My dear brother Harry Haller ji peacesign
Have you ever heard of Nizari Ismaili Shi'ite Muslims? They are wonderful people. They are led by a spiritual figure called the, "
Imam of the Time" or the
Agha Khan. They have renounced traditional Islamic jihad against unbelievers, and even do not enforce hijab upon men or women ie the headscarf for women.
This is is because they believe that Islam's teachings can be "updated" to meet the needs of different time periods, because their Imam has the authority to interpret Islam, and he alone. So whatever the Imam teaches, Nizaris must obey.
And so the Agha Khan has used his spiritual authority to re-interpret for his Muslims the Islamic faith in light of modernity.
You see Sunni Muslims believe in the
Caliphate - that Muhammad was suceeded by a series of worldly Emperors with both temporal and spiritual power whose mission was to expand the Dar al-harb (House of Islam) and essentially be in a state of constant jihad (war/struggle) with what they called the Dar al-harb (House of War).
As the Jewish encycloepedia explains:
"...The world is divided into the House of Islam and the House of War, the Dar al-Islam and the Dar al-harb. The Dar al-Islam is all those lands in which a Muslim government rules and the Holy Law of Islam prevails. Non-Muslims may live there on Muslim sufferance. The outside world, which has not yet been subjugated, is called the "House of War," and strictly speaking a perpetual state of jihad, of holy war, is imposed by the law. The law also provided that the jihad might be interrupted by truces as and when appropriate. In practice, the periods of peace and war were not vastly different from those which existed between the Christian states of Europe for most of European history.
The law thus divides unbelievers theologically into those who have a book and profess what Islam recognizes as a divine religion and those who do not; politically into dhimmis, those who have accepted the supremacy of the Muslim state and the primacy of the Muslims, and harbis, the denizens of the Dar al-harb, the House of War, who remain outside the Islamic frontier, and with whom therefore there is in principle, a canonically obligatory perpetual state of war until the whole world is either converted or subjugated..."
Shi'ite Muslims disagreed with Sunnis. They believed that Muhammad's family, the
Ahl al-Bayt ("the People of the House"), and certain individuals among his descendants, who are known as Imams, have special spiritual and political authority over the Ummah (Islamic community) as his heirs and successors.
Of these the
Nizaris emerged as the most tolerant and progressive form of Islam, different from other Shi'ites.
Two forms of Shi'ism emerged: Ismailism and Twelverism. The latter accepted only Twelve Imams, whereas the Ismailis still have an Imam today, and have had a line of many more.
After the death of Muhammad ibn Ismail in the 8th century AD, the teachings of Ismailism became further solifiied into the very tolerant belief system we see nowadays, with an explicit emphasis placed on the deeper, esoteric meaning (batin) of the Islamic religion. With the eventual development of Twelverism into the more literalistic (zahir) oriented Akhbari and later Usooli schools of thought, Shi'ism developed into two separate forms: the metaphorical Ismaʿili group focusing on the mystical path and nature of Allah, with the "Imam of the Time" representing the manifestation of truth and reality, and the more literalistic Twelver group focusing on divine law (sharia) and the deeds and sayings (sunnah) of Muhammad and the Twelve Imams who were guides and a light to God.
The latter, who rule today in the Islamic Republic of Iran and are now the largest Shi'ite group, are very intolerant and hard-line just like the Sunnis whereas the Nizaris have always been more mystical, esoteric and progressive.
To this end the Fatimid Empire which ruled in Egypt during the 10th century, under the Ismaili form of Islam, was known for its tolerance towards Jews and Christians - although not "non-Abrahamic" religions, who were still treated as
kufar (infidels/idolaters) and as with Sunnism and Shi'ism, Nizaris in
theory saw themselves as in a permanent state of war with these people, who had to convert although in practice this probably did not occur. Jews and Coptic Christians, however, flourished under the Fatimids, even though they were badly persecuted in other Islamic countries under different forms of Islam.
In addition we have the Sufi Muslims, who during the eighth century AD gathered a lot of their ideas from native Persian Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Christian monasticism and Iranian Buddhism to form a very mystical, all-embracing, universalist religion within the Islamic world that has been terribly persecuted by Orthodox Muslims. Sufism, however, is very different from Orthodox Islam - Al-Ghazali in the 11th century tried to make an Orthodox form of it, to the extent that he agreed with Orthodox Muslims that there must be Jihad against unbelievers - he stated that it was legitimate to catapult non-believers!
In its essence though, Sufism is a mystical movement of pluralism within the Islamic world, however it is very, very different - as a result of its many inherited teachings from other religions - from mainstream Islam, which is why it is better I think to focus on the
Nizaris who are a mainstream form of Islam, with ideas begotten solely within Islam, but one that has developed tolerance and the ability to evolve. Sufis, alternatively, took the Qur'an and mystically interpreted it, yes like Nizaris, however unlike Nizaris they understood it through the lens of concepts which they had inherited not from within Islam but from Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Christianity. This means that despite what some people say, one cannot jusge Islam on the basis of Sufism, which is in my opinion a new religion within the Islamic religion or rather a religion that has developed within an Islamic milieu. Sufi poetry abounds with criticism of Islamic piety; of the Kaaba; of imams and mosques; of the five pillars of Islam and it exults in wine imagery, spiritual drukenness, music (which is banned under Islamic law) and dancing (which is also banned under Shar'iah law).
Sufism was a reaction against the worldliness of early Islam as typified by the Abbasid Caliphate, and the lack of spirituality and the literalism. The Sufi robe is said to be of Buddhist origin.
The Sufi concepts of
Union with the Divine and
fana (self-annihilation) which is the ultimate goal of the Sufi path, has no basis in the Qur'an or the Hadith and are described by historians such as Homa Katouzian and Malika Mohammada, among others, as being derived from the Upanishads. They first appear in Islamic history in the utterances of Abu Yazid of Bistam, a 9th century Persian mystic who had heterodox views and was a convert from Zoroastrianism (of Zoroastrian ancestry), who took with him his native religious beliefs into Islam, to try and make it more mystical. I note that SPN, wisely I think and correctly, has "Islam" and "Sufism" as separate religions in the interfaith section of the forum. I am very pleased with this, since it fits with my understanding of the relationship between Islam and Sufism.
Nizaris however are fully mainstream Muslims who are utterly progressive. Read up on them!
Islam is not as monolithic as outsiders think. It is very diverse, very fragmented and each Islamic sect views the other as heretics.
Much love and hope this short explanation helps! peacesign