Blaze at Sufi (Muslim) shrine triggers violence in Indian Kashmir

Reuters ^ | Mon Jun 25, 2012 5:00am EDT | (Reporting by Sheikh Mushtaq; Editing by Robert Birsel)

[Olog-hai]

Fire gutted one of the most revered Sufi Muslim shrines in the Indian part of the divided Kashmir region on Monday sparking clashes between police and angry Muslim protesters, witnesses said.

Indian Kashmir has long been plagued by violence over a campaign by some of its mostly Muslim residents, helped by supporters in neighboring Pakistan, to break away from India.

Indian authorities say rebel violence has recently fallen to its lowest level since the anti-India revolt broke out in 1989, but Monday's clashes will be a reminder of how volatile the region can be.

At least six people were hurt in Kashmir's main city of Srinagar when police fired teargas at stone-throwing protesters enraged over the destruction of the 350-year-old wooden shrine that housed a relic of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jeelani, an 11^th century Sufi saint, police said. …

Muslim militants spearheading the anti-India campaign in Kashmir have in the past tried to enforce a radical form of Islam, banning beauty parlors, cinemas and liquor shops, as well as asking women to wear the veil.

But they have had little success in a region where people mostly follow Sufiism, a gentle, mystic tradition of Islam.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the years of strife in the region that both of the nuclear-armed rivals, India and Pakistan, claim. Pakistan controls part of Kashmir in the west. …

[AnAmericanAbroad]

Sufis (and Ahmaddiya) always seem to end up on the short end of the Salafists’ persecution stick.

Their shrines are torched, their adherents bumped off etc.

Salafists view Sufis as “idolators” and Ahmaddiya as outright heretics or blasphemers.

Sufis (and Ahmadiyya) view Salafists as straight from the bowels of Hell itself; a Sufi friend of mine called them “’....agents of the Devil.’” An Ahmaddiya friend had a much less charitable view.

In the entire Islamic fold, the Sufis and the Ahmaddiya have my sympathies. They are actively persecuted. And there is a profound difference between their respective theological interpretations and the rest of Islam.

[Pecos]

The apparent “logic” is that if there is a fire at a mosque, it must be an infidel plot. By my logic, Allah must have willed it. That’s what they say, right?

[Flintlock]

Pushback??

Or—mebbie the ‘peace’ when the umma is finally established; then it’ll be time for INTRA-muzzie warfare.

[Cronos]

ahmaddiyas believe in a prophet after Mo, hence they are the worse kind of heretics, along with Bahai's. Strangely enough they are the ones who first started looking for converts in the west

Sufis seem peaceful and ARE peaceful compared to Wahabbis, but they're still more violent than the average non-Moslem.