In Search of the Divine: How Sufism Offers Hope in a Time of Extremism

By New Age Islam Staff Writer 17 October 2025 Summary: In Search of the Divine is more than a book; it's a reminder. In a divided world divided by ideas, Sufism becomes a bridge — connecting people, religions, and the human and the divine. Rana Safvi defines the real miracle of the Sufi saints as something other than tales of flying and curing people. The real miracle is that their message — of love, humility, and helping others — continues to reach hearts in the 21st century. ----- In the narrow streets of Delhi, Ajmer, and Gulbarga, where the scent of rose petals blends with the melody of Qawwali songs, a vibrant spiritual realm exists. It's no realm of slogans and high attitude, but one of love — Ishq. In Search of the Divine: Living Histories of Sufism in India, writer and historian Rana Safvi takes the reader on a personal and historical tour through that vibrant spiritual realm — the realm of Indian Sufism. Released in 2022, the book is more than a travel narrative. It also tries to comprehend why the ancient tradition of Sufism in India remains so significant while religion has become a struggle in so many places. Safvi's travels begin not only in ancient chronicles or dusty literature but in the courtyards of shrines, where Muslims and Hindus gather in the thousands in search of balm, solace, and cure. At a time when politicised and extremist branches of Islam are everywhere in the papers, Safvi's book silently but convincingly reminds us that there's another Islam — one that sings, hugs, forgives, and brings people together. A Pilgrimage Across Centuries and Sanctuaries Safvi writes like a devotee in pursuit of meaning, and not like a tourist. She travels to shrines all over India — from the big Dargah of the great Ajmer saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Rajasthan to small, unknown Khanqahs in villages. What each Dargah must have — and it can't be all about the saints and the miracles — are the people with their tears, with prayers, and with thanks. The book combines history, architecture, poetry, and personal reflection. Safvi outlines how Sufism reached India through saints who migrated from Persia and Central Asia in the 11th and 13th centuries. They came armed not with swords but with melodies. They spoke of God as the Beloved (Mahbub), faith as love (Ishq-E-Haqiqi), and worship as serving others (Khidmat). The Chishti saints in Delhi, such as Hazrat Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki, Baba Farid and Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya developed a form of Islam which reached the soul of Indians. The Khanqahs were no arenas for politics, but locations for eating and drinking, poetry and conversation. Safvi informs us that this was a spiritual democracy well before the democracies in the modern age were instituted. Anybody — rich or poor, Hindu or Muslim, king or mendicant — could visit and sit together in the same floor. In her pages, we encounter figures such as Amir Khusrau, the poet who introduced music and pictures to Indian Sufism, and Rabia al-Basri, the seventh-century Basra mystic who discussed divine love even earlier than Rumi. The book tells the story of how the fluid tradition that we call Sufism migrated, evolved, and intertwined with the multiple cultures of India. Sufism as Living Tradition One of the loveliest aspects of In Search of the Divine is the way it presents Sufism as something vibrant, and not merely part of the past. Safvi describes the qawwali music at Hazrat Nizamuddin's Dargah, the scent of incense at Golconda, and people attaching threads of hope on adorned walls. These are more than tourist details. They are signs of persistence — evidence that in the modern global age, people still flock to the shrines of the Sufis in search of something that technology and money cannot provide: inner calm. Safvi's writing is tender and gentle. She speaks with caretakers, qawwals, and pilgrims, relating their tales of piety and suffering. People search the Dargah hoping for relief from pain—emotional, