gujjubond, on 09 June 2012 - 02:13 AM, said:
" the future's bright. The future's Sunni! "
If we stick with the path of ahlu sunnah wal jamah .. The path of majority of ummah, the path of tolerance of other views, then the future is bright and the future is sunni. But if we adopt the way of takfiri , the way of barelwism, then the future is dark. Because Salafi are leading in the west in the name of ahlu sunnah wal jamah, and we have become grave worshipper sect as they like to call us..
I am staunch follower of alahazrat but today those who claim to be his descendent has turned this great path into takfiri sect.. Which is duplicate of Salafi Wahhabi in their behaviour and attitude..
brother it's not fair to equate 'the way of takfiri' = 'the way of barelwism' -- yes, there are SOME of our sunni-barelwis who are very hasty in accusing others of doing kufr/throwing people out of sunnism and have restricted who is a Sunni to only themselves but the vast majority of 'Barelwis' are still tolerant of difference of opinion. At the same time calling a spade a spade is not being intolerant. e.g. criticising the "Hare Rama Hare Krishna" shenanigans of Dr. Tahir ul Qadri sahib's infamous Wembley conference doesn't make one a 'takfiri. 'I'd say more of the intolerance of difference of opinion comes from India and Pakistan rather than in the UK. It certainly isn't fair to say that we Sunnis have become grave worshippers'. that IS slander since NO Muslim by definition worships graves. Even if some ignorant villager in India or Pakistan bows to a grave you cannot call him a grave worshipper because it depends on his niyyah and if you asked him or her I bet they would all say 'we worship Allah'. Doing such an haram act doesn't equate to grave worshiping!
Come on brother, that's the kind of simplistic nonsense a Salafi would come up with!
At the same time, you are right that in the UK, despite their vastly smaller numbers, Salafis (and Deobandis) are much more organised and successful in attracting the youth to their brand of Islam. We're stuck in arguments from 19th/early 20th century India
which Joe Average doesn't care about at all. Having said that, alhamdulillah, there are a lot of youngsters who are coming up who have been inspired by the likes of Shaykh Hamza and Shaykh Abdul Hakim Murad and Shaykh Yaqoubi to go to traditional Muslim madrassahs and come back and teach the same message as that of Ala Hazrat and all the Sufis of real Islam. But youth're right--we Sunnis from Desistan need to do more. In my opinion the only really successful institute we have in the UK is Jamia al Karam.
The others have loads!
And although we have many Sunni satellite channels they need to be united and in English to have an impact. I've said it before, I love listening to Urdu and Punjabi but most of the youth in the UK (youth = < 30) would prefer all programming in English so why not pool the resources and have one channel broadcasting 24/7 in Urdu and Punjabi and another one 24/7 in English only. For example, Noor TV Urdu and Noor TV English or Ummah English etc.?