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Most of Latif’s Upper West Side group regularly attended a Sufi retreat in Pope Valley, California, where the beloveds would meet with their grand sheikh, Sidi Muhammad Al-Jamal, a Palestinian cleric who died in November at 80. This is where Bolinder and other members took their “Sufi promise,” a pledge of allegiance to their teacher and God in a formal ceremony, in return receiving their Sufi names. Bolinder’s is Abdullah.

Muslim Sufis: The ‘spiritual vagabonds’ of Islam
Published 2 years ago on 25 September 2016

[www.malaymail.com]

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For a sober description of Islamic Sufism get and read Mark Sedgwick’s book, Sufism:The Essentials

[www1.aucegypt.edu]

Sedgwick states that Islamic Sufism was practiced within the social context of Islamic faith and was never meant to be a cloak and dagger, drama ridden Dungeons and Dragon game. (My paraphrase). It was meant to support spiritual practice, not use secrecy and elitism to inflate someone’s personal egotism.

This suggestion by Sedgwick seems to be supported in a much earlier book by David Edwards, Heroes of the Age: Moral Fault Lines on the Afghan Frontier–available online

[ark.cdlib.org]

In the biography, The Lives of an Afghan Saint, written by an anthropologist who interviewed Pashtun in Pakistani refugee camps

[content.cdlib.org]

Edwards states that a Sufi center, where everyone was socially equal and all deferred to the Pir or spiritual leader, in that particular social context (Pashtun tribal life), actually provided a relief from the heavy social pressures imposed by the Pasthun code of honor.

In outside life the Pastun men were constantly on guard. Men had to be suspicious in relationship to each other. Families could be hotbeds of competitionl. Pashtun males fretted about their prestige, whether they’d been insulted, or threatened, when and how to retaliate so that honor could be maintained. Maintaining one's place in the tribal pecking order was nerve-wracking.

One respite was to become involved with a Sufi center. At the khanaqh, everyone’s social rank ceased to matter because all deferred to the Pir (Sufi leader).

Edwards interviewed disciples and learned their reasons for keeping their discipleship secret–it was for reasons of humility, based on their Muslim faith and very different from the elitist, clubby secrecy Western esoteric cults enjoin:

Edwards wrote:

“Despite the fact that there is no shame attached to following a pir (Sufi leader), it is the practice in some areas for disciples to keep secret their involvement with pirs. The reason for keeping this attachment a secret is difficult to ascertain, but it seems at least in part to keep the moral worlds of honor and Islam separate and thereby avoid the kinds of contradictions that ensue when the two overlap.

‘An alternative explanation is offered by an informant from Paktia Province who explained the practice as follows:

“Most disciples do not want to reveal that they are followers of a pir. They think that [revealing this fact] would be a way of projecting yourself as a good person, which is [an attitude] that Allah wouldn’t like. Basically, one becomes a disciple to seek guidance on the right path to Allah. One doesn’t do it for any other reason, and it should be kept secret as much as possible.

“In the case of our family, it happened so many times that one of our family members became a disciple without our even knowing about it. Because of this attitude on the part of the disciples, it is difficult to know how many have accepted the tariqat.”

Edwards does not say so, but my layman’s hunch is that if transferred to a Western democratic society, this same master disciple relationship which was apparently therapeutic for Pashtun disciples living in their traditional honor driven feud culture might, if transferred to Western egalitarian society, lead to regression on the part of Western followers.

To put it in a nutshell, the Pashtun who followed their Sufis leaders were assertive and saw themselves as custodians of their family honor. Western spiritual seekers are usually kind, polite people, wrecked by self doubt, unsure of their purpose in life and sometimes unsure of their identity.

With submissive and biddable Western disciples, a Sufi leader whose tough style would balance perfectly with a tough tribal ego might have a tyrannically crushing impact upon Westerners.

What in the Khyber mountains was a liberating alternative to the tense hyper macho Pashtun scene would, if practiced by polite Westerners warp into something quite different. Western disciples who see themselves as flawed individuals, rather than custodians of clan honor would bring different problems to their spiritual leader.

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rob
Do you know this website ? Anab Whitehouse wrote a book about his abuse experiences with a sheikh.
www.sufi-spiritual-abuse-recovery-assistance.org

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What makes the (Jerrahi) order most unusual is that its local (New York)sheikh is a woman: the former Philippa de Menil, 69, part of Texas oil aristocracy. She became a Sufi in the 1970s, and, now known as Sheikha Fariha al-Jerrahi, has led the Nur Jerrahi order since its founder’s death in 1995.

Wearing a flowing white gown, her hair half-wrapped in a blue turban, al-Jerrahi completes the call to prayer and summons the group’s members to stand side by side, avoiding the more orthodox Islamic practice of positioning men up front.

Al-Jerrahi gives few interviews, and she declined to speak to a reporter, but her longtime secretary, Abdul Rahim, answered questions about the congregation. A female sheikh shouldn’t be viewed as unusual, said Rahim, who was born Thomas Rippe and grew up in Brooklyn. “We don’t put an emphasis on women; we emphasise equality,” he said. “We think of it as a certain kind of maturity.”

The order has no dress code and no rules on sexual orientation. Indeed, the order is so liberal that some members don’t even label themselves Muslims.

This kind of unorthodox approach, said Marcia Hermansen, director of the Islamic world studies programme at Loyola University Chicago, is both the root of Sufism’s appeal and its weakness. Charismatic leaders like al-Jerrahi have spurred Sufism’s growth in America, she said, with New York in particular attracting “loosey-goosey liberal Sufism.”And yet for all its liberal trappings, Sufism cannot be detached from Islam. “Sufism isn’t just a label you wear; it’s a state of being,” said John Andrew Morrow, an Islam scholar and author. “You can’t pick and choose parts of Islam, and you can’t mislead sincere people, drawing them into Sufism without telling them this is fundamentally linked to Islam.”

Muslim Sufis: The ‘spiritual vagabonds’ of Islam

[www.malaymail.com]

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Ex-Sufi
I also was a member of the Shadiliyyah from 2000 until 2005. I'm still not sure about whether or not this is a cult. I was offered a wife by Sidi himself, which I refused because after I got to know her, I quickly saw how crazy she was. The fact that she had been previously married to another man in the organization (who later left the organization and was shunned) also raised a red flag with me.

I don't have any knowledge of any sexual impropriety such as is alleged in the annoymous letter. I can confirm that every single "retreat" that they have (such as the one in Maryland at the farm that I attended) is full of requests for money, money, money! Every time Sidi appeared, we were being asked for checks.

I can confirm that they practice shunning because I woke up to what was going on and left Islam altogether in 2005. I never heard from any of my "beloveds" (that's what they call each other when you are in the organization, paying for Sidi's books, and giving them money) after converting to my current religion. Even people that I considered among my best friends ignored my emails and voice mails.