Report of the conferences organized by Zawiya Al-Alawiya with the collaboration of the Islamic Community Al-Ihsan, Melilla

Claiming the role of the Sufi tradition within Islam in the face of other more radical and fanatical currents was one of the most repeated messages yesterday in the conferences framed at the II Conference on Sufism in Melilla, organized by the Zawiya Al-Alawiya with the collaboration of the Islamic Community Al-Ihsan.

Sulayman de Diego, a university researcher of Islamology, reviewed in his lecture how contemporary Sufism has developed and “the importance it has in the face of radicalism and fanaticism.” “Sufism is a middle ground that is central to Islam and is based primarily on love for the prophet,” he said.

To avoid the most radical positions, De Diego opted to look at “the figure of the prophet ethically and socially,” since he said he was a “great revolutionary who proposed social justice.”

He stated that today, millions of people follow Sufism in countries such as Indonesia or Nigeria but also present in countries of the West and part of the United States. “A lot of the Muslims in the Bronx are Sufis,” he said.

He explained that in the Islamic world, Sufism is well known. But it went back to the nineteenth century to explain that there were problems between the intellectual elite and tradition, and there was separation. “They wanted to modernize Islam without Islam,” he said.

Path of purification

Ahmed Bermejo, imam of the Great Mosque of Granada, addressed in his speech the science of Sufi behavior, focusing on how the path for a Muslim that follows that tradition should be “totally away from what we see today in many media of communication and that is said to be Islam, “he said. Thus, he pointed out that it is a path of inner purification aimed to civic values. “It is a path that you choose to improve your relationship with God, but also with people. It is not conceivable in Sufism to live far from the world, “he said. “The person who is in the path of Sufism is like the land to which you put manure and from there are born roses,” he added.

The presentation of Abdel Ghani Melara, imam at the Seville mosque, focused on showing that the relationship between the prophet and his companions was the same as, within Sufism, between the teacher and his disciples. “A man alone can not do anything. Like Jesus, who also had the apostles. All of them have helped spread the message. And in all cases there were men and women, “he said.

Abderraman, Doctor in Arabic Philology at the University of Seville, spoke in his conference of what he defined as “misinterpretations of Islam” and focused mainly on “two controversies”: the place of Islam in the world and the place that occupies the sufism within this religion. He lamented that an interpretation has been made as if it were something external to Islam, “a sect.” The teacher explained that it is completely wrong.

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D. Cambronero | 21/07/2017 | Cultura y Tradiciones