Monday, May 25, 2009
Playboy's enduring brand equity and a note on Somalia
Just when I'm wondering if Playboy's brand equity has shrunken to a singularity, we get this awesome photograph accompanying an article about Somalia's Sufi Muslims in the New York Times.
Their shrines were being destroyed. Their imams were being murdered. Their tolerant beliefs were under withering attack.
So the moderate Sufi scholars recently did what so many other men have chosen to do in anarchic Somalia: they picked up guns and entered the killing business, in this case to fight back against the Shabab, one of the most fearsome extremist Muslim groups in Africa.
Worth your time.
8 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon May 25, 01:38:00 PM:
we can only hope that this inter-muslim war will severly deplete their resources and manpower. I say we supply both sides with lots of guns, bullets and tracking devices.
When one side is wiped out, the US military can send some bombs to blow up the other side using the tracking device.
Both sides don't deserve to win because their goals aren't to improve the condition of Somalia, it is just to gain more food, money and land.
By , at
Mon May 25, 02:03:00 PM:
Sufis, tolerant? There's nothing tolerant about Sufi Islam, Sufi sects are heavily involved in the global jihad.
By 
Aegon01, at
Mon May 25, 06:00:00 PM:
Sufis generally ARE more tolerant, though. It is a blend of Hindu mysticism, a touch of Buddhism, and Islam. In other words, it's a little less bare-bones than the Middle Eastern doctrine.
By , at
Mon May 25, 06:36:00 PM:
Sufi Islam does not repudiate the Islamic imperative of subjugating all peoples under the rule of Islam. Sufi Islam does not repudiate Muhammad's example as The Perfect Man For All Time, one that all Muslims must emulate. Sufi Islam denies the right of non-Muslims to live at peace on an indefinite basis with their Muslim neighbors. To call Sufi Islam "tolerant" is Newspeak of the highest order.
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon May 25, 06:56:00 PM:
"It is a blend of Hindu mysticism, a touch of Buddhism, and Islam."
Sufism is Islamic, period. Sufi masters maintain adamantly that their practices and traditions are based on secret teachings passed on through a chain of masters originating with Muhammad and, through him, Gabriel and ultimately God.
Not to say that there is not variety of thought, including post-modern universalists, but that's a vast minority.
Sufism is an umbrella term, not a sect in itself, and it includes violent jihadists. Many (most?) Muslim South Asian militants are members of the Deobandis, who are Sufi-friendly and many Deobandis are also members of Sufi orders.
Sufism has had a lot of good press in the West, but they're still Muslim and some of them still like to kill infidels in their free time.
By Aegon01, at
Mon May 25, 07:16:00 PM:
Of course they would maintain that their sect is 100% purely Islamic, just like Christians would claim that there are absolutely no pagan traditions in their rites, but there are.
When Islam visited India around 1100 or 1200, two very strong cultures and religions collided. Both religions were used to absorbing less popular or adaptive religions, such as Buddhism or the pagan traditions of the Bedouin. Since both were so strong, they didn't know what to do with each other. Sufis came out and tried to blend the two. Islam combined with Hindu mysticism. That's why orthodox Muslims view Sufis kind of like Christians view Mormons.
By , at
Mon May 25, 08:45:00 PM:
The lesson we must learn from this story is to always be stronger than others.
You must be richer, more aggressive, crueler than your enemies and even your friends. Chinese and Jews learned the hard way that you must be strong or else you will be tortured to death.
America must maintain dominance in the world, and if need be, resort to the cruelest and bloodthirsty tactics since the Mongols and Romans.
We may need to burn and salt the fields of our enemies to permanently wipe them from the earth. Rome did the same against its hated enemy, Carthage, and it was so successful that few people know of its existence.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue May 26, 10:40:00 AM:
The first known historical Sufi, Abu Hashim al-Sufi, died in 777, at least 333 years before "1100 or 1200."
"That's why orthodox Muslims view Sufis kind of like Christians view Mormons."
That has far more to do with Sufism being Shi'a-friendly and tolerating mystical practices which Sunnis see as bida'.
