Sufism and other confusions.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)

SIR: Paul Stenhouse's article "Islam's Trojan Horse?" (December 2007) is deeply felt. He has reservations about the wisdom of the appointment of a Fethullah Gulen Professor of the Study of Islam and Muslim-Catholic Relations (not Islamic Studies and Interfaith Dialogue) at the Melbourne campus of the Australian Catholic University. Unfortunately his sensibility seems to have got the better of his sense, let alone knowledge in the structure of his arguments, and his references to Islam.

First, he has failed to grasp the niceties of Arabic grammar. He refers to an organisation that he calls Ikhwan al-Muslimin. This means "Brothers of the Muslims". The correct name of the organisation is al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, "The Muslim Brothers". Another is in his naming of the Sufi brotherhood that throughout the article reveals itself as his bete noire, that founded by Muhammad b. Muhammad Baha' al-Din (1317-89), the Naqshbandi, with branches as far afield as China, Indonesia, Central Asia and Egypt. It is known in Turkey, responding to the phonological structure of Turkish, as Nakshibendi. In general discussion, it would be more appropriate to refer to it as the Naqshbandi brotherhood (known in Turkish as Nakshibendi).

These however are peccadilloes compared to Dr Stenhouse's remarks on "Sufism". The suggestion that there is an ideology to be identified as "Sufism" of which Hasan al-Basri (d. 728) was the founder, beggars comprehension. The assertion that the motivation of this movement was a return to the early puritanism of the Kharijites is unsustainable. Consultation of any reference work would make it clear that the Kharijites were an anarchic political movement resulting from Ali's acceptance of arbitration at the battle of Siffin in 657. To propose further that there is a line of continuity between the Sufi, Hasan al-Basil, and the self-styled Mahdi who captured Khartoum from the British--also a Sufi--is untenable and misleading.

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