I found this story, describing the assassination of Sufi leader Sheikh Said Afandi of Dagestan, both heartbreaking and sad - as well as deeply troubling because of US involvement. The pattern of prophecy continues in our world in the battle between moderation and extremism, as another gentle, deeply spiritual moderate Islamic leader is assassinated. The complete article is very long, but well worth studying and absorbing for the detailed look it gives into the machinations of the US government and CIA in fostering Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East and the lands of the former Russian federation. The article comes from the outstanding blog, Boiling Frogs, created by FBI whistleblower Sibel Edwards, author of the recently published Classified Woman. The book has been given a rating of 5 stars by all 92 of Amazon.com reviewers.
While the complete article can be found below, this particular passage struck me as significant.
While Sufis incorporate the worship of saints and theatrical
ceremonial prayers into their practice, Salafis condemn as idolatry any
non-traditional forms of worship. They also call for the establishment
of Islamic political rule and strict Sharia law. Sufism is home to the
great spiritual and musical heritage of Islam, said by Islamic scholars
to be the inner, mystical, or psycho-spiritual dimension of Islam, going
back centuries.
As one Sufi scholar described the core of Sufism, “While all Muslims
believe that they are on the pathway to God and will become close to God
in Paradise–after death and the ‘Final Judgment’– Sufis believe as well
that it is possible to become close to God and to experience this
closeness–while one is alive. Furthermore, the attainment of the
knowledge that comes with such intimacy with God, Sufis assert, is the
very purpose of the creation. Here they mention the hadith qudsi
in which God states, ‘I was a hidden treasure and I loved that I be
known, so I created the creation in order to be known.’ Hence for the
Sufis there is already a momentum, a continuous attraction on their
hearts exerted by God, pulling them, in love, towards God.” [9]
The mystical Islamic current of Sufism and its striving to become
close to or one with God is in stark contrast to the Jihadist Salafi or
Wahhabi current that is armed with deadly weapons, preaches a false
doctrine of jihad, and a perverse sense of martyrdom, committing
countless acts of violence. Little wonder that the victims of Salafist
Jihads are mostly other pacific forms of Islam including most especially
Sufis.
The respected seventy-five year old Afandi had publicly denounced
Salafist Islamic fundamentalism. His murder followed a July 19
coordinated attack on two high-ranking muftis in the Russian Volga
Republic of Tatarstan. Both victims were state-approved religious
leaders who had attacked radical Islam. This latest round of murders
opens a new front in the Salafist war against Russia, namely attacks on
moderate Sufi Muslim leaders.
Whether or not Dagestan now descends into internal religious civil
war that then spreads across the geopolitically sensitive Russian
Caucasus is not yet certain. What is almost certain is that the same
circles who have been feeding violence and terror inside Syria against
the regime of Alawite President Bashar al-Assad are behind the killing
of Sheikh Afandi as well as sparking related acts of terror or unrest
across Russia’s Muslim-populated Caucasus. In a very real sense it
represents Russia’s nightmare scenario of “Syria coming to Russia.” It
demonstrates dramatically why Putin has made such a determined effort to
stop a descent into a murderous hell in Syria.
I will avoid any comment about the parallels with Christian fundamentalism, particularly in the present leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, with it's deep money ties to corrupt elements within the US government and beyond - but the parallels are there to ponder. We are indeed in a bitter winter night, both in terms of global politics as well as global religions. But I find the death of a gentle leader like Sheikh Said Afandi more inspiring than depressing, since only if the precious vial of the heart is broken can the perfume of holiness and goodness penetrate our hardened hearts. Blessings upon the Sheikh as he is admitted into paradise. Or to paraphrase a Tibetan Buddhist saying, "Only through the annihilation of the ego can the Self become a boundless center of compassion flooding itself upon the world." We have been bathed - all of us in the human community-in waves of light and compassion by the recent death of this wise and spiritual man. A lesson to us all (and the witness of Sibel Edmonds echoes this), in the fight for truth and justice - whether in the political or religious sphere - we must be willing to give our all.
