After everything Muslim has been trashed by the rejuvenated Hindutva across the border, now Southasian Sufism is also being highlighted as an Islamist-supremacist project. What utter ignorance to write about the syncretic mystics who were not part of power games nor were they parts of the armies. They were wandering mystics who found India’s spiritual landscape exciting and endearing and chose to stay and die there. The saddest piece that was forwarded to me by a reader is linked below by someone who holds forth – rather fumes – on Sufism and makes sure that he is introduced as “IPS (Retd)” – a scion of the Indian Police Service, an abominable legacy of the colonial state and its naked exploitative nature. Small wonder, his communalised veiw of the world is what the architects of his proud service wanted and achieved with much success.
False, pretentious and ill-informed. Alas.
Dark side of Sufism: Reappraisal of the Role of Sufis Working as Missionaries of Islam, R.K. Ohri, IPS (Retd)
For centuries the Sufi creed and Sufi music have been tom-tomed as great symbols of spiritualism and promoters of peace and harmony between the Hindus and the Muslims. The cleverly marketed concept of Sufi spiritualism has been unquestioningly accepted as the hallmark of Hindu-Muslim unity. It is time we studied the history of Sufis, tried to track the narrative of their coming to India and analyzed their explicit missionary role in promoting conversions to Islam. More importantly, it needs to be assessed how did the Sufis conduct themselves during reckless killings and plunders by the Muslim invaders? Did they object to the senseless mass killings and try to prevent unremitting plunder of Hindu temples and innocent masses? Did the Sufis ever object to the capture of helpless men and women as slaves and the use of the latter as objects of carnal pleasure? These are some of the questions to which answers have to be found by every genuine student of Indian history…
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