As a school of thought based on love, Sufism has influenced Catholic and Jewish mysticism and the transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. In the U.S., Sufi teachings have attracted a wide swath of followers. In the music video for Madonna’s 1994 song “Bedtime Story,” whirling dervishes dance to Madonna’s Sufi-inspired verse, “Let’s get unconscious.” To Stephen Schwartz, a convert to Sufism and the author of “The Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony,” the faith’s emphasis on achieving internal peace can fill the “great spiritual hunger in this country and in the West in general.”
“In Sufism, the focus is on fixing the self rather than fixing others. That concept is inherently pacific, not political,” says Hedieh Mirahmadi, a Sufi practitioner. Ms. Mirahmadi is the general counsel of Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, the popular deputy master of the orthodox Naqshbandi order. In Sufism, many paths lead to God. Other orders include the aloof Nimatullahi, whose meeting house was described above, the progressive Bekstashi and the militant Qadiri.
The problem arises when the spiritual path to God is blocked with violence. Do Sufis, inherently peaceful, take up arms in the name of the very complicated and controversial notion of jihad, or holy war? Ms. Mirahmadi says no, emphatically. She and her Sufi master, Mr. Kabbani, condemn the behavior of the Naqshbandi Army in Iraq.
I’ve been a friend of the Kabbani family for about fifteen years, and everything written here is correct. The Grand Sheikh of the Naqshabandi Order, Sheikh Nazim al-Naqshabandi, I was told by one of his nephews, even goes so far as to teach that since American soldiers in Iraq are acting as police to prevent harm to people, that no one should attack them.
An interesting reflection for folks in any faith tradition. A few thoughts:
1) You can’t just look at a religion’s teachings and then be horrified when they aren’t applied perfectly in the world. Any value system, spiritual or secular, will have adherents all over the map in terms of development and committment. Beginners, nominal/cultural members, etc.
2) I think the article does a good job in acknowledging the struggle of sincere adherents to apply their values in challenging circumstances.
3) As a Christian, I think that pacifism should be understood along the lines of voluntary celibacy, poverty and obedience. Not everybody can pull these off, but they are qualities that reflect “kingdom values” and their witness is needed. But once they are imposed as duties, they lose their power to challenge others and simply become dead religious law.
4) My pet peeve is when people start talking a weird brand of Christian pacifism to discuss public policy. Biblically (and even in Western political thought), government exists precisely to exercise violence in order to restrain evil, and has warrant (Biblically, from God in Romans 13; philosophically from the consent of the governed in Western thought) so to do. A “pacifist government” is an oxymoron. The most successfully neutral model, Switzerland’s, rests on heavy militarization of the populace and deterrent force sufficient to make an attack not worth any aggressor’s while.
Fr. Timothy,
I don’t generally disagree with your analysis, but one ought also to acknowledge the Anabaptist contribution, particularly given its significant influence on American religious development. While the “weird Christian pacifists” are today a small numerical minority, one can see in the Amish, Mennonites, the followers of Barton Stone (one wing of the present-day Churches of Christ), the early Pentecostals – and perhaps even the Quakers (remember the complaints about their neglect of Pennsylvania’s frontier defenses) – a rejection of the state’s power to coerce, even at the cost of oppression. We all may be more comfortable with notions of just war and police power, but it’s not the sole Christian response to tyranny.
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
I can comment a little on the Anabaptist brand of pacifism, having been raised in The Church of the Brethren, and being one whose grandfather was the “Presiding Elder” of the Old Order German Baptist group in north America.
We are “officially” pacifist, and our policy statement is – “All war is sin.” And, as an example, we teach conscientious objection to military service to our youth, offer them an alternative in Brethren Volunteer Service, and hope for the best.
And what has “the best” been? Well, in World War II, somewhere around 75-80% of Brethren young men chose military service, or at least to offer themselves in the draft. Pacifism, for us, seems to be a neat idea, but is not necessarily supported in the actions and lives of us, the laity.
Jeremy, thanks for that good point. I think that Christian pacifism has some more integrity where the social order is Christian.
It is harder in a pluralistic country – we would wind up asking non-Christians to eschew self-defense, and it would wind up being a religious “law” imposed upon them rather than their own faith commitment to a kingdom value.
I think #4 reflects the article – there will always be ambivalence, due to both the diversity of convictions, even in the same church, and the moral questions brought up by hard cases. Which is why we all wind up dependent upon grace in the final analysis.
Back to Jeremy, I think you bring up something very important that I neglected – pacificism not only as an individual witness, but as the witness of an entire Christian community. A dedicated community, not wed to being the nominal religion of a culture, can have an amazing witness – I think it was the Quakers who first made their members give up slaves in the U.S.