Sufi Muslim Council exposed

A new blog has sprung up to watch the movements of the recently founded Sufi Muslim Council.

It's started off with quite a lengthy submission with various points, including the SMC's links to US neocons. This has understandably had Blair's government fawning all over it.

It backs up the suspicion among many that the SMC are not so much "apolitical" as the "right sort of political". In New Labour speak, it's fixing the Muslims around the policy. It won't succeed.

Comments

[DrM]

Jazakallah Khair, I will be linking to this....

[George Carty]

I was surprised not to see a mention of the name of Stephen Schwartz...

[Osama]

Here's Schwartz on the recent government funded roadshow:

Apart from Ramadan, the risible roadshow has included a Kuwaiti
jihadist, Tariq al-Suweidan, and a Californian charlatan, Joe Hanson,
alias Hamza Yusuf. Hanson varies his message according to his audience:
when he speaks before crowds where jihadists dominate, he proudly
repudiates any questioning of radical Islam and shouts his hope that
others will also ‘fail the test’ of moderate belief. But in meetings
with non-Muslims he claims to be the number one enemy of Wahabism in the
West, describes himself as an adviser to George W. Bush (on the basis of
a single comment at a gathering) and postures as a spiritual Sufi.

I think it's time for Real Sufis to sepak out against these charlies, and reclaim the title.

[Abu Abdullah]

Also check out http://brotherdotherightthing.blogspot.com/

[Osama]

Does anyone else think that Kabbani looks like something off of Star Trek?

[Tasneem]

Muslims whom the empire loves? That's I must say is an ingenious design. Next thing to watch out is maybe a tailored reading of Quran: drafted at some PR op room.

[Farouq Taj]

I'll dispense with diplomacy and 'cut to the chase' as the Americans say.

MCB was not the first organisation to try and represent Muslims. They were in the right place at the right time and their success in terms of media and government recognition is largely down to a combination of good timing and having some very capable people on their team.

The success of the MCB has put a few 'noses out of joint' from amongst other organisation who envy the success of the MCB.

The refusal of the Brelvi community to participate in any shape or form was disappointing but not unexpected.

The government was hoping the MCB would be a compliant organisation but their condemnation of the Iraq war and refusal to participate in the Holocaust memorial day, to name just a few, has given others an opportunity to gain the governments patronage.

Now along comes the British Muslim Forum/ Sufi Muslim Council (the Brelvi contingent), with their attempt to get a piece of the action that the MCB have enjoyed so much lately.

This is typical people politics with everyone wanting to appear on Newsnight and get an invite to Downing street.

I've noticed another organisation has started generating a lot of noise, the Ramadan Foundation. They were reportedly furious for not being invited to Downing Street recently with all the others.

[Sajn]

Why should the Brailwis give support to an organisation that differs from them on fundamental beliefs? The MCB are nothing but a bunch of opportunists no better than the ones you accuse of playing "people politics".

[Osama]

Sajn, the MCB are a sum of their members. If the braelvis who are part of the SMC (and I wonder how many there really are) really think they are the "majority" then why not all sign up to the MCB, take part in the elections, have their own people take over, and generally do what they want?

[Sohaib]

Also Sajn, I don't know if you have anything to do with the SMC, but perhaps you'd be able to help me with something else I'm wondering about.

Do the SMC want to represent only Sufis? If so, how do they define being Sufi? And how do we join the SMC? What makes it more representative than, say, the MCB?

[thabet]

You might interested in a series of emails between one Muslim blogger, Anarcho Muslim, and the SMC. They have refused to respond directly to that SMC Exposed weblog.

[Dawood Wilson]

