Word: sufis
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...best immunity, says Toufiq, is to revive the kinder, gentler form of Sufi Islam that spread through North Africa and Spain between the 9th and 13th centuries, a golden age known for its art, philosophy and tolerance. This is the kind of Islam that Toufiq is trying to recreate in the training schools for women guides and male imams. Not only the Koran is taught - so, too, are Greek philosophy, Christianity and Judaism...
...Sufi, Marwani uses the messages of Islamic mysticism to convince militants that Islam preaches peace. But on the subject of extremists, he can sound like a Washington hawk. "We need to capture all the scholars who are preaching violence, and, if we must, even kill them," he says. "Their danger is that they can affect the whole country." Recently, he confronted a firebrand preacher who had exhorted Muslims to kill Christians. "Do you believe Allah is wise and that all things come from Allah?" Marwani asked. The preacher did. "Even that Mercedes you drive?" the sheik pressed on. "Because...
...lovebirds can be ingenious, particularly those for whom privacy is in short supply. No big shock to readers of Manil Suri's new novel The Age of Shiva, then, to find hormonal Delhiites Meera Sawhney, 17, and hunky songster Dev Arora, not much older, on the floor of a Sufi mystic's decaying tomb in flagrante delicto. The only surprise comes for the two paramours, whose rendezvous has been espied by a nearby stationmaster's son. Word quickly reaches both their homes, which shudder with the news. "You may not realize this now," Meera's father scolds...
...Birth of a Nation As empires fell to the nation state in the early 20th century, Muhammad Iqbal, a Sufi poet and philosopher, saw an opportunity in the coming independence of India to put into practice his theories of modern Islamic governance. He proposed an Islamic nation carved from the Muslim-majority provinces of northwest and northeast India. "The movement for the formation of Pakistan was not based on religious extremism or emotionalism," says former Supreme Court judge Javid Iqbal, Iqbal's son. "It was to be a modern state, adhering to modern interpretations of Islam, particularly of Islamic laws...
...alternative to after-work beers, Siddiqui founded the City Circle, a lecture and charity group aimed at Muslim professionals. On Friday nights, well-heeled Muslims come straight from their offices to nurse cups of tea and catch, say, a Muslim comic doing stand-up, or a lecture on Sufi poetry. Go to a City Circle talk and you won't see a defensive minority turning inward, but educated Britons with the confidence to be self-critical. The week after the July 7, 2005 bombings in London, the weekly panel discussion was boldly topical: "The criminal distortion of Islamic texts...