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Sister Danya Shakfeh has recently written a great well-organized response to Brother Saad’s post on “The Nonsensical Sufi-Salafi War“.

The title says what I am going to talk about quite clearly. Before I begin, I do want to say that I would like to hear other’s perspectives. These have been my observations and obviously will be limited due to my geography, people I know, age, and over all experience in life. I will try to deconstruct the issue and then offer some possible solutions. I will try my best to be as objective as I can God-willing. That being said..

First things first, we must define our terms. What is a Salafi? What is a Sufi?

From my understanding, Salafism is a movement started by Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab and later perpetuated (and perhaps adjusted) by Muhammad Abduh (who was ironically enough, a Sufi), Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and Rashid Rida. The movement was meant to be and “Islamic revival” movement. The founders believed that taqlid (imitation), particularly in matters of fiqh (jurisprudence) was one of the leading causes of Islam’s decline (particularly in relation Enlightenment-period Europe).

Sufism, on the other hand, at its core, is a science developed over the centuries that bring one close to Allah . Traditionalists (ie, those who follow madhhabs, are within one of the three schools of creed, and espouse some form of tasawwuf) believe it to be one of the three branches of Islam (derived from Islam, Iman, and Ihsan). A Sufi, as I like to see it, is a master of Sufism. The students of Sufism, are not Sufis, but in a sense, “Sufi-wannabes.” I like to liken the term “Sufi” to the term faqih (legal scholar).

So basically we have a movement against a discipline. …

Check out the rest of it at Danya’s blog: SufiSticated.