least rhetorically support the burgeoning Sufi-Coptic
Christian alliance in Egypt (which is also being spearheaded by the Azmiyah order), as both groups
have a common, vested interest in opposing Salafi attacks on their sites of worship.[235]
In Libya, the nationalist bona fides of the Sanusi Sufi order, as well as its Islamic orthodoxy
even the Tawhid movement of Muhammad ibn `Abd al-Wahhab and his followersnever
objected to the Sanusis ideology[236]make it a logical anti-Salafi vehicle in that country. The
Sanusis historical connections to the Ottomans, and thus to their heirs the Turks, also might make
for another aspect of the counter-Salafi transnational front. In fact, the Turksthe mild Islamists
par excellencehave repeatedly expressed concern over attacks on Sufi shrines in Libya, thereby
highlighting and reminding the Libyan government that that area of North Africa was once under
the Turkish ambit.[237] If NATO member Turkey cannot convince the new Libyan government of
the advisability of heeding the Sanusis, perhaps Western military advisement and aid could be
parceled out only to those areas and/or groups in Libya where these Sufis are extant and clearly
involved in governance and security. And British SAS or US Special Ops teams operating in the
far south of Libya, in surveillance and pursuit of AQIM, might consider working with Sanusis from
the oasis zawiyas in locales such as al-Jawf and al-Qatrun.
A number of excellent ideas for enlisting Nigerias Sufis in the struggle against Salafism have
already been laid out:[238] promoting improved economic conditions for all in the region; assisting
the Qadiris and Tijanis by, concretely, setting up a permanent consulate in Kano, that would not
only serve as a constant reminder of the U.S. commitment to both the country and the region, but
provide a focal point through which aid, development assistance, and military training could be
channeled;[239] funding Sufi educational programs; encouraging US colleges and universities to
establish exchange programs.[240] Also, the U.S. military canhelp by offering to reform
Nigerias security sector[241]not just improving its efficiency but also its professionalism,
thereby cutting down on the brutality which helps drive northern Muslims into the open arms of
radical Islamic groups.[242]
Mali might be the country on this target list which has, currently, the most interesting and
promising cadre of anti-Salafi Sufis. In Bamako and southern Mali, many young people are
enamored of new forms of Sufism,[243] even more so than of Salafism. And one of the most
appealing new Sufis is Shaykh Cherif Ousmane Madani Haidara, head of the original Ansar al-
Din (whence the Salafist group pilfered the name). He is on record as saying We dont need their
[Salafist Ansar al-Dins] shari`a. We have been Muslim here for centurieshere in Mali, we live
with Christians, we live with Jews, we live with animists.[244] Open Western approval of, if
not support for, Shaykh Haidara would be worth considering. At the same time, Haidaras
admirable ecumenism is unlikely to dislodge the more militant Salafist Ansar al-Din of Iyad al-
Ghali from his lairwhich is why, prior to French intervention, the Obama Administration floated
the idea of a consortium of West African nations sending troops to do so.[245] However Mali,
recall, has one of the lowest participation rates in Sufism in all of sub-Saharan Africaso it may be
more difficult here than elsewhere to take advantage of Islamic mysticism. Perhaps one of the
greatest rallying points for all anti-Salafists, Sufi or otherwise, in Mali is the great Arabic
manuscript library in Timbuktu, which is a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site. Malians have
already expressed alarm that Ansar al-Din members threatened to destroy any manuscripts which
are not religious,[246] and any Western efforts to defend and preserve Malis cultural patrimony, as
French forces tried to do,[247] would only win friends and influence non-Salafis there.
Sudan, unlike any of the other African countries treated herein, has a government that is on the
official US State Department state sponsors of terrorism listjoining Iran, Syria and (curiously)
Cuba. Thus, the US options for open involvement there are rather more limited than in the other
cases and the US aim might well be to degrade (if not destabilize) the regime, rather than help it to
moderate. And unlike, for example, Jundullah in Iran, there is currently no religious-based
organization that is hoping to bring down the government. That said, it is true that one of the most
significant results of the Islamist strategy towards Sufi orders [in Sudan] is the emergence of a new
notion of jihad in Sufi circles.a willingness of the people of remembrance to embrace the
Islamist understanding of jihad.[248] Whether that means jihad against Islamists/Salafists, or
against non-Muslims (such as the newly-minted Christian South Sudanese), is an open
question. But recall that the greatest political mass movement in Sudanese historythat of the
Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmadwas one of charismatic Sufism writ large. Even a much smaller
politicized Sufi slice of the Sudanese population would prove a major problem for Khartoum and its
Iranian allies. One would think that the West could work with South Sudanese and/or Ethiopian
elements in order to funnel support to those Sufis in Sudan who would be willing to stand up,
criticize, and perhaps even take up arms against the ruling Salafis. Umar al-Bashirs government is
currently experiencing an Arab Spring-driven crisis of confidence, which it is attempting to
defuse by holding conferences to co-opt the reformers.[249]
Somalia already has an active anti-Salafi Sufi organization, the much-referenced ASJ, which seems
to be recapitulating in some ways the century-old success of Muhammad Hassan and his jihad
leveraging organizational strength and leaders authority over against al-Shababs jihadist
Salafism. Western powers at the very least indirectly supported ASJ, via the African Union mission
in that country. That should continue, and include insistence that as Somalia rises from the ranks of
failed states the Sufis there have a place at the government table (as we should have done with the
Sanusis in Libya). Perhaps the al-Ahbash Sufi organization across the border in Ethiopia could be
prevailed upon to assist their co-religionists in opposing (militant) Salafis, and in getting along with
non-Muslimsespecially those who come bearing foreign aid. And al-Ahbash should be included
in Addis Ababas calculations, because while Ethiopia might still be a majority-Christian country, it
is just barely soand that nation is flanked by Islamists in Sudan and Somalia, and within easy
reach of Salafi-Wahhabi influence from the Arabian peninsula.
