As militant Islam does its level best to discredit the religion, it's important to remember that there are other voices within the faith. One such is the Sufis, the Islamic mystics who live islam (submission), iman (faith) and ishan (awareness of G-d, "to act beautifully"). For instance, this article discusses an interesting Sufi sheikh in the USA.
Here's a story that seemed kind of appropriate this week. Like all Sufi stories, of course, it has a number of deeper meanings as well:
"A man was passing a mental hospital, and called out to one of the patients peering through the bars: "Ho! How many madmen are in that hospital?" The inmate paused, staring for a while at the questioner, then bellowed back: "Leave us be! And tell me, how many sane people are out there?"A question we've all asked ourselves more than once.
I highly recommend Idries Shah's books on Sufism. I don't know if this guy in the article is a true Sufi sheikh. Not that I really know much about Sufism -- the books mostly gave me some very practical information about human nature -- but I doubt a true Sufi master living in America would insist on all the female second-class status b.s. (we all know "separate but equal" doesn't work).
But this might be my emotions getting the better of me since something about all women having to wear the headscarf and robe deeply disturbs me.
I second Eva's recommendation. In fact, one of our Saturday installments was a tribute to Idries Shah that recounted his life and achievements.
While identifying the true Sufi is an eternal challenge for this branch of the faith, there is no disagreement regarding Idries Shah. He was absolutely a true Sufi Sheikh.