Maybe They Just Don't Care For Sufis
Me, I like me some Sufis. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan rocks tha house, and his heir apparent, Faiz Ali Faiz, is starting to grow on me, even though he's got that Western rock star thing going on. Rumi? Sufi par excellence!
So it's interesting to me that, while Danish cartoons inspire riots and murder, and unfounded rumors of Korans being flushed down the toilet spark more riots, when someone actually turns the tombs of Sufi saints into a toilet, there is nary a peep:
The imam wasn’t around, but we met the mosque caretaker Hussein Mahmoud inside. He was happy to show us around and tell us what’s what.Three Sufi saints are buried under the mosque dome. Most of the people who pray here aren’t Sufis; they are mainstream Sunni Muslims. But they honor and venerate the mystics for whom the mosque was founded.
“Zarqawi destroyed the tombs,” the caretaker said. “He and his men turned this room into a toilet.” He shook his head in disgust at the filthy Islamists who fouled their Islamic shrine. Muslims who say Al Qaeda is not really Islamic may have a point.
“You see that there in the floor?” he said. “That’s where they began to install plumbing.”
I braced myself. “How do you feel about the U.S. bombing this mosque?” I said.
“I don’t know,” he said, as if he had never even pondered the question. “It’s okay, I suppose. I am grateful. If they had not done it this place would still be a toilet.”
That's from Michael Totten's account of his visit to the Kurdish village of Biara in Iraq. He's been blogging from Iraq for quite awhile now, and his Middle East Journal is excellent reading.