Islamic Africa is probably the part of the ummah least amenable to Salafism and extremist Islamic
ideologies, in part because of different historical and political factors but, also, owing in no small
measure to the very real religious influence of the many Sufi orders extant there. While Sufism is
not a panacea for all the ills afflicting Islam, it is certainly much more than a placebo, often (but,
admittedly, not always) promoting tolerance, non-violent jihad and respect for the Other
(particularly the Christian kindof whom there are many in Africa). In this regard, let us hope
mystical African Islam can burgeon not just on the continent, but increase its influence out of
Africa.

[1] Sahih Bukhari, Kitab al-Fitan, Volume 9, Book 88, #204.
[2] Ibid., #193.
[3] Khawarij (singular khariji) means those who went out, dissenters and refers to radical and (obviously) militant egalitarians of
the time who thought the most pious male Muslim should be caliph, regardless of family affiliation or even relationship to
Muhammad (Ali was the Islamic prophets son-in-law and cousin).
[4] For one recent example focusing on Sunnis v. Shi`is, see The Prophets Curse: Islams Ancient Divide Fuels Middle East
Conflicts, Spiegelonline, September 6, 2012.
[5] To name but a few: Wahhabis v. Twelver Shi`is within KSA; Sunnis v. Twelver Shi`is in Lebanon; Alawis (pseudo-Shi`is) v.
Sunnis in Syria; Deobandis v. Barelvis in Pakistan and India; Sunnis v. Ahmadis in Pakistan and Indonesia.
[6] Literally al-salaf al-salih, the pious ancestors.
[7] Deobandism originated in the Islamic madrasah of Deoband (north of Delhi, India) in 1867 and, while perhaps influenced by
Wahhabism, was largely a separate movement that espoused the same means and ends to an Islamic societyalthough being slightly
less antagonistic toward Sufim, publicly claiming to be against Sufi excesses, not Sufism per se. See Usha Sanyal, Ahmad Riza
Khan Barelwi: in the Path of the Prophet (Oxford: One World, 2005), pp. 35-37.
[8] On this topic see my entry on Islamic Fundamentalism, in Brenda E. Brasher, ed., Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism (New York
and London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 235-240.
[9] Party of liberation, a transnational Islamic group dedicated to resurrecting the caliphate (see my blog reporting on my trip to
their American conference in greater Chicago this past June).
[10] TJ is the Transmission or Dissemination Group, the worlds largest Islamic one which, from its headquarters in India, seeks
to re-pietize Muslims along mostly conservative Sunni lines; see my entry Tablighi Jama`at in the World Almanac of
Islamism. However, paradoxically, TJ ideology includes some Sufi-like practices.
[11] The other two modes, broadly speaking, of Islamic responses to Western intellectual, military and political dominance over the
last several centuries have been emulation of the West (as exemplified by the Turkish republic, 1922-2002 but now such
Westernizers have fallen into disfavor) and reformism or modernism (trying to integrate Islamic and Western concepts, begun
by the Egyptian intellectual Muhammad Abduh [d. 1905] and typified today by the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Turkish
Glen movement).
[12] On Sufisms development in the pre-modern era, see Marshall G.S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam. Conscience and History in
a World Civilization. Volume I: The Classical Age of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), pp. 392-409 and Hodgson,
Volume 2: The Expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), pp. 201-254.
[13] As per my book Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, their Jihads and Osama bin Laden (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005), pp. 42-58 and
Mervyn Hiskett, The Development of Islam in West Africa (London: Longman, 1984), pp. 227ff.
[14] See James L. Gelvin, The Modern Middle East: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 124-131.
[15] Extremist or VEO (Violent Extremist Organization), as well as radical, are not very useful terms in the counter-terrorist
analytical lexicon. What about the Salafist or jihadist agenda is extremist? Its employment of violence? Muhammad himself led
armies in battle and ordered the killing of opponents, and the Quran is rife with suras enjoining violence. Salafis, jihadists and
other such Muslims are perhaps better described by the now-pass term [Islamic] fundamentalist, or even as Quranic
literalistssince they are constrained by the letter of the text, as opposed to Sufis (and other Muslims, such as the Sevener Shi`is or
Ahmadis) who are permitted to allegoricize or otherwise alternatively interpret certain passages.
[16] Overview from Richard Schiffman, Sufis under Attack, Project Syndicate, September 23, 2012.
[17] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ml.html
[18] From the Arabic Ansar al-Din, or Defenders of Faith.
[19] Islamists Impose Sharia [sic] in Malis Timbuktu, Associated Press [AP], April 4, 2012.
[20] See Andy Morgan, Stand-off in Northern Mali, al-Jazeera, June 11, 2012.
[21] Jemal Oumar, Timbuktu Rejects al-Qaeda [sic], Magharebia, April 27, 2012.
[22] Michael Gurfinkel, Meet Azawad, Africas Newest Country, PJM, April 12, 2012.
[23] Scott Stewart, Mali Besieged by Fighters Fleeing Libya, STRATFOR, February 2, 2012.
[24] Strife in the Sahel: A Perfect Desert Storm, The Economist, March 17, 2012.
[25] Mali Islamist Becoming More Repressive, AP, September 25, 2012.
[26] Islamists in Mali Recruit, Pay for Child Soldiers, AP, October 3, 2012.
[27] Islamists Smash Sufi Saints Tomb in Northern Mali, Reuters, September 29, 2012.
[28] Its 5.6 million people mostly living along the Mediterranean coast and in a few oasis towns, See
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ly.html
[29] Although al-Qadhafi would periodically suffers bouts of tolerance for Sufism, as he did in 1997 and again in early 2011 (before
the Arab Spring erupted) when he allowed large Sufi conferences to be held in Libya; Second Sufi Conference Opens in Libya,
The Tripoli Post, February 15, 2011.
[30] Back in June, 2011 I attended a conference in the DC area on just this topic, Countering VEOs in North Africa. The paper I
presented was entitled Libyans, Sufis and Turks: Back to the Future?, in which I recommended enlisting the Sanusi Sufis in the
transitional government precisely because of their past legitimacy, both anti-colonial and anti-Salafi.
[31] Taha Zargoun, Fighters Bulldoze Sufi Mosque in Central Tripoli, Reuters, August 25, 2012; Linda Gradstein, Sectarian
Tensions Rock Libya, The Jerusalem Post, August 31, 2012.
