Secret Sufis: From Dante to Key Figures of the Far-Right

‘Sufis are the mystic of Islam’. They are, according to Huston Smith, ‘the impatient ones’: ‘Every upright Muslim expects to see God after death, but the Sufis want God now — moment by moment, day by day, in this very life. And they are willing to undergo the disciplines that make that possible’.

As in Monasticism, Sufis pray, fast and endure long periods of solitude. But unlike monks, Sufis are also peripatetic nomads (from the Greek peripatētikos, meaning to ‘walk up and down’). They are wanderers, seeking God in every encounter, and aiming at the ‘elimination of all veils between the individual and God (Al Jerrahi).

Sufis believe that their teachings reach into the core of not just Islam, but all religions. This, coupled with their belief that an individual can become one with God, is the reason why many Muslims think of Sufis as heretics. Throughout history, they have suffered extreme persecution — almost to the point of extinction. Today, very few Sufi schools exist, and this is significant seeing as it is an initiatic discipline; meaning, you cannot just become a Sufi: ‘You cannot teach yourself Sufism or develop spiritually by yourself any more than you can become a doctor or an engineer by yourself’ (Al Jerrahi).