the Sufis

I have already spoken about Islam, but here I’d like to say a few words about the Sufis. Sufis are Muslims and yet they are a rather extraordinary bunch. For the Sufis are mystics, and like all mystics they believe that existence is fundamentally beyond rational understanding. So they do not speak in simple, direct ways about life and about God, but rather they talk in poetry, hinting at a truth that lies beyond words.

More importantly than commenting on the truth, the Sufi’s celebrate life and they do this in ways that seem crazy to us: they dance, they howl, they whirl. Without drinking alcohol, they become drunk – drunk on life. It is in this wild celebration of life that the Sufi’s express their truth most eloquently.

But the amazing thing about the Sufi movement is that it exists within the framework of Islam. The organised religions are usually highly suspicious of mystics. Mystics are beyond the comprehension of rational beings. For normal priests, trying to run an orderly religion, the mystics are something of a threat, for a mystic is untameable. The Sufis are wild in their nature, there is something there that cannot be controlled. This makes it remarkable that a movement like the Sufis can exist in an otherwise structured religious setting like Islam. We would do well to live our life a little more like the Sufis, a little more wildly; to live more poetically; dancing, whirling, getting drunk on life itself.