[32] This according to Sharron Ward, The Battle of the Shrines, Foreign Policy, September 12, 2012.
[33] Borzou Daragahi, Libyan Armed Islamists Driven Underground, FinancialTimes.com, October 3, 2012.
[34] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ni.html
[35] See Bader Hassan Shafei, Islamists in Nigeriafrom Sufism to Boko Haram, Elombah.com, August 17, 2011; and Boko
Haram: Symptom or Problem?, Investigative Project on Terrorism, February 23, 2012.
[36] Sudarsan Ragavan, Niger Struggles Against Islamist Militants, The Washington Post, August 16, 2012.
[37] Alex Thurston, Major Crackdown on Boko Haram in Yobe and Adamawa States, SahelBlog, September 25, 2012.
[38] Tom Odula, Somalia: Kenyan Army Says It Now Controls Kismayo, AP, October 2, 2012.
[39] Haggai Erlich, Islam and Christianity in the Horn of Africa: Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers,
2010), pp. 164ff.
[40] See Tristan McConnell, Somalia: Life after Al Shabaab [sic], Somaliland Informer, June 19, 2012; Adnan Hussein,
Somalis Look to Future without al-Shabaabs [sic] Takfiri Ideology, SabahiOnline, September 28, 2012.
[41] Takfiri means charge of unbelief, or, in a sense, excommunication, from the same Arabic root whence comes kaffar,
unbeliever. Takfir wa-al-Hijra was the 1960s-70s violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, lionized by many jihadist
Salafis.
[42] Mike Pflanz, Analysis: al-Shabab Will Already Be Planning its Next Move, The Telegraph, September 28, 2012.
[43] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/et.html
[44] A. Nizar Hamzeh and R. Hrair Dekmeijian, A Sufi Response to Political Islamism: al-Ahbash of Lebanon, International
Journal of Middle East Studies, 28 (1996), 217-229 (accessed online).
[45] The Ethiopian Muslims and the Ahbash Controversy, January 20, 2012.
[46] Ethiopia: PM Meles on Ahbash, Salafi, Wahabi [sic] Controversy, Danielberhanes Blog, May 2, 2012.
[47] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/eg.html
[48] Depending on whether one trusts Noha El-Hennawy, Egypts Sufi-dominated Party Aims to Counterbalance Salafism in
Politics, al-Masry al-Youm, May 9, 2011, wherein the figure is said to be more than 10 million; or The Worlds Muslims:
Unity and Diversity, The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, August 9, 2012, which has polling data indicating that 9% (or
about 7 " million) of Egyptians are Sufis.
[49] Sufi Mausoleum Attacked for Third Time in North Sinai, al-Masry al-Youm, June 14, 2012.
[50] David Barnett, Israeli Intelligence: Sinai is the Home of an Independent Jihadist Network, The Long War Journal,
October 3, 2012.
[51] Clashes Erupt in Sudan between Followers of Two Religious Sects, Sudan Tribune, January 31, 2012.
[52] Pew, The Worlds Muslims.
[53] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pk.html
[54] See Arif Jamal, Sufi Militants Struggle with Deobandi Jihadists in Pakistan, Jamestown Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 9, Issue
8 (February 24, 2011). An analysis, or even explanation, of Deobandis v. Barelvis is beyond the writ and scope of this paper, but if
so interested see Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 725ff; and Usha
Sanyal, Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi: In the Path of the Prophet (Oxford: Oneworld, 2005).
[55] Russia and Islam: The End of Peaceful Coexistence?, The Economist, September 1st, 2012; and Dan Peleschuk, Sheikh
Murdered Over Religious Split Say Analysts, RIA Novosti, August 30, 2012.
[56] Largely because of European Christian (first Catholic, then later Protestant) interest in studying Arabs, Arabic and Islam for
apologetic and, eventually, missionary purposesand hoping to leverage the fact that Sufis venerate Jesus more than does any
faction within Islam. On this topic see Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), especially
chapter 7, Other Peoples History. The best general sources on Sufism include: Tor Andrae, In the Garden of Myrtles: Studies in
Early Islamic Mysticism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987 [1947]); A.J. Arberry, Sufism (London: George Allen &
Unwin, Ltd., 1950); Julian Baldick, Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism (NY: New York University Press, 1989); Louis
Massignon, Tasawwuf, Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam [SEI]; Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1975); R.A. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1921); J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998 [1971]); Jamil M. Abun-Nasr,
Muslim Communities of Grace: The Sufi Brotherhoods in Islamic Religious Life (London: Hurst & Company, 2007); Hodsgon,
Volume 2, chapter IV, The Sufism of the Tariqah Orders, c. 945-1273;and the website Sufis, Sufism, Sufi Orders maintained
by Alan Godlas, PhD [yes, that really is his name] at the University of Georgia.
[57] The aforementioned references to Pakistan and the Caucasus thus having been provided primarily for additional illustrative
purposes, rather than any attempt to expand the scope of this study.
[58] On which see N.J. Coulson, A History of Islamic Law (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1964).
[59] See pp. 2,3, above.
[60] At the risk of oversimplification, I will from here on out simply reference Salafis over against Sufis, and the reader may assume
that that category largely includes Wahhabis and Deobandis, as well.
[61] And sometimes these Sufis jihadist tendencies overlapped with Shi`i ones; see Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, volume 2, pp.
493-500.
[62] Found in The Raison d!tre of Sufism and the Rise of the Naqshbandi Order.
[63] See Trimingham, Sufi Orders, pp. 62-64, 92ff; Abun-Nasr, Muslim Communities of Grace, pp. 117-119.
[64] On this topic see my book chapter The Modern Impact of Mahdism and the Case of Iraq, in Joseph Morrison Skelly, ed.,
Political Islam from Muhammad to Ahmadinejad: Defenders, Detractors, and Definitions (Santa Barbara: ABC CLIO, 2010), pp.
