Sufi leaders urge followers to get involved in politics

‘Only Sufis can run the country according to vision of Iqbal and Jinnah’.


Our Correspondent April 15, 2012

LAHORE: Sufi leaders have urged their followers to get involved in politics and the running of government, saying only they could carry forward the vision of the Quaid-i-Azam and Allama Iqbal for Pakistan.

Addressing devotees from 500 shrines at the International Tasawuf Seminar here at the Aiwan-i-Iqbal on Sunday, Khawaja Ghulam Qutbuddin Faridi, head of the National Mashaikh Council Pakistan, said that Sufi followers should unite and get into politics and government.

Faridi said only the Sufis could run the country according to the vision of its founders, Allama Iqbal and Mohammad Ali Jinnah. He said Pakistan came into being as a result of the two-nation theory and those who rejected this theory still did not accept Pakistan. “Now it is time we had politicians with the thinking of Sufis,” he said.

The participants in the seminar, which was organised by the International Mashaikh Council Pakistan, passed a resolution calling for the opening of the Bahishti Darwaza at the shrine of Baba Farid Ganj Shakar and permission to celebrate the urs of Bari Imam, which has been closed because of security concerns.

The resolution also stated that members or sympathisers of banned militants groups should be removed from the government and no banned group should be allowed to operate under a new name. Printed material encouraging sectarianism or blasphemy should be banned and destroyed. The government should prepare lists of hardliners who trained for jihad during the Afghan war and keep them under watch. Information about Sufis and their historical role should be included in the school and college curricula. And the chief justice of Pakistan should ensure that action is taken against the perpetrators of suicide attacks at the shrines of Data Sahib, Sakhi Sarwar, Baba Farid and Abdullah Shah Ghazi. Pir Syed Munawar Hussain Shah Jamati from Alipur Sayedan urged the audience to vote for Sufis.

Amir Mahmood Koreja, a member of the Council of Islamic Ideology, said all Sufis devoted their lives to jihad, but none to creating unrest in society. “Sufis teach darood [invoking mercy], not barood [handling of explosives],” he said. Professor Dr Ishaq Qureshi said that setting up an Islamic system of government would solve all Pakistan’s problems. He urged all parties to unite against lawlessness and terrorism.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16th, 2012.

COMMENTS (1)

shakrullah | 11 years ago | Reply

With due regard and respect for the mashaikh , It appears odd in the extreme to posit any common ground between the worldview or political vision of Quaid-e-Azam and that of the soofia-e-karaam . And the same holds good in case of Allama Iqbal , The main theme of his poetry and philosophy was nourishing and firming up of 'khudi'. and he hammered on khudi as an antidote to the passivity and surrender-of - self advocated by the sufis . He considered sufistic tenet of 'wahdat-ul-wajood as the main cause of muslim stagnation over centuries .

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