[^1]: Editor’s Note: The word “orthodoxy” refers to “the...

📌[^1]: Editor’s Note: The word “orthodoxy” refers to “the traditional beliefs of a religious group which are considered normal and acceptable by most people.” When we say that most Muslim groups are “orthodox,” it means that they form part of mainstream Islām. It does not necessarily mean that the path they follow is perfectly straight. It merely means that they are within the main body of Islām as opposed to outside of it.

When the author and editor say that Sunnis are orthodox Muslims, they refer to those Muslims who followed the four first Caliphs and who always maintained their love and respect for ahl al-bayt. The author and editor do not consider the followers of Mu‘āwiyyah, Yazīd, and other despotic figures as ahl al-sunnah. When the author and editor say that Ṣūfis are orthodox, they refer to authentic Islāmic ‘irfān and not Pseudo-Ṣūfism.

The author and the editor are strongly opposed to the Pseudo-Ṣūfism which is currently spreading throughout the West and which operates as a type of fifth column within Islām. The author’s fieldwork has shown that some Bahā’ī groups cultivate a typo of Pseudo-Ṣūfism or Pseudo-‘irfān which is dangerous because they do not present themselves as a ṭarīqah al-‘irfāniyyah al-bahā’iyyah, but rather as a ṭarīqah al-‘irfāniyyah shī‘iyyah.

The purpose of such deception is to cause confusion in the minds of Westerners who seek to spiritually connect themselves with Shī‘ite ‘irfān. Neither the author nor the editor make any references to contemporary Ṣūfism, but rather to the traditional ‘irfān of Ibn al-‘Arabī, Sa‘dī of Shirāz, Ḥāfiẓ, Mullā Ṣadrā, and so forth.

📌[^2]: Author’s Note: For an insight into the crimes committed by Western mercenaries in Iraq, see the anonymously published review of Jeremy Scahill’s Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, which appeared in Crescent International in October of 2007. Previous…

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