182-192; and Jaysh Rijal al-Tariqa al-Naqshbandia [The Army of the Men of the Naqshbandiyah Order], Stanford
Univeritys Mapping Militant Organizations site. This sites information must be taken with a grain of salt, however; for example,
in its entry on Ahlu Sunna wal Jama [more properly Ahl al-Sunna wa-al-Jama`ah], the Somali Pan-Sufi organization opposed to
al-Shabab, the name is translated Companions of the Prophet. That is incorrect. ASJ should be translated The Family of the
Sunna [Practice of Muhammad] and of Islam/Islamic Community. Such an elementary error calls into question the reliability of
Stanfords work in this area.
[65] On this topic see Hiskett, Sufism in West Africa from the 9/1th century to c. AD 1900, pp. 245-260; B.G. Martin, Muslim
Brotherhoods in Nineteenth-Century Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).
[66] Hiskett, Jihads and Revolutions during the Early Colonial Period, p. 227. Sudan here refers not to the eastern African
nation-state of that name but to what the Arabs called Bilad al-Sudan, literally land of the blacksthe region stretching west-to-
east across the continent that falls between the Sahara and the equatorial jungle regions.
[67] On these see Hiskett, pp. 227-243.
[68] Ibid., p. 242.
[69] al-Mukhtar was not the head of the order; that was Sayyid Idris (later the first and only king of Liyba), who was in exile in
British Egypt. See Jamil M. Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987), pp. 316-323, 398-402.
[70] Basic info on this man and his jihad comes from the entry Muhammad b. `Abd Allah Hassan, in the Encyclopedia of Islam,
New Edition.
[71] The literature on Muhammad Ahmad is extensive, but the basic source is P.M. Holt, The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881-
1898: A Study of its Origins, Development and Overthrow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958). Other good sources include
Holts entry al-Mahdiyya in the Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition [EI!]; Muhammad Sa`id al-Qaddal, al-Imam al-Mahdi:
Muhammad Ahmad b. `Abd Allah, 1844-1885 (Beirut: Dar al-Jil, 1992); and John O. Voll, The Sudanese Mahdi: Frontier
Fundamentalist, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 10 (1979), pp. 149-166.
[72] The largest ethnic group of what is now northern Nigeria.
[73] On don Fodio see Martin, pp. 13-35; Hiskett, The Sword of Truth: the Life and Times of Shehu Usuman Dan Fodio (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1973).
[74] See Ellan Landau-Tasseron, The Cyclical Reform: A Study of the Mujaddid Tradition, Studia Islamica, No. 70 (1989), pp.
79-117 and p. 113, in particular, for the link between the Mahdi and the mujaddid.
[75] Egypt itself did also suffer from violent Sufi Mahdism at the end of the 18th/early 19th century. After Napoleon led French
troops into Ottoman-ruled Egypt in 1798, one of the main opposition militas, albeit short-lived, was led by one Ahmad al-
Mahdi. See Paul Strathern, Napoleon in Egypt: The Greatest Glory (London: Jonathon Cape, 2007), pp. 383ff.
[76] Pew, The World Muslims, specifically Sufi affiliation.
[77] Or perhaps fewer, since it is unclear whether Pew polled all 160 million Nigerians on this question, or only the 80 million who
are Muslim. If the latter, then the Sufis there number around 28 million, but are more concentrated in the Islamic north.
[78] If, again, depending on whether the entire population of Ethiopia (91 million) was polled, or simply the 31 million who are
Muslim. If the latter, then there would be around 5 " million Sufis there.
[79] To paraphrase the late Margaret Thatchers famous prescient quip about Mikhail Gorbachev.
[80] Sufi orders are almost always named after their (sometimes alleged) founderand so, for example, in this case the founder was
Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 1166 AD), a Persian who came to prominence in Baghdad as a Hanbali scholar and Sufi shaykh but whose
order spread across much of the Muslim world. See Abun-Nasr, Muslim Communities, pp. 86ff.
[81] Founded by Sidi al-Mukhtar al-Kunti (d. 1811) of the Western Saharan region. Ibid., pp. 163ff.
[82] Created by Ahmad Hamahullah b. Muhammad al-Tishiti (d. 1943), originally of Mauritania. Ibid., pp. 225ff.
[83] Whose founder was Abu al-Abbas Ahmad b. Muhammad b. al-Mukhtar al-Tijani (d. 1815), from southern Algeria. See
Trimingham, pp. 107ff.
[84] According to Benjamin F. Soares, Saint and Sufi in Contemporary Mali, chapter five of Martin Van Bruinessen and Julia Day
Howell, eds., Sufism and the Modern in Islam (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007), pp. 76-91; specific quote is from p. 76.
[85] Ibid., pp. 81ff.
[86] Ibid., pp. 87ff.
[87] Ibid., p. 88.
[88] Ibid., p. 91.
[89] A note on terminology: Sufi orders (and Sufis) are often described with an adjective deriving from the orders name/founder
thus Qadiri. Alternatively, sometimes a noun formreserved exclusively for the order itselfis employed, such as
Qadiriyah. One Sufi of the Qadiriyah order is thus a Qadiri. This regime applies to all the other orders, mutatis mutandis.
[90] Founded by Mudi Salga in the 20th century, and was quite popular among Hausa traders. Abun-Nasr, p. 228.
[91] And founded by Ibrahim Niyass (d. 1975), originally of Senegal, who came to Kano after World War II and received the
obedience of many Nigerian Tijanis.
[92] Roman Loimeier, Sufis and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Paul L. Heck, ed., Sufism and Politics: The Power of
Spirituality (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2007), pp. 59-101; specific quote is from p. 75.
[93] The Nasiriyah order was founded in the late 17th century by Muhammad b. Nasir al-Dar`I (d. 1674) in southern Morocco. See
Trimingham, p. 88 and Abun-Nasr, Muslim Communities, p. 197.
[94] Loimeier, Sufis and Politics, pp. 78-81.
[95] See Salisu Bala, Sufism, Sects and Intra-Muslim Conflicts in Nigeria, 1804-1979, Comparative Islamic Studies, Vol. 2, No, 1
(2006), pp. 79-95.
[96] As described by Muhammad S. Umar, Sufism and its Opponents in Nigeria: The Doctrinal and Intellectual Aspects, in
Frederick De Jong & Bernd Radtke, eds., Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries of Controversies and Polemics (Leiden:
Brill, 1999), pp. 357-385.
