Yet another example of an act of terrorism whereby one Islamic group kills another.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — How much, if anything, do you know about the Sufi interpretation of Islam? I would imagine that perhaps you have heard the term ‘whirling dervish’: this evokes pictures of men twirling rapidly in an act of religious devotion. The act is actually one of dhikr – remembering Allah – and appears to date back to the 14th century.
Sufism is sometimes seen as a more ‘spiritual’ form of Islam, although that is not really accurate. The English term comes from the Arabic tasawwuf, which folk etymology suggests comes from the root word for wool (suf). The link here is that adherents wore woolen garments as a form of self-denial and dedication to the creator (think hair shirts in some Catholic traditions): this interpretation is not accepted by all.
“Kill them all. Do not leave any alive”
What Sufism definitely is is a variant of Islam (not necessarily a ‘sect’). Another definite thing about Sufism is the fact that Muslim violent extremists really hate Sufis. For those who follow my blogs and podcasts this should come as absolutely zero surprise as these wankers hate just about everything that disagrees with their warped sense of reality.
As the New York Times wrote in November 2017:
While some Muslims view Sufis as quirky, even eccentric, some fundamentalists and extremists see Sufism as a threat, and its adherents as heretics or apostates.
Calling someone an apostate in Islam is very serious indeed. The penalty for apostasy is death. Islamist terrorists do not hesitate to carry out this punishment against those they think have sinned against Allah. They have a lust for killing whomever they can.
On this day in 2016, four or five gunmen entered a Sufi mosque in the Afghan capital of Kabul during evening prayers and, after initially opening fire, held each of the victims down and shot them in the head. In all eleven worshipers were killed. One of the gunmen was heard to utter: “Kill them all. Do not leave any alive”.
This attack was called ‘rare’ by some and attributed to the Islamic State (ISIS) affiliate in Afghanistan. That may be, but the Taliban terrorist group had banned the practice when they ran the country. Tomato, tomahto, it does not really matter which brand of hateful jihadis was behind the brutality.
Innocent people killed while at prayer by terrorists who cannot countenance a different way of paying attention to their creator. It cannot get any worse than this, can it?
