The group says up to 80% of Britain's 2 million Muslims come from the Sufi tradition, which is a mystical and personal interpretation of Islam and largely apolitical.
That's not just me being paranoid, the spokesperson for the group says,
"Unfortunately, many UK Muslim organisations lack the courage to stand up and speak forthrightly about extremism,"
He goes on to say,
"There is an urgent need for the British Muslim community to engage in an internal debate to isolate the ideologies who falsely claim to represent Islam, to develop a strong field of moderate, intellectually astute, forward-thinking leaders and scholars who can promote the moderate values of civic society, engagement and diversity which characterise classical Islam,"
So where is this take on Islam coming from? Well it is interesting that it is the majority group within British Islam and one which the Bin Laden's of the Islamic world find distasteful [in fact, as one observer noted to me once, one that the Saudi Wahhabis particularly dislike and are spending a lot of money combatting worldwide]. I myself have been at a meeting where a Muslim speaker I invited was savaged by some Muslims in the audience at question time because he followed a path based on spiritual growth rather than "an ideology" of Islam. This tradition has been formed by hundreds of years of not being a majority in India and therefore has a lot of experience in not being the ruling public discourse but of fitting in and making do and living with neighbourliness. Added to which has been its paralleling of the Hindu bhakti traditions. Of course, the sufi way is looked at askance by a lot of Islam.
It is hopeful as a development. We'll have to see whether it really does end up representing the "silent majority".
Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Cricitism for new Muslim organisation:
Filed in: Islam, UK, sufi
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