[97] Created in Mecca by Muhammad b. Ali al-Sanusi (d. 1859) of western Algeria who, in Fez, joined three different orders
(Nasiriyah, Tabbyiyah and Darqawiyah) and, after going on the hajj to Mecca, studied with the famous Sufi master Ahmad b. Idris (d.
1837), and was designated by him as his khalifa, deputy, (not literally political caliph) in the Muhammadiyah order. A dispute
over this with Muhammad b. Uthman al-Mirghani (d. 1853) led al-Mirghani to move to Sudan and start his own order, the
Mirghaniyah, while al-Sanusi settled in Cyrenaica (eastern Libya) and started the Sanusiyah. See Abun-Nasr, Muslim Communities,
pp. 158ff. Other sources on Sufism in Libya include: Mahmud Ahmad Ghazi, Emergence of the Sanusiyyah Movement: A
Historical Perspective, Islamic Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Autumn 1983), pp. 21-43; Michael LeGall, The Ottoman Government and
the Sanusiyya: A Reappraisal, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Feb. 1989), pp. 91-106; and Jam`at
Mahmud al-Zariqi, Mubahith fi al-Tassawuf wa-al-Turuq al-Sufiyah fi Libya [Studies in Sufism and the Sufi Orders in Libya] (Tripoli,
Libya: Jam`iyah al-Da`wah al-Islamiyah al-`Almiyah, 2010).
[98] On Sufism and jihadism in Somalia see I.M. Lewis, Saints and Somalis: Popular Islam in a Clan-based Society (Lawrenceville,
NJ: The Red Sea Press, Inc., 1998), pp. 11-14, 59-62; I.M. Lewis, Sufism in Somaliland: A Study in Tribal Islam, in Lloyd
Ridgeon, ed., Sufism: Critican Concepts in Islamic Studies. Volume IV: Modern Sufism (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 305-323; E.R.
Turton, The Impact of Mohammad Abdille Hassan [sic] in the East Africa Protectorate, Journal of African History, Vol. 10, No. 4
(1969), pp. 641-657; and `Abdi Sheikh-`Abdi, Divine Madness: Mohammed `Abdulle Hassan (1856-1920) (London: Zed Books,
1993).
[99] Another Sufi order line tracing its origins to the aforementioned Ahmad b. Idris, this time through his great-grandson
Muhammad b. Ali (d. 1923). See R.S. OFahey, Enigmatic Saint: Ahmad Ibn Idris and the Idrisi Tradition (London: Hurst &
Company, 1990).
[100] Formed by Muhammad b. Salih in Mecca in 1887 and brought to Somalia by Muhammad Guled (d. 1918). Trimingham, p.
121.
[101] Its founding was attributed to the aforementioned Ahmad b. Idris, but there is scholarly dispute on the matter. Abun-Nasr,
Muslim Communities, p. 209. Do not confuse the Ahmadiyah Sufi order with the entirely separate Islamic sect of the Ahmadis,
which exists in India, Pakistan and Indonesia and was founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (d. 1908), who claimed to be both the
returned Jesus and the Islamic eschatological Mahdi, the rightly-guided one who will make the entire world Muslim before The
End of Time, rolled into one.
[102] Muhammad b. `Abd Allah Hassan, EI!
[103] Turton, p. 649
[104] See Sheikh-`Abdi, pp. 47ff.
[105] Ibid., pp. 58-9.
[106] Ibid., p. 195.
[107] On Sudanese Sufism see Ali Salih Karrar, The Sufi Brotherhoods in the Sudan (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press,
1992), especially pp. 14-19, 151-167.
[108] Because of the town where it was first ensconced
[109] Founded by Muhammad b. Abd al-Karim al-Sammani (d. 1775). Trimingham, p. 77.
[110] The eponymous (and thus possibly mythical) founder was said to have been Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili (d. 1258), originally
from the Maghrib, who lived in Cairo. See Abun-Nasr, Muslim Communities, pp. 96ff.
[111] Whose founder was Hamad b. Muhammad al-Majdhub (d. 1776), originally a Shadhili, and which became quite extensive
particularly in northern Sudan, near Egypt. Abun-Nasr, Muslim Communities, p. 175.
[112] Stemming from the mystical activity of Ismail b. Abdallah (d. 1863) in Kordofan province of eastern Sudan. Trimingham, p.
118. As with the Ahamdiyah, do not confuse the Ismailiyah with an entirely different Islamic sectin this case, the Sevener Shi`is,
also known as Ismailis.
[113] Karrar, p. 166.
[114] R. Sean OFahey, Sufism in Suspense: The Sudanese Mahdis and the Sufis, in De Jong & Radtke, pp. 267-282.
[115] See Trimingham, Appendix G: Madyani and Shadhili Groups in Egypt and Syria, pp. 278-9 and Appendix F, Rifa`i Taifas
in the Arab World, pp. 280-1.
[116] Created, it is said, by Umar al-Khalwati (d. 1397) of Persia. Khalwa is an Arabic term for retreat or, almost, monasticism.
Abun-Nasr, Muslim Communities, pp. 119ff. This order was brought to Egypt by the Ottoman Turks following their conquest in
1517.
[117] Founded by Mustafa Kamal al-Din al-Bakri (d. 1749) in the Ottoman Empire. Abun-Nasr, Muslim Communities, pp. 132ff.
[118] Famous in the Ottoman Empire and now Turkey as the Melevis, this order was started by Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273) and is
known for whirling around while praying to achieve an ecstatic state. Abun-Nasr, Muslim Communities, pp. 124ff.
[119] Again founded, allegedly, by one Ahmad b. Ali al-Rifa`I (d. 1182), originally from the Iraqi area near Basra. Rifa`is are the
snake handlers of Sufism, because their shaykhsand, sometimes, devoteesare said to have the power to tame and ride lions,
walk barefoot on hot coals, and eat snakes without suffering harm (Abun-Nasr, Muslim Communities, pp. 122ff). See also
Trimingham, pp. 37ff.
[120] On this topic of Sufism in modern Egypt see the recent article by Al-Sayyed Hossein, Sufi Orders: A Vital Part of Egyptian
Society, October 9, 2012..
