We rightly hear much about the travails of Coptic Christians and the like at the hands of ascendant Islam, much less about the fate of many Sufis. Their genealogy was almost guaranteed to cause affront to the narrow-minded: an asceticism influenced by Christian desert hermits and orders of wandering mendicant friars — the derivation of dervishes-and a mystical piety that Abraham, son of Maimonedes, transmitted into — Judaism. That their religious practices have a strong element of joy — dancing, drums, tambourines and hymn singing — is further powerful incitement to the puritanical killjoys of radical Islam.
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