Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari may not have achieved any breakthrough in India-Pakistan relations during his much-hyped lunch with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, but with his ‘Jiyarat’ at the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti at Ajmer, the shrewd Sindhi politician sent a categorical message to hard line Wahabi elements back home, stressing Islamabad’s commitment to indigenous Sufi Islam as against the Saudi-sponsored Wahabi Islam, which is wreaking havoc in Pakistan, Afghanistan and even India.

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The presence of Sufi Islam is not limited to Zardari’s native Sindh province, but also elsewhere in Pakistan and Afghanistan for centuries. The scenario dramatically changed in the 1980s when during the Afghan resistance against the Soviet invasion, elements in Saudi Arabia pumped in money, arms and extremist ideology into Afghanistan and Pakistan. Through a network of madrassas, Wahabi Islam indoctrinated young Muslims with fundamentalist puritanism, denouncing Sufi shrines, mystics, music and poetry as ‘decadent and immoral.’ Over the years, the tolerant Sufi-minded Barelvi form of tolerant Islam has been replaced by the hardline Wahabi creed. These converts to hardline Islam have declared a ‘Jihad’ not only against Western and Indian ‘infidels’ but also against fellow Muslims they consider to be apostates, in particular the Sufis.

Wahabism is the conservative 18th century reformist call of Sunni Islam attributed to Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, an Islamic scholar from Saudi Arabia, who became known for advocating a return to the practices of the first three generations of Islamic history. In the early 20th century, the Wahabist-oriented Al-Saud dynasty conquered and unified the various provinces on the Arabian peninsula, founding the modern day Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. This provided the movement with a state. Vast wealth from oil discovered in the following decades, coupled with Saudi control of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, have since provided a base and funding for Salafi missionary activity.

Of late, there has been a rise in the attacks on Sufi shrines across Pakistan, prompting the country’s intelligentsia to openly confront Wahabism, which they describe as ‘Arab Colonialism.’ According to Sayeeda Diep from the Lahore-based Institute for Peace and Secular Studies, “the people of Pakistan need to fight both American as well Arab colonialism.”

In India, alarmed by the rise of the Wahabis, the Sufis have now initiated a public debate. The All India Ulama & Mashaikh Board, an apex body of Sufi Muslims, has called upon Sunni Muslims across India to reject and rebuff hard line Wahabism so that Islam could return to its tolerant, Sufi roots. Board general secretary Maulana Syed Mohd Ashraf Kachochavi has asked the government to immediately pass legislation to set up a Central Madrasa Board so that fundings to madrassas could be audited and a watch kept on the flow of Saudi petro-dollars into madrasa education.

US, other Western nations and India would do well to support Zardari and Pakistan in strengthening the traditional Sufi Islam if the Taliban and the likes of Hafiz Saeed are to be tackled decisively.

The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist and director, Global Foundation for Civilisational Harmony