[121] Ibid.
[122] As, for example, Jonathon Brown, Salafis and Sufis in Egypt, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, December
2011.
[123] Ibid., p. 12.
[124] Valerie J. Hoffman, Sufism, Mystics and Saints in Modern Egypt (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1995), p.
375.
[125] On this topic see Arvind Sharma, The Wahhabi and Sufi Approaches to the Quran in Relation to the Modern World, The
Bulletin of Christian Institutes of Islamic Studies, Vol. 5 (1982), pp. 62-65; Christopher Wise, Quranic Hermeneutics, Sufism and
Le Devoir de violence: Yambo Ouologuem as Marabout Novelist, in Christopher Wise, ed., Yambo Ouologuem: Postcolonial
Writer, Islamic Militant (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999), pp. 175-195; Hussein Abdul-Raof, Schools of Quranic
Exegesis: Genesis and Development (London: Routledge, 2010), especially chapter 3, The Politics of Exegesis, pp. 55-83.
[126] Yes, the other monotheistic religionsJudaism and Christianityhave a history of violence, not just Islam. But in Judaism the
Scriptural (Old Testament for Christians) mandates for such are limited in scope (the Promised Land) and time (when the Hebrews
were taking possession thereof)not global and still applicable. And in Christianity, Jesus clearly eschews violence in His name
His followers failure to follow such teachings notwithstanding. The former idea is spelled out in Reuven Firestones paper presented
at the Re-thinking Jihad conference, Edinburgh, Scotland, September 2009, Divine Authority and Territorial Entitlement in
Judaism and Islam (at which I was present); the latter in Raymond Ibrahim, Are Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam?,
Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2009, pp. 3-12.
[127] See my article specifically on this topic, Beheading in the Name of Islam, Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2005, pp. 51-
57. For the wider currents behind why Quranic literalism won out in Islamic intellectual circles, see the brilliant book by Robert
Reilly, The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2010).
[128] By one count there are some 164 Quranic passages promoting violence against non-Muslimsat least when read literally.
[129] Sura al-Nisa [IV]:34, as for those women from whom you fear disobedience and rebellionadmonish them, refuse to share
their beds, beat them [feminine plural]. These verses have for 1400 years been interpreted literally:
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Beat_your_Wives_or_%22Separate_from_Them%22%3F_(Quran_4:34)
[130] http://wikiislam.net/wiki/72_Virgins
[131] See, for example, the (Egyptian) Coptic Orthodox Churchs statement on The Allegorical Interpretation of the Scriptures,
or the vastly more influential Roman Catholic document The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, Pontifical Biblical
Commission, 1993.
[132] Sharma, p. 63.
[133] See Nichola Menzie, Snake-handling Christians: Faith, Prophecy and Obedience, The Christian Post, June 5, 2012. I
might add that when I was in high school in Kentucky the father of a friend, a snake-handler minister, died from taking this
passage literally.
[134] On this topic see the entry Naskh, EI!; David Bukay, Peace or Jihad? Abrogation in Islam, Middle East Quarterly, Fall
2007, pp. 3-11. For a good lay discussion, see When Atheists and Secularists Quote Scripture, Hot Air, Sep. 18, 2006.
[135] al-Mushrikin, literally polytheists, but which also applies to Christians in strict Islamic tradition because they are said to
believe in three deities (the Trinity).
[136] Sharma, p. 63.
[137] Wise, Quranic Hermeneutics, pp. 191-92.
[138] As Abdul-Rouf points out, pp. 55ff.
[139] Traditionally, said to have occurred under the third caliph, Uthman, in the early 650s.
[140] Abdul-Rouf, p. 62.
[141] http://quran.com/5/54
[142] Abdul Rouf, p. 79.
[143] Ibid., pp. 82-3.
[144] See Douglas Streusand, What Does Jihad Mean?, Middle East Quarterly, September 1997, pp. 9-17. The six canonical
Sunni collections are those of al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Daud, Ibn Majah, al-Tirmidhi (all 9th c. AD) and al-Nasai (early 10th
c.). The Twelver Shi`a add four other collections, which include the alleged sayings not just of Muhammad but of Ali and the other
11 Imams. Muhammads purported statement that jihad al-nafs, self-jihad, is greater than jihad against non-believers comes from
an obscure, 12th c. source and, while seized upon by Sufis and Western scholars, carries little weight among non-Sufis in the Islamic
world itself.
[145] The literature on Salafism and Wahhabism is voluminous, but at a minimum one should consult: Sheikh M. Safiullan,
Wahhabism: A Conceptual Relationship between Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Taqiyy [sic] al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya,
Hamdard Islamicus, Vol. X, No. 1 (Spring 1987), pp. 67-83; John O. Voll, Fundamentalism in the Sunni Arab World, in Martin E.
Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., Fundamentalisms Observed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 345-402 and
Wahhabism and Mahdism: Alternative Styles of Islamis Renewals, Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. IV, No. 1 & 2 (1982), pp. 110-
126; M.S. Zaharaddin, Wahhabism and its Influence Outside, Arabia, Islamic Quarterly, Vol. XXIII (1979), pp. 146-157; Ibn
Taymiyya, EI!; Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, EI!; Emmanuel Sivan, Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1985); Johannes J.G. Jansen, The Dual Nature of Islamic Fundamentalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1997); Jon Armajani, Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2012); Daniel Lav, Radical Islam and the Revival of Medieval Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012);
Shmuel Bar, Jihad Ideology in Light of Contemporary Fatwas, Research Monographs on the Muslim World. Series No. 1, Paper
No. 1 (Hudson Institute), August 2006.
[146] Of course, this can also be said of contemporaneous Christian polities, such as the Christian Eastern Roman (Byzantine)
Empire or the Carolingian Empire of Charlemagne in Europe. However, as Bernard Lewis sagely points out, Christianity had a
traditiongoing back to Jesus differentiation of render to Caesar what is Caesars, and to God what is Gods (Matthew 22:21;
Mark 12:17; Luke 20:25)of separation of church and state (which would not be fully realized until the 18th c.) that was totally
lacking in Islam. See The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (New York: Random House, 2004), pp. 5ff; and What Went
Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 96ff.
