Celaleddin Rumi’s Mesnevi is said to be the best-selling book of the year in the USA. To tell you the truth, I was delighted at this news. But Muslims aren’t solidly unanimous on this issue. The news, which gladdens one part, saddens another part.

Muslims of the Salafi tradition must have found this upsetting that they have been expressing their ‘worries’ for quite a while in messages circulating in the internet. With some justifications they think that this does not signify the spread of Islâm, but of Sufism.

Muslims of the Sufi tradition, as one would expect, rightly find such an approach strange. There are even some who condemn and criticize it. Needless to say, criticism does not cease and counterattack commences at this point. The Muslims of the Salafi tradition are depicted as forbidding. It is alleged that the presentation of an image which is far from the Islâmic morals and good manners by followers of Islâmic Monotheism (‘Ahli Tauhid’) increases the interest in Sufism. It is “the public’s eye” that is taken as a measure in making such statements.

There are also those who - again rightly - foam at the mouth over the depreciation of the highly spiritual Mevlevî dance; over becoming Mevlevî without becoming Muslims; over adopting the madness “whatever you be, come anyway” as the most common slogan of the moral nihilism. They question whether these developments help Islâm and Muslims. They suppose Sufism is used as a “Trojan Horse” by dominating powers with the purpose of breaking down the Islâmic resistance.

Are they right? Yes-No.

Yes; because the dominating powers, especially the USA, manages this work of “using” fairly well. Following September 11, the person being both the son-in-law of a famous sheikh, whom we can recognize by his brave rebukes to the secularist tyranny, and the caliph of the USA, requested support from the USA and implied, “Because we are an antidote to the radicalism of Sufis.” This gentleman is a devout Muslim. But, in his opinion, he was trying to use the USA. What he did “for service” consisted of attempts to steal a role. If he had contrived to steal, we say “Well done!” We understand it.

No; because the dominating powers have also used Muslims against Sufism – whether you call it “Salafi” or “Tauhidi” or “Wahhabi” or “radical” – in Afghanistan, in Arabia and without their awareness in Iraq, in the West and in the USA. That is to say being used is not a situation peculiar to Sufism or Salafism. Whoever looks at the puppet and doesn’t see the prompter standing behind the puppeteer himself because of failing to use one’s sagacity and insight is always used. It cannot be accounted for by being Salafi or Sufi. One is used without knowing it if not knowingly, one is used in the name of “an ideal” if not in the name of “a desire”!...

This is a trick. It is being played on Muslims. If Muslims describe themselves by their traditions but not by their religion, then they have been deceived. Whenever a part takes the place of the whole it has brought about a disaster. Sufism and Salafism are sub-affiliations (viz they form smaller parts of one whole, i.e. Islâm to which all Muslims belong). The main affiliation is to Islâm. If Muslims act with such consciousness, they will perceive the different traditions as an advantage and richness. And they will use this richness as an instrument against the greatest and the most savage challenge they have ever been faced with in the history.

In his recent work, teacher Seyyid Hüseyin Nasr has not only introduced Sufism as an antidote to radical Islâm, but at the same time as a crucial source against the challenges of the Western modernism.

Although the beginning of the analysis is problematic, would you call its further part wrong? The disaster of becoming too worldly does not pay attention to religious sects and traditions. Neither the Salafi nor the Sufi, neither the Sunni nor the Shii can escape from drifting into the whirlpool of this disaster.

The most definite conclusion that all of these examples afford us is confusion.

There can be many causes of confusion. But the primary cause of confusion is the dirtiness of knowledge and the mind. Perhaps, that is the reason why Our Lord (SWT) Commands everyone wanting to recite the Noble Qur’ân first (isti’adha) “to seek refuge with ALLÂH (SWT) from shaitân, the outcast”. Because isti’adha is to perform an ablution of one’s mind. What will happen if one performs prayer with one’s mind in a state of impurity?  

The dirtiness of feelings worries me, as a humble slave of ALLÂH (SWT), more than the dirtiness of knowledge and the mind. It is clear how to perform an ablution and purification of the mind. The essential disaster is the pollution of feelings. When knowledge becomes dirty, the confusion of the mind occurs, but when feelings become dirty the confusion of feelings is brought about.

We can understand the latter’s being thousand times worse by looking at its consequences: A Muslim – it makes no odds to which tradition he belongs – cannot distinguish between his enemy and his friend. Moreover, he pesters his own part like a mentally ill person trying to eat one’s own brain with one’s hands.

I call to reflection, not to thought. This is how the Noble Qur’ân portrays the one having dirty feelings: “Verily, he thought and plotted; So let him be cursed: how he plotted! And once more let him be cursed: how he plotted!” (74:18-20)

If he had reflected instead of thinking, he would not have weighed with wrong kilograms and would not have measured with wrong metres. If he had done so, he would not have treated his friend as an enemy.

The last word belongs to the Holy Prophet (SAWS): “O (ALLÂH) the One Who Turns hearts over and over, Make our hearts steadfast on Your Religion!”