Sufis, cities, Trilling, etc.

Sizing up the Sufis

As an American who has resided in Indonesia for the past 13 years, I read Stephen Schwartz's article about "a tolerant, pluralist tradition in Islam" ("Getting to Know the Sufis," Feb. 7) with great interest. It is encouraging to see Sufism mentioned in The Weekly Standard with respect and hope, but Schwartz has greatly oversimplified the situation.

To begin with, not all moderates are Sufis. Equating the two leads to his astonishing statement that Indonesia is a land "where Sufism is the dominant form of Islam"--a claim that would cause most citizens to scratch their heads in puzzlement.

In Indonesia, the two largest Muslim organizations (each with 30 million or so members) are the Muhammadiyah (mentioned by Schwartz) and the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), headed by Abdurrahman Wahid before he became Indonesia's president. As described in Adam Schwartz's A Nation in Waiting, the latter is conservative about Islam but pluralistic because it respects traditions related to Indonesian culture. In contrast, Muhammadiyah has a large appeal for Muslims who feel affinity with "pan-Islam"--the concept that Islam transcends all cultures and should be "standardized" everywhere in the world for the sake of unity.

Although Muhammadiyah (once headed by Indonesia's former speaker of the house, Amien Rais) answers a spiritual calling or longing for unity, that doesn't make it a Sufi organization. Further, its call for standardization naturally tends to make it a vehicle for "correcting" diversity of practice and belief. This group is composed mostly of santri Muslims, distinct from the less strict abangan Muslims who tend to belong to the NU.

I am also moved to clarify Schwartz's statement that "the religion of the majority is taught in public schools." All religions are taught in those public schools where there are enough students to warrant calling in a member of the faith to teach once a week. If one visited a school where 100 percent of the students were Muslim, then Islam would be the only religion taught. But another school, say in Bali, might have separate classes for Islam, Hinduism, Catholicism, and Protestantism for students belonging to those religions.

Martin Schell
Klaten, Indonesia

With all due respect to Stephen Schwartz and the great historian Bernard Lewis, whom he quotes, it is simply untrue that "[t]he Sufi always prefers peace to war, and nonviolence to violence." In fact, Sufis have led some of the bloodiest revolutions in Islamic history, most notably that of Muhammad Ahmad of Sudan in the 1880s (in which Charles Gordon lost his life).

True, Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, is usually tolerant and willing to live and let live. But when it changes gears, "live and let die" becomes the motto. Charismatic Sufi leaders like Muhammad Ahmad sometimes become convinced they are the Mahdi, the "rightly-guided one" predicted by Muslim tradition to come before the end of time and conquer the entire world for Islam.

Schwartz sees Sufism as the antidote to Wahhabi fundamentalism, but it might just as likely turn out to be poisonous in its own right.

Timothy R. Furnish
Alpharetta, GA

Stephen Schwartz responds: I am grateful to Martin Schell for his clarification and correction on Indonesia. However, the definition of Sufism is not a narrow one. Indonesian Muslim groups (including Muhammadiyah) that do not adopt an attitude, within Islam, of takfir, or excommunication from the faith of those who disagree with them, and who eschew a hostile attitude toward other religions, in my view fall within the broad category of Sufi-influenced Islam. So long as Muhammadiyah's quest for "correction" is not based on threats and compulsion, it seems to me in line with traditional, conservative Sunni Islam of a moderate variety, which accommodates Sufism.

As for Timothy R. Furnish's comment, Muhammad Ahmad in Sudan is not universally recognized as a Sufi, but his struggle to expel British invaders also should not be universally seen as an atrocious action. The British had no business in Sudan, and Ahmad's followers were, in my view, justified in combating it. I certainly have never argued that Sufism is a perfect or infallible alternative to Wahhabism or any other form of radical Islam. History has an unfortunate way of playing tricks, with the best intentions resulting in bad outcomes. But the numbers of extreme or aggressive acts committed by Sufis in the many centuries of their history in Islam is very small indeed. And their general record of coexistence with other religions is recognized by Bernard Lewis--who stands above most of us as an expert on these matters--and many others.