[147] The Mu`tazilah school.
[148] On Hanbal and the Hanbalis see Ira Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988),
pp. 124-5, 166-7
[149] Sivan, p. 95.
[150] Ibid.
[151] See Sivan, pp. 96ff; Ibn Taymiyya, EI#.
[152] Ibn Taymiyya, EI!.
[153] Ibid.
[154] Ibid.
[155] The others are, ironically, the eclectic, Sufi-friendly al-Ghazali (d. 1111 AD) and the full-blown Sufi mystic Ibn al-`Arabi (d.
1240 AD).
[156] Wahhabiyya, EI!.
[157] Ibid.
[158] See Yaroslav Trofimov, The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islams Holiest Shrine and the Birth of Al Qaeda
( New York: Doubleday, 2007), pp. 242ff.
[159] On which see the entry Muslim Brotherhood in the World Almanac of Islamism.
[160] Timothy Furnish, Islamic Fundamentalism, Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism (New York: Routlege, 2001), pp 235-240.
[161] See Lav, pp. 53ff.
[162] See Orhan Elmaz, Jihadi-Salafist Creed: Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisis Imperatives of Faith, in Rdiger Lohlker, ed., New
Approaches to the Analysis of Jihadism (Vienna: Vienna University Press, 2012), pp. 15-36.
[163] The Ideology and Influence of Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi.
[164] See Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Declaring War on the Far Enemy, Aug. 9, 2011.
[165] Perhaps the best academic source on this topic is the dated, but still valuable, chapter by David Westerlund, Reaction and
Action: Accounting for the Rise of Islamism, in Eva Evers Rosander and David Westerlund, eds., African Islam and Islam in
Africa: Encounters between Sufis and Islamists (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1998), pp. 308-333.
[166] Ibid., p. 310. This is even higher than the figure of slightly over 1/3, as noted earlier in this paperdrawing upon Pew data.
[167] On this topic see Mohamed Salem Ould Mohamed, Purist Salafism in the Sahel and its Jihadist Position, al-Jazeera
Center for Studies, July 17, 2012.
[168] Westerlund, pp. 311-12.
[169] Ibid., pp. 317-320.
[170] Ibid., pp. 322ff. Westerlund wrote this before the advent of Twitter and Facebook, but one might safely speculateknowing
the MB and even Taliban familiarity with social mediathat this point is even more trenchant here in the second decade of the 21st
century than it was in the last decade of the 20th.
[171] Ibid., pp. 326-37.
[172] Ibid., pp. 328-9.
[173] Ibid., pp. 329-330.
[174] Impossible, one might well argue.
[175] Mohamed, Purist Salafism.
[176] On Salafism v. Sufism in Egypt, see Frederick DeJong, Opposition to Sufism in Twentieth-Century Egypt (1900-1970): A
Preliminary Survey, in DeJong and Radtke, pp. 310-323; Albert Hourani, Sufism and Modern Islam: Rashid Rida, in Lloyd
Ridgone, ed., Sufism: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies. Volume IV: Modern Sufism (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 81-92;
Dogma and Purity v Worldly Politics: Egypts Salafists, The Economist, Oct. 20, 2012; Egypts Constitution: An Endless Debate
Over Religions Role, The Economist, Oct. 6, 2012.
[177] DeJong, Opposition to Sufism, p. 313.
[178] Ibid., pp. 314-15.
[179] See Hourani.
[180] Hourani, p. 87.
[181] Ibid., pp. 317-18.
[182] Ibid., p. 319.
[183] Ibid.
[184] Ibid., p. 320.
[185] Ibid., pp. 320-1.
[186] Ibid., pp. 322-3.
[187] Ibid., p. 323.
[188] Egyptian Tahrir Party, Jadaliyya, December 13, 2011.
[189] Ibid. (for the previous several quotes).
[190] See http://world.time.com/2013/02/26/the-war-in-mali-does-france-have-an-exit-strategy/
[191] See Mali and al-Qaeda: Can the Jihadists Be Stopped?, The Economist, Nov. 10, 2012.
[192] Islamists Conduct Amputations in Mali, Associated Press [AP], September 10, 2012.
[193] Ulemas of Azawad Call to Recognize Islam as Official State Religion, Koran and Hadiths as Source of Legislation,
MEMRI, Special Dispatch No. 4727, May 14, 2012.
[194]Mohamed, Purist Salafism.
[195] See Brian J. Peterson, Mali: Confronting Talibanizationthe Other Ansar Dine [sic], Popular Islam, and Religious
Tolerance, Allafrica.com, April 25, 2012.
[196] Nigerias Crisis: A Threat to the Entire Country, The Economist, September 29, 2012.
[197] Such as, ironically, the Anglican bishop of Kaduna, Josiah Idow-Fearon, who says that Boko Haram is a resistance movement
against misrule rather than a purely Islamic group. Ibid.
[198] See Roman Loimier, Islamic Reform and Political Change: The Example of Abubakr Gumi and the Yan Izala Movement of
Northern Nigeria, in Rosander and Westerlund, African Islam and Islam in Africa, pp. 286-307; Patrick Ryan, Islam and Politics in
West Africa: Minority and Majority Models, in Andew Rippin, ed., World Islam: Critical Concepts. Volume III (New York:
Routledge, 2008), pp. 242-257; and Bala, Sufism, Sects and Intra-Muslim Conflicts, pp. 85ff.
[199] Pew Research Group, Muslim Public Study, December 2010.
[200] According to Irit Back, From the Colony to the Post-Colony: Sufis and Wahhabists in Senegal and Nigeria, Canadian
Journal of African Studies, Vol. 42, No. 2-3 (2008), pp. 423-445.
[201] See the Sufi adherence chart, from Pew, above.
[202] See Talip K$kcan, Some Reflections on the Wahhabiya and the Sanusiya Movements: A Comparative Approach, Islamic
Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 4 (1993), pp. 237-251; Omar Ashour, Libyan Islamists Unpacked: Rise, Transformation and Future,
Brookings Doha Cener, Policy Briefing, May 2012; and Frederic Wehrey, The Wrath of Libyas Salafis, Sada (Carnegic
Endowment for International Peace, Sep. 12, 2012.
