Shadee Elmasry – Blogging Theology on Different Sunni Groups

You came into Islam. How have you navigated the different

contentious? I should say groups within medicine I'm not going to

say sects, the groups

that hold one another erroneous within the Sunnah.

Alison, how have you navigated that? You know, sometimes that's a

problem for people. Yeah, it was for me I have I have journeyed

from different positions. And I've now reached a position which I'm

fairly comfortable with. I came into Islam through the door of

Sufism. So through guidance work, a lot of British Muslims become

Muslim through Salafism and I didn't, but through Sufism, and I

was quite happy there for some time actually been quite anti

Salafi, I picked up that virus, just because it seemed part of the

package.

And then because of an event several years ago, a very

traumatic event, really, I'm not going to go into here, but

a couple of Salafi friends of mine

basically saved my faith.

And I said, look at the issues because

this is not the right program for this.

And I gained an appreciate and again, something you yourself

might perhaps approve of, or many others, but nevertheless, it's why

I where I'm at, I gained a positive appreciation for many

aspects of Salafi the Salafi outlook.

And whether it be the Aqeedah whether it be the handling madhhab

identify as a family

and so on as a methodology of the salad.

But particularly since the my work on BT, I found myself because I

can't, I can't be although some people would like me to be I can't

be confessional on the channel, I can't say, Well, you shouldn't be

X mister Muslim, you should follow this school or that school I can't

do it is simply wrong. That's not what I do.

So I've grown to have a very, I find myself agreeing with many

positions and having a positive appreciation of them. Many people

will think these positions are irreconcilable. So actually, in

some ways, I'm quite pro Sufi, I don't mean all Sufi practices, but

the earlier ones I you know, the self purification the ones I can

really guide and who was a Sufi instead appreciate him.

I can also be very pro Salafi and appreciate what some, you know, a

lot of Salafi works. So I find and when it comes to the, the rulers,

I can be quite appreciate, like his book Toria, you know, which

is, you know, very much in favor of a caliphate. And I'm a strong

believer in the caliphate actually now, as it really key issue for us

today. And also understand those who oppose this kind of so called,

you know, the whole issues. So I find myself actually affirming an

awful lot and denying very little. And I said to a friend of mine

recently, you know, I'm just being consistent on time. And they said,

no, no, this is fine. You can it's the other people who think you

can't appreciate the positive aspects of these things that

aren't there's not a good place to be. And so I, I affirm a lot of

Sufism, affirm a lot of Salafi thought I agree with the Aqeedah,

the Salafi, etc, etc. Even though formally these groups that self

identify, yeah, maybe very hostile to each other. So Sufis may hate

selfies, selfies may sit, make massively over generalized

statements about Sufism, and SMIS. it all? I don't agree with that.

So I'm actually quite affirming of that I do have do you have a line?

By the way, I don't affirm modernism. I don't think of

liberalism at all. So I guess I'm strictly orthodox in my Outlook.

But within that I have quite a broad understanding of what I

think is positive. I think in the long term, having a very

nasty heart towards groups. In the long term. It just hurts you. It's

one thing to have an opinion. But it's another thing that let that

root so deeply in a person's heart that they have such a hatred.

It's one thing to sort of dismiss opinions that you disagree with,

but that's an opinion and it's not a person. Imam Massoud had dead

he, he had opinions. He was a scholar. Everyone knows his

opinions. But he also had a teaching that he wanted all of his

misdeeds all of his disciples to have a clean heart towards all

Muslims. And I think that in the long term is extremely important

to keep someone's Iman you see a lot of people who came off who

fell off is because they almost were their hearts were at war with

other groups and eventually, that never leads to anything good.