The view from the Al-Qatrawani shrine, a stop along the Sufi Trail in the village of 'Atara in the West Bank. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours/IPS

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
DEIR GHASSANEH, Occupied West Bank, May 17 2013 (IPS)

A reddish-brown dome sits atop an ancient stone house, used hundreds of years ago for prayer. It peeks out from the surrounding trees as the rolling green valleys and hills of the central West Bank stretch out into the distance.

This shrine, known as the Al-Khawass shrine, sits 540 metres above sea level in the Palestinian village of Deir Ghassaneh. It is one of several stops along the Sufi trail, which begins in the valley below and takes visitors and locals alike back in time to when Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, was widespread in the area.

“I want foreigners to know Palestinian culture, our culture. And I want Palestinians to take [steadfastness] from it. This is your home. Be proud of the land, of the homeland,” explained Rafat Jamil, director of tours and a guide at the Rozana Association.

Based in the West Bank town of Birzeit, near Ramallah, Rozana works to restore and refurbish historical Palestinian buildings and strengthen Palestinian cultural heritage. The organisation also established three Sufi trails in the central and northern West Bank.

Participants on the one-day hikes along these trails see half a dozen shrines along the way and take in the distinct landscape of the area. Markers painted every 30 to 40 metres in the colours of the Palestinian flag – red, green, white – tell hikers they’re on the right path.

The West Bank has about 600 Sufi shrines, including some that date back over 800 years, according to Jamil. Many were built during periods of Mamluk and Ottoman rule over historic Palestine.

“There is a struggle over history. For the Israelis, nothing is Palestinian, just Jewish and Israeli. The idea is to get people to talk about the history of Palestine, and want to see shrines or old homes from the Roman and Byzantine and Ottoman periods,” Jamil told IPS.

“Israelis say that all the culture here is theirs. But when people come, they see something else.”"Israelis say that all the culture here is theirs. But when people come, they see something else."
-- Rafat Jamil

Alternative tourism in Palestine is not a new phenomenon. Dozens of organisations lead tours in the West Bank and Jerusalem, including political day trips, homestays with Palestinian families, olive harvesting, and arts and cultural heritage festivals.

But the gradual expansion and development of walking paths in the occupied territories is something that Palestinians hope will draw them both tourism and international support.

“We want to bring tourism to areas that never had tourism and bring a good economic impact to the community,” explained Michel Awad, executive director and co-founder of the Siraj Centre, a non-profit tour operator based in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem.

If people spend more time in the Palestinian territories, “they will leave with a real understanding of the Palestinian cause and become advocates for justice in their countries”, Awad added.

The Siraj Centre organizes walking, biking and political tours for international visitors throughout the West Bank. These include the Nativity Trail, a path winding from Nazareth to Bethlehem thought to follow in the footsteps of Jesus’ parents, Joseph and Mary, or the Abraham Paths, spanning about 170 kilometres from Nablus to Hebron.

Awad told IPS that Israeli tour operators handle most religious pilgrimage tours – a booming business in the Holy Land – even if these tours go to sites in Palestinian areas. Tourists often visit holy sites in Bethlehem, only to return at night to Israeli-run hotels in Jerusalem, for example.

As a result, community-based tourism is an alternative to these religious tours and plays to Palestinians’ strengths. Israelis can’t compete because these hikes encompass much more than just a walking tour, Awad said. “It’s meeting the community and meeting families. It’s totally different.”

Palestinian village and town councils provide input and direction for Siraj Centre’s walking tours, and families regularly host participants for lunch or overnight stays. Families that cook lunch for participants during weekly walking excursions, for instance, receive 40 Israeli shekels per person they host.

“Our aim is to create a new experiential tourism in Palestine that allows travellers to experience Palestinian hospitality and encounter the many landscapes. We want to create a new type of tourism that is in touch with local communities and brings benefits to the rural areas directly,” Awad said.

From January to June 2012, approximately 3.5 million visits were made to tourist sites in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT), according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, and most visits took place in the Bethlehem governorate.

But hiking in Palestine does more than just generate tourism.

“We love the landscape: the stones, the trees, everything. It is a breath of fresh air, literally,” said Bassam Al Mohor, a photographer and member of Shat-ha hiking collective, based in Ramallah.

Each Friday, Shat-ha organises hikes in different areas of the West Bank, and occasionally to places inside Israel, Jordan, or abroad. The hikes are not difficult, free of charge, and generally last from the early morning to early afternoon.

The group tends to target local Palestinians, although international visitors are welcome, as it aims to connect Palestinian city-dwellers with their counterparts in rural villages and towns, strengthening the bonds between people and their homeland.

“The landscape in the West Bank is shrinking, vanishing, dying slowly. It’s mainly because of the occupation. If we come close to settlements, we risk being attacked. It’s really sad to see tracks that we’ve been walking nicely suddenly off limits for us,” Al Mohor explained.

“But when you walk and see old stone houses or terraces or old towns, as a traveller, what first attracts you is that heritage. We never knew that nature could be like this. You can lose yourself in this.”

