Blogger’s Comment: This article talks about Islam in Northern Africa – mentioning the Fatimid Empire and why it was successful.
SUFISM: THE MIDWAY BETWEEN EXTREMISMS
Indigenous North Africa Between Jihad and Imperialism
by Toufik Amayas Mostefaou
My heart
Has become capable
Of taking all sorts of forms,
It is
Pastures
For gazelles
And Monastery for the monk,
Temple of idols
And
Kaaba for the pilgrim.
It is the tables of the Torah
And
The Book of the Koran.
It professes the religion of love
Whatever the place
Toward which
Its caravans wend.
And love
Is
My law
And love
Is
My faith.
—Ibn Arabi, of Andalusia and North Africa, 1165-1240 CE, Sufi
Questions relating to “modernity” and “tradition” have occupied Muslim thinkers-people such as Jamal Addin Al-Afghani, Rashid Ridha, Abd Arrahman Al-Qawakibi, etc.—for the good part of the twentieth century. They continue to exert a considerable force on contemporary Islamic discourse, especially in questions relating to citizenship, forms of government and economic and social organization.
At the beginning of the 21st century, societies with a strong Islamic heritage are facing tough choices between modernity, tradition, democracy, absolute monarchy, Islamism, secularism, imperialism and nationalism (Amazigh, Arabic, Kurdish, etc)…
Ismailimail 