In a recent discussion with an old friend from the eighties, he reminded me of another deeply insightful theory of our sheikh at the time,Sheikh Nazim.It went like this: ” There are two kinds of peoples-‘sheep people’ and ‘goat people”.At the time, he was referring to nations and he considered Turks(his own nation) and Arabs as sheep people who follow the group.Americans and British ,I believe, were the goat people.Everyone has his own way in those groups. Now, this model can be extended to any kind of group.

Almost all the Sufi tariqats are organized around the ‘sheep’ principle-with the possible exception of Pir Vilayat’s Sufi Order of the West.For example,my last tariqat Shadhiliya/Qassimiyat kept repeating the term”Itibaa” which means to follow -over and over again.This was considered the sine qua non of tariqat membership and the height of virtue.So what do you do with people like me-a quintessential goat!? We like to think things through,to observe and come to our own conclusions.That doesn’t mean that we don’t often agree with our spiritual teachers.In fact we learn intensely from them and respect them.But at times ,we see things differently.Even,as outrageous as that may seem to Sufi practitioners,sometimes we are right and the teacher is wrong.What do we do then?Often,we are forced to leave.

So now ,we have a tariqat made for goat people!We call it”Sufi Pilgrims’ Progress” although we may have to rename it “Sufi Pilgrims Process” as we cannot always guarantee progress, especially if the goat quality becomes so predominant that it paralyzes the murid and the group-one of the pitfalls on the way.

So ahlan all you goats.We can generally deal with you.You will protest,criticize , correct us and all the rest.We will accept you and love you nevertheless.But beware! If you get too ornery and too obstructive we may have to ask you to reconsider your membership.We will then have to refer you to another tariqat of pure rebels.Or we will suggest you join some political group or therapy group where you can work off some of your aggression before rejoining us(Remember the bio-psycho-socio-spiritual model.Sometimes we have to give priority to other dimensions besides the spiritual).Salaams,Ibrahim and looking forward to the journey!