Shaykh Hisham Kabbani speaks in front of tens of thousands of followers in Jakarta. Credit Muhammad Revaldi/IPS

By Alexandra Di Stefano Pironti
JAKARTA, Jan 4 2013 (IPS)

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, has found a deterrent to Islamic fundamentalists: they dress conservatively, sport short beards and Islamic caps and emulate the ways of the Prophet Muhammad.

But unlike the fundamentalists, and a seething underground of militants who have not shied from using violence to advance their views, the look-alikes are mystic Sufis who are spreading love.

“The conflict among religions is based in politics, and we don’t mix with this. Prophet Mohammed teaches love and my (spiritual) master has taught me tolerance,” said 35-year-old Indonesian photographer Muhammad Revaldi, who is among a growing number of Sufis.

“The government gives support to Sufis because they are afraid of fundamentalists,” Rivaldi told IPS, adding that most important Sufi gatherings he attends in Indonesia usually host officials from the police, military and other government agencies.

Fundamentalist movements have been mushrooming in Indonesia since the 1980s, part of a global trend rooted in growing public frustration over corruption, nepotism and an indifference by governments in Muslim countries toward poverty and growing Western influence.

Two terrorist attacks in Indonesia’s tourist haven of Bali in 2002 and 2005, killing more than 200 people, intensified the government’s determination to combat fundamentalism, not only through a crackdown by security forces, but also through a softer weapon: Sufi Islam.

Sufism is the mystical expression of Islam and seeks the knowledge and closeness of God in this lifetime. Followers of Sufism, who trace their roots to Prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law Ali, believe in the unity of existence and respect for other religions.

During a large Muslim Sufi gathering in East Java last January, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono praised the Sufi approach to Islam, saying it was religious, calm and a suitable way of dealing with disputes, conflicts and clashes in society and the nation.

Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) – which has some 40 million followers, enjoys a cosy relationship with the government and opposes Islamic extremism – has been a pillar for Sufi organisations or tariqas. In July 2011, it organised an international gathering that attracted more than 10,000 Sufi followers.

The government supports Sufism “as an alternative to radical Islam”, Indonesian scholar Jalaluddin Rakhmat, a university professor and writer who has a large following among the country’s upper class, told IPS.

“Political Islam has brought out… conflicts within the community. People of high education – open to diverse Islamic schools of thought – need the real Islam, the inner dimension of Islam that unites not only the community of Islamic countries but also humankind, regardless of religions,” said Rakhmat.

He said that most such people live in Indonesian cities and belong to the economic upper class.

“Indonesian Islam is moderate due to the role played by Sufism,” Rakhmat said. He added that the revival of Islamic mysticism in Indonesia coincided with the resurgence of local Indonesian mysticism – known as Aliran Kebatinan – during the reign of President Suharto, whose 31-year dictatorial regime ended in 1998.

“Suharto had been very much inclined to Javanese mysticism. He even passed a decree recognising Aliran Kebatinan as part of Indonesian religiosity, having equal status as other main world religions,” Rakhmat said.

“The then economic situation – owing to the oil boom in the 1980s – had given birth to a group of nouveau riche, seeking ‘spiritual serenity’. It was at that time that Sufi study groups were mushrooming in big cities, particularly Jakarta,” he added.

Sufis “are more concerned about the purification of the self than rituals,” said Rakhmat.

When, 15 years ago, Revaldi was in search of answers to questions about his faith, he came across Shaykh Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi master from the Naqshbandi Haqqani order who was visiting Indonesia.

“I went to document a religious event and my master talked about how our ego or egotistical feelings disappear under the light of the guidance of a master. In the Sufi path people think we have to leave everything but everything is Sufism,” said Revaldi.

Revaldi, like many other Sufis, dresses as Muslims did in the times when Prophet Muhammad was alive 1,300 years ago. It is the same style that is also favoured by Muslim radicals.

When Revaldi was traveling to Bali soon after the 2005 terrorist attacks, the passengers and crew on the plane reacted to him with horror, fearing he could be carrying a bomb.

But contrary to radical Islam, Revaldi believes in patience, not violence.

“A student who wanted to join the circle of our master was asked to clean each of the leaves of the trees of our garden, just to master patience,” Ibu Yati, a woman from the same Sufi order as Revaldi, told IPS.

“Our master teaches compassion and understanding, while fundamentalists judge people,” added Ibu Yati, a graduate in public policy who for many years worked as a government official.

”Islam in Indonesia is very beautiful, it has many varieties and is very tolerant,” said Mustafa Daood, the lead vocalist of Debu, a Sufi band that sings mystical Islamic poetry and whose members – mostly family – moved to Indonesia from the United States in 1999.

Debu, which in the Indonesian language means “dust”, interprets the songs of the patriarch of the family, Sufi master Shaykh Fattaah, who back in the United States had a vision to bring all his family to Indonesia.

At the family homes in Cinere, a suburb south of Jakarta, Fattaah composes mystical songs in nine languages, including Indonesian. His works, like those of the famous Iranian mystic and poet Jalaludin Rumi, speak of love, compassion and the unity of all creation.

(END)