Spór o interpretację. Krytyka sufizmu z pespektywy salafizmu
A Dispute Over Interpretation: A Critique of Sufism from a Salafist Perspective

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this paper will be to compare two extremely opposite movementswithin Islam – Sufism and Salafism, and more specifically to analyze one of them from theperspective of the representatives of the latter. As we shall see, this is essentially a dis-pute within theological hermeneutics, in which two models of interpretation meet. Oneemphasizes the validity of a literal interpretation of the text, while the other emphasizesan invention-based, spiritual, subjective interpretation. The latter model of interpretationis appropriate to Sufi mysticism. Defining Sufism and Salafism by contrasting them toofficial currents in Islam is not entirely appropriate. In the case of Sufism and Salafism,we are not dealing with factions of Islam, but with different interpretations of it, since thedifference between them lies not in the difference of professed dogmas, which are fixed andunchangeable, but in lifestyle and philosophy. It is a clash between orthodox fundamen-talism and mysticism. I base my work on the fatwas of ‘Abd al-Azīz ibn Bāz, a Saudi clericand former grand mufti of Saudi Arabia.

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