Imran Ali Sandano

Sufism and Peace: a Counter Strategy of Extremism Imran Ali Sandano

In the polarized world of today, human being seems to be nomadic towards chaos, intolerance and violence. People are divided on the lines of religion, colour, race, language, faith, sects, caste creed and many other differences. In order to understand the problems of the modern era like growing trends of hostility, insecurity, extremism, and terrorism in our societies which have broken the social fabric. In this scenario, we need a comprehensive ideology to defeat these challenges and to bring the peace and harmony in the world. The Mystics or Sufis believe that God is ?Love? so the man created in His image should also be a symbol of love without hatred, bias and enmity. Their ideology does not oppose or reject to any other ideology, faith but its main ideal is to accept diversity and remove differences. Religious extremism in Pakistan is in the fold, but the majority in the country believes in religious tolerance and reconciliation. In this context, many people are in favour of the Sufi ideas or trends. The phenomenon of Sufism or Mysticism has been used as an approach to evade from hated and violent tendency to reorient our society back on the track to peace and prosperity.