[203] Which was founded in 1990 to combat al-Qadhafis heretical reign and thus was severaly repressed.
[204] Ashour, p. 3.
[205] Although the attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Stevens in September 2012 may indicate that an
effective leadership has developed.
[206] Ibid., Appendix.
[207] Wehrey.
[208] Kkcan, pp. 248-251.
[209] See Angel Rabasa, Radical Islam in East Africa (RAND, 2009); Stig Jale Hansen and Atle Mesy, The Muslim Brotherhood in
the Wider Horn of Africa (Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, December 2009); Jamal al-Sharif, Salafis in
Sudan: Non-Interference or Confrontation?, al-Jazeera Center for Studies, July 3, 2012; Osman Shinger, Rising Salafism
Triggers Upsurge of Violence in Sudan, The Niles, May 26, 2012; Profile: Sudans Islamist Leader [Hassan al-Turabi], BBC
News, Jan. 15, 2009; Terje steb, Religious Change and Islam: The Emergence of the Salafi Movement in Bale, Ethiopia, in
Svein Ege, et al., eds., Proceedings of the 16th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (Trondheim, 2009), pp. 463-476);
Mustafa Kabha and Haggai Erlich, al-Ahbash and Wahhabiyya: Interpretations of Islam, International Journal of Middle East
Studies, Vol. 38, No. 4 (Nov. 2006), pp. 519-538; Michael Shank, Understanding Political Islam in Somalia, Contemporary Islam,
No. 1 (2007), pp. 89-103; and Ken Menkhaus, Political Islam in Somalia, Middle East Policy, Vol. 9. No. 1 (March 2002), pp.
109-123.
[210] Rabasa, p. 47.
[211] Al-Sharif.
[212] Fond of accusing other Muslims of being kafirs, or unbelievers, that is.
[213] Al-Sharif.
[214] Ibid.
[215] steb, pp. 465-66.
[216] Ibid., pp. 468-69.
[217] Kabha and Erlich, pp. 550ff.
[218] Lebanon and Ethiopia.
[219] Kabha and Erlich, p. 535.
[220] Hansen and Mesy, pp. 71-2.
[221] Haggai Erlich, Islam and Christianity in the Horn of Africa: Somalia, Ethiopia Sudan (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2010), p.
152.
[222] The Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony (New York: Doubleday, 2008), pp. 238, 236-7. On Schwartz and
his organization the website of his Center for Islamic Pluralism.
[223] Remarks made at Understanding Sufism and its Potential Role in US Policy, Nixon Center Conference Report, March 2004,
p. 20.
[224] Ibid., p. 22.
[225] Ibid.
[226] Roman Loimier, Sufis and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Paul L. Heck, ed., Sufism and Politics: The Power of
Spirituality (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2007), pp. 59-101 (specific quotation is from p. 92).
[227] Rabasa, p. 77.
[228] Translated into English, with the Arabic text extant, by Bernd Radtke, John OKane, Knut S. Vikr and R.S. OFahey, The
Exoteric Ahmad Ibn Idris: A Sufis Critique of the Madhahib [Schools of Law] and the Wahhabis. Four Arabic Texts with
Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2000).
[229] Ron Geaves, Learning the Lessons from the Neo-Revivalist and Wahhabi Movements: The Counterattack of New Sufi
Movements in the UK, in Jamal Malik and John Hinnells, eds., Sufism in the West (London: Routlege, 2006), pp. 144-159.
[230] Hassan al-Ashraf, Morocco Fights Islamist Extremism with Sufism, alarabiya.net, Sep. 26, 2010.
[231] Lamine Chikhi, Algeria Sponsors Sufism to Fight Extremism, IOL News, July 9, 2009.
[232] Mohamed Yahya Abdel Wedoud, Sufi Conference Promotes Religious Moderation, Magharebia.com, Sep. 24, 2010.
[233] A Bad Weeks for Salafists, The Economist, Nov. 13, 2012.
[234] Brianne Warner, AFRICOM Connects with South Sudanese Military Chaplains, africom.mil, April 20, 2012.
[235] See Egypt: Sufi-Coptic Alliance to Counter Hardline Islamists, allafrica.com, July 23, 2012; and for background,
Hoffman, chapter 11, Coptic Christianity and Popular Islam in Egypt: Elements of a Common Spirituality, in Sufism, Mystics and
Saints in Modern Egypt, pp. 328ff.
[236] Mahmud Ahmad Ghazi, Emergence of the Sanusiyyah Movement: A Historical Perspective, Islamic Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3
(Autumn 1983), pp. 21-43; specific quote is from p. 39.
[237] Turkey Urges Libya to Protect Ottoman Era Tombs and Mosques, ansamed, Aug. 29, 2012.
[238] Jonathon N.C. Hill, Sufism in Northern Nigeria: Force for Counter-Radicalization?, Strategic Studies Institute, May,
2010.
[239] Ibid., p. 44.
[240] Ibid., p. 45.
[241] Ibid., p. 49.
[242] Ibid.
[243] See Benjamin F. Soares, Rasta Sufis and Muslim Youth Culture in Mali, in Linda Herrera and Asef Bayat, eds., Being
Young and Muslim: New Cultural Politics in the Global South and North (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 241-257.
[244] Peterson, Mali: Confronting Talibanization.
[245] US to Mali: Let West African Troops Help Battle Militants, voanews.com, October 1, 2012.
[246] Jemal Oumar, Extremists Threaten Timbuktu Patrimony, magharebia.com, April 20, 2012.
[247] http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/28/16734043-french-led-forces-in-mali-seal-off-timbuktu-rebels-torch-
ancient-library?lite
[248] Rdiger Seesemann, Between Sufism and Islamism: The Tijaniyya and Islamist Rule in the Sudan, in Paul L. Heck, ed., pp.
23-57 (specific quote is from p. 47). One wonders how well-versed in Sudanese history Mr. Heck is, if the thinks that Sufi jihad is a
new phenomeon, borrowed from Islamists.
[249] Sudan Religious Groups Meet Under Arab Spring Pressure, dailytimes.com, Nov. 16, 2012.