The complete article by William Engdahl
Part I: Syria comes to the Russian Caucasus
On
August 28 Sheikh Said Afandi, acknowledged spiritual leader of the
Autonomous Russian Republic of Dagestan, was assassinated. A jihadist
female suicide bomber managed to enter his house and detonate an
explosive device.
The murder target had been carefully selected. Sheikh Afandi, a
seventy-five-year old Sufi Muslim leader, had played the critical role
in attempting to bring about reconciliation in Dagestan between jihadist
Salafi Sunni Muslims and other factions, many of whom in Dagestan see
themselves as followers of Sufi. With no replacement of his moral
stature and respect visible, authorities fear possible outbreak of
religious war in the tiny Russian autonomous republic.[1]
The police reported that the assassin was an ethnic Russian woman who
had converted to Islam and was linked to an Islamic fundamentalist or
Salafist insurgency against Russia and regional governments loyal to
Moscow in the autonomous republics and across the volatile
Muslim-populated North Caucasus region.
Ethnic
Muslim populations in this region of Russia and of the former Soviet
Union, including Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and into China’s Xinjiang
Province, have been the target of various US and NATO intelligence
operations since the Cold War era ended in 1990. Washington sees
manipulation of Muslim groups as the vehicle to bring uncontrollable
chaos to Russia and Central Asia. It’s being carried out by some of the
same organizations engaged in creating chaos and destruction inside
Syria against the government of Bashar Al-Assad. In a real sense, as
Russian security services clearly understand, if they don’t succeed in
stopping the Jihadists insurgency in Syria, it will come home to them
via the Caucasus.
The latest Salafist murders of Sufi and other moderate Muslim leaders
in the Caucasus are apparently part of what is becoming ever clearer as
perhaps the most dangerous US intelligence operation ever—playing
globally with Muslim fundamentalism.
Previously US and allied intelligence services had played fast and
loose with religious organizations or beliefs in one or another country.
What makes the present situation particularly dangerous—notably since
the decision in Washington to unleash the misnamed Arab Spring upheavals
that began in Tunisia late 2010, spreading like a brushfire across the
entire Islamic world from Afghanistan across Central Asia to Morocco—is
the incalculable wave upon wave of killing, hatreds, destruction of
entire cultures that Washington has unleashed in the name of that
elusive dream named “democracy.” They do this using alleged Al-Qaeda
groups, Saudi Salafists or Wahhabites, or using disciples of Turkey’s
Fethullah Gülen Movement to ignite fires of religious hatred within
Islam and against other faiths that could take decades to extinguish. It
could easily spill over into a new World War.
Fundamentalism comes to Caucasus
Following the dissolution of the USSR, radical Afghanistani
Mujahadeen, Islamists from Saudi Arabia, from Turkey, Pakistan and other
Islamic countries flooded into the Muslim regions of the former USSR.
One of the best-organized of these was the Gülen Movement of Fethullah
Gülen, leader of a global network of Islamic schools and reported to be
the major policy influence on Turkey’s Erdogan AKP party.
Gülen was quick to establish The International Dagestani-Turkish
College in Dagestan. During the chaotic days after the Soviet collapse,
the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation officially registered
and permitted unfettered activity for a variety of Islamic foundations
and organizations. These included the League of the Islamic World, the
World Muslim Youth Assembly, the reportedly Al-Qaeda friendly Saudi
foundation ‘Ibrahim ben Abd al-Aziz al-Ibrahim.’ The blacklist also
included Al-Haramein a Saudi foundation reported tied to Al-Qaeda, and
IHH, [2]
a Turkish organization banned in Germany, that allegedly raised funds
for jihadi fighters in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan, and was
charged by French intelligence of ties to Al Qaeda.[3] Many of these charities were covers for fundamentalist Salafists with their own special agenda. Read more ?
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