Source: Economist
Every Thursday night, the music of a tanbour, a long-necked stringed instrument, resounds across the wooden floors of a Manhattan room, wrapped with warm Persian rugs. Barefoot men and women create circles and sway to the cadence of the melody.
The music builds as their teacher, Sheikha Fariha, joins the circle. She slowly begins to spin and passes by each individual, looking into their eyes and breathing on their faces, while repeating variants of the names of God. The words are Arabic but she does not have the accent of a native speaker. Soon the faithful are making circles, whirling.
This scene unfolds in New York City’s TriBeCa district, 12 blocks away from ground zero. It reflects the popularity of Sufism, Islam’s mystical tradition, whose appeal seems to grow among a segment of spiritual seekers even as the faith’s mainstream varieties arouse antipathy among swathes of the American public. (A new study by scholars at the University of Minnesota found that Islam has surpassed atheism as the metaphysical belief disliked by the greatest number of Americans.)
The very word Sufism can be confusing: correctly or otherwise, it is used to describe a broad range of practices and beliefs, all of which involve the pursuit of a direct experience of the divine. It can refer to the popular religion of Pakistan, with its emphasis on saints and shrines, or to powerful Islamic thinkers and mystics of the medieval era whose ideas have always drawn in a steady trickle of well-educated Westerners.
In the United States and many other places, self-identified Sufis can be Muslims who are very orthodox in their beliefs and observances, or people who are not Muslim at all but are attracted by Sufi music, dance or meditation.
The community in lower Manhattan is towards the liberal end of that spectrum, but not at the far end. On one hand, it has distinguished Islamic connections. It is affiliated with a Sufi order established by a famous teacher from Istanbul, Muzaffer Ozak, who came to the United States in 1980. But the participants in its rituals include both people of Muslim background and non-Muslim spiritual seekers. The place attracts around 100 regular attenders; about 20 new members join every year.
Categories: America, Islam, Sufism, The Muslim Times, USA