Question:
Assalamu wa alaykum ya Moulana Shaykh….
I live in Brazil and would like to know, may be Sufi without being a Muslim? I am a Muslim, but I saw that members of the Naqshbandi Haqqani tariqa in Brazil are very different from the ones I’ve met in Istanbul. Most of them are not Muslims, do dhikr with men and women in the same space, women do not cover themselves in addition to wearing the way you want it or not. But when he asked for the shaikh who represents the tariqa here he said, no and that the person may be Sufi but not a Muslim. I was shocked by this response. Then the tariqa Naqshbandi Haqqani is the group of Idries Shah and Omar Ali Shah, or is this just something from that Shaykh here? Jazakallahu Khayr
Answer:
wa `alaykum salam,
Our way is a way of patience and love, open arms and compassionate hearts. We call people to our way not through doctrine and teaching but through our example. What rules of Shari`ah are followed in Istanbul cannot be enforced on non-Muslims, of Catholic background in Rio de Janeiro. When the representative says “they are Sufi but not Muslim” he means they love the Sufi way of our Shaykh, but they have not formally entered Islam.
At the same time let there be no doubt in your mind that Mawlana Shaykh is calling people to be Muslim. As he told Pir Wilayat Khan, when he visited his center in New Lebanon, New York, “You are Muslim; You are Muslim; You are Muslim!”
So give them time, and their love to Mawlana will automatically bring them into the faith, in which case they will be truly Sufi as well as Muslim.
The fruits of this approach are evidenced in the many thousands of people who have embraced Islam at Mawlana Shaykh’s hands. They did not do so due to some logical understanding but due to love of the Shaykh, which in turn drew them to follow him in every aspect of their life, including faith.
The most recent example is the 33 miners in Chile, who acknowledged they felt a spiritual presence supporting them, deep down in the exploded mine, after receiving tawizes from Mawlana Shaykh. Recently some came to Cyprus and embraced Islam on his hand.
Taher Siddiqui
