Sufism and other confusions.

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.

The Sufi movement (and the mystical dimensions of Islam that it reveals) is rich and varied in its expression, spirituality and theosophical constructs, and is inadequately served by the noun Sufism. Hasan al-Basri, bent on moral self-perfection, lived out his life in fear of hell for any wrong he might do, Rabi'a al-Adawiyya, his near contemporary, was overwhelmed by the wonder and mystery of divine love.

One wonders how it is possible to see as relevant to the discussion generalisations at third hand by Christopher Dawson, writing in 1933, of Islam as a religion in which "the duty of man was not the transformation of his interior life, but the objective establishment of the reign of God on earth by the sword".

Most serious of all, however, is Stenhouse's treatment of a statement attributed to Muhammad, a warning that "the monasticism of this community is jihad". As authority for this supposed hadith, Stenhouse refers in a footnote to a work by Louis Massignon. However, what Massignon has to say on the matter is that this "warning" (Stenhouse's own word) did not enter Muslim discourse until 200 years after the Prophet's death. Massignon's role as an activist against French colonialism in Algeria, his insights into the mysticism of Islam, and his dedication to exploring the mystery of the vocation of Islam in the divine economy of salvation, are of a different order from the engagement of--in Stenhouse's words--"non-Muslim journalists and politicians".

Inter-religious dialogue is delicate, at times painful, and easily derailed. Yet it is necessary. In the case of the traditions of Christianity and Islam, both sides come to it with a history, and at times uncertainty as to the goodwill of the partner. There is a need for extraordinary sensitivity, not only in what one says, but in how it is said. It is no place for unsustainable generalisations or animus of any kind from either side.

A.H. Johns, Canberra, ACT.