Volume 18, No. 6, 2021
Sufi Model Of Peace And Extremism
Asif Iqbal Bhat , Dr. Suneet
Abstract
Islam is the second most followed religion in the world. The spread of Islam from Arabia to other places has been influenced and shaped by the cultural contexts where it made its inroads. Same stands true for Kashmir where local cultural landscape shaped its various aspects and a local Sufi tradition emerged to characterise the Islamic practices. This paper attempts to outline the main tenets of Sufism, reasons for decline of Sufism in Kashmir and how they serve as antagonistic to the extremism tendencies. It also suggests certain measures to counter extremism. The use of primary data (in the form of participant observation) and secondary data available were processed to find out the dynamics of Sufism vis-a-vis extremism. The paper reaches to the conclusion that popularisation and reinvention with strengthening of the institution of Sufism can serve as an effective tool to curb the extremist tendencies.
Pages: 8436-8444
Keywords: Sufism, Extremism, Islam, Kashmir, Participant Observation.