Over There, Over Here

Joel Kotkin is correct that his "cities of aspiration" are likely to become more "Euro-American" over the long term ("Cities of Aspiration," Feb. 14 / Feb. 21). I think this is the inevitable result of overcrowding.

Eventually, the people who leave overcrowded, expensive, business-hostile conditions are going to find their new home is starting to resemble their old one. They will then seek to restrict expansion (and I don't always think that is a bad thing). Before long, businesses will move to newer, less densely populated, more open regions and begin the cycle again.

Those of us who choose to live in less populated areas often make that choice because we don't enjoy urban sprawl, we want personal space, and we enjoy nature. We do not always welcome refugees from the larger cities. In my own case, I almost never welcome them.

I think capitalism is the best economic system available, but the pressure for constant expansion disturbs me. Isn't there some point at which an economy can survive in equilibrium, as biological systems do? And can't we decide, as communities, what we want the population density to be at that point? I don't like the idea that uncontrolled expansion is considered our only hope for the future.

Leah Hennings
Mayflower, AR

Joel Kotkin posits an interesting and believable theory regarding the old "Euro-American" cities, but he does not fully develop a response to the stasis that follows an ex-urban boom.

I am a resident of Stamford, Connecticut. We are in the center of the so-called Gold Coast. Fueled by Wall Street, professional sports stars, and celebrities, the nearby towns of Greenwich, Darien, and New Canaan boast some of the highest home prices in all of New England. Stamford, too, is no slouch, averaging around $750,000 per home, yet it also suffers from all of the blights of an old Euro-city: a terrible education system, a commuter-based economy, and a poor, urban-based population.

How would Kotkin address such a dichotomy? Just throwing money at the problems has not worked. Many of Kotkin's "cities of aspiration" will be facing the same issues sooner rather than later. Some additional thought should be given to their futures.

H.J. Anderson
Stamford, CT

Joel Kotkin's discussion of Salt Lake City among his "aspirational cities" struck me, because the city's current mayor, Ross "Rocky" Anderson, is a true Euro-American. Indeed, the people promoting a "hip and cool" downtown Phoenix sound just like Mayor Anderson.

Utah's department of transportation has been trying to build a highway from Davis County to Salt Lake County in order to take some traffic away from I-15, which is overloaded. But thus far the project has been stymied by environmentalists, including Rocky Anderson. Anderson thinks the way to revive downtown Salt Lake City is to build more nightclubs and bars.

Allen S. Thorpe
Castle Dale, UT

The Dems' Dilemma

Noemie Emery's "The Democrats' Week from Hell" (Feb. 14 / Feb. 21) is brilliant. There have been times when I thought the Democrats could "get it." But their obtuse, myopic, self-centered partisanship has completely divorced them from meaningful discourse--and from the American electorate. They have degenerated into a dysfunctional collection of people who believe they can say anything and get away with it.

Years ago the Democrats were a voice for the common man, a party that represented social justice and equal access. Today they're adrift without a moral compass or a guiding principle beyond being anti-Republican. They are a good example of what happens when the ability to tell right from wrong has been lost; nothing is right and everything is wrong.

Bob McMahon
Hillsborough, NJ

Trilling at 100

Gertrude Himmelfarb has written a superb remembrance of Lionel Trilling ("The Trilling Imagination," Feb. 14 / Feb. 21). I had Trilling as a teacher at Columbia University in the 1950s. I later went to medical school and became a psychoanalyst, inspired by Trilling's subtle understanding of Freud. I have, after all these years, yet to encounter anyone with Trilling's depth of understanding. How impressive that, despite his own disappointing experience with analysis, Trilling retained such a high regard for Freud and his followers at the New York Psychoanalytic Society.

Stephen M. Rittenberg
Larchmont, NY

Errata

Brian Murray's "The Best Years of Our Lives" (Feb. 7), a review of David Castronovo's new book on 1950s literature, gave the impression that Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight took place in the 1930s. The famous Lindbergh flight actually took place in 1927. Also, Ralph Ellison's 1952 classic was Invisible Man, not The Invisible Man, H.G. Wells's 1897 science-fiction novel.