In the spirit of true Tasauwaf, these guys have decided not to respond to someone that has not left any details. Let me try (insha'Allah).
The article is slanderous and factually incorrect. "There are also
links to some of the most brutal regimes in the world e.g. the Karimov
regime in Uzbekistan. We have also unearthed allegations of dodgy
business dealings and vote rigging" Surely the above quotes from the
blog are slander as they are not substantiated at all, nor substantiated
by any of the links contained within the article I question the authenticity
of this article outright as there are many factual errors in it. For
example Shaykh Hamza himself publicly declared that he did not sign any
statement condemning the ISCA - his name was put on there without his
permission and he requested for it to be removed. The article is
littered with pictures of Shaykh Hisham and Mr Bush/ Jack Straw - this
proves nothing except that a meeting took place between the two. Unless
the writer was present at the meetings he cannot use picures to
subsantiate claims of 'sinister links to neocons'. Perhaps the Shaykh
was meeting with innocent reasons/ intentions. What happened to making
70 excuses for your brother? Are the Shaykh's actions not dependant upon
his intentions? What happened to the prohibtion in casting suspicion? Is
it because the reason for his meeting is not immediately transparent to
us? Really, what have we become? What is wrong with 'springing out of
nowhere' in reference to the SMC? What is wrong with that? What does
that prove or show us exactly? None of this is true evidence. The
article quotes Shaykh Hisham as claiming '80% of mosques and Muslims in
the US were extremists' - well was he wrong?? As a sufi muslim he
believes Wahhabism to be an 'extremism' - so in his eyes 80% of the
Mosques in the US are extremists. Indeed many of our top shuyukh (eg.
Sh. Jibril Haddad and others have classifed Wahhabis as Khawarij) So, I
cannot see what is wrong with his statement? We all know wahhabi mosques
in the west are heavily funded by Saudi. The article quotes the Shaykh
as saying 'Israeli occupation is legitimate and should be accepted' -
infact the Shaykh has never said that at all. He comes from a
prestigious family in Lebanon who's uncle (Shaykh Rashid Kabbani) holds
the position of the highest religious authority In Lebanon, and the
Shaykh should be respected as should all our Shuyukh. Most of this
article is infact trivial drool and can be pulled apart very easily. In
our deen the onus is always on the accuser to come out openly and
provide the evidence, not hide behined incorrect facts and annonymously
without a name to the article. We should wait till we know more about
this group before we condemn them and start off some kind of witch hunt
against our Shaykhs. I could go into lenghts about this nonsense
article, but just to give you a few examples; 'In a recent survey of
Sufi Muslim Scholars and Imams in the UK none had heard about the SMC or
its founders until its launch. Most found it very disturbing that there
was no real evidence of real tassawuf in their organisation' - where is
this survey, how and when was it conducted? What's 'real tassawuf'? and
how do you show it's presence in a group? If their Shaykh is Shaykh
Hisham, then he is an authorised Shaykh of Tassawuf. The state of one's
heart is between oneself and Allah (Swt). I had not personally heard of
this group before it's launch - but what exactly is so shady about not
having heard about them? 'The majority of the content is written by
neocons that criticise Islamic groups – 'Wahhabis', the Muslim
Brotherhood, MCB, MAB, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Tablighi Jamaat and Jamaati
Islami are some of the examples that come in for criticism' - well we've
all criticised the groups in question at some point, does that make us
all neocons? Infact I wouldn't be surprised if the article was written
by a someone from that ideology because ISCA has done them alot of damage in the US and
succeeded in shutting down many wahhabi pumping outlets in the US like
Muntada al Islami and WAMY. This article really is a poor piece of
literature and lacks all islamic adab. Should people's personal business
dealings be discussed in public?

[Osama]

Dawood, thanks for your contribution, and I'll try to respond as best I can with sore eyes after sifting through that one huge paragraph!

It's interesting you raise the point about adab. I think a lot of this stems from the rather rude way that Haras Rafiq and the SMC appeared on the scene, with barely concealed hostility against the Islamic organisations that currently occupy the public arena.

Maybe Rafiq met with the MCB and others privately to air his concerns, but this certainly has not been apparent. There's been no compunction is castigating publicly, and the '80% of Muslims are extremists' argument seems to be very much applied in the UK context too.

I have to confess I haven't heard of ICSA or Kabbani till now. I doubt very much their effectiveness. I predict that the UK version will be the same damp squib.

I do look forward to hearing what the SMC's position on Iraq and Palestine is, if indeed it is very different from that of the neocons.

[Abu Yusuf]

I think "Dawood Wilson" is probably a made up personality of the SMC, over on pickled politics he claimed to be a mureed of Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, a person to the best of my knowledge doesn't have mureeds because he does not have khilafat from any Murshid.

As to his flimsy excuses about the neo con articles: there are dozens of high quality scholarly articles from a religious perspective dealing with the various groups highlighted by Hisham Kabbani and co., anyone can read them on sunnah.org, so why instead of these articles do we see ones written by neo-cons who are active in the cheerleading of US Imperialistic wars which are shedding the blood of Muslims of all sects and races. Remember when they decide to attack Muslims, they're not gonna care whether ur Sufi, Sunni, Shia, Wahabbi or whatever else.

[Utbah]

Brother Osama, if you must know Mr. Haras Rafique went on a short visit to Israel more info at http://jihadandthecity.wordpress.com/

[Sohaib]

About the American Weirdo links... this is a good analysis of Hisham Kabbani's rise to prominence (or not):

http://www.tabsir.net/?p=383#more-383