re: #147 Dr Lizardo

You’ll find both Sunni and Shi’a Sufis; the problems get started when overly-dogmatic and narrow-minded kooks get on their high horses and start pontificating.

Sufism is still pretty strong in Turkey, actually, as well as in the Turkish diaspora in Europe. The Sufis are also quite good at making converts - many of the Sufis at the Sufi centers I went to in Germany were ethnic German converts - in one of the centers, they were the majority. I know they’re setting up shop in Prague now as well, so we’ll have to see how that goes.

The “Happy” video is probably far more representative of the average British Muslim than people like Anjem Choudary. Are there Muslims who think dancing is wrong? Yes, there are. It probably wouldn’t take me long to find Christians & Jews who think it’s wrong too, if I cared to go looking.

This is where people like Hirsi Ali, Geller, et al cause the most damage. They create fear & suspicion by painting all Muslims with the brush of extremism. I mean, FFS, I wish people understood that 99% of us don’t sit at home cursing the West and plotting how we’re going to defeat the infidels. We work, cook dinner, bake pies (like VB), do chores, exercise, and, yes, sometimes we even dance! The last time a close Muslim friend of mine was here visiting, we spent hours playing music from the ’70s, singing along & dancing around like lunatics.

I wish more people understood that it’s really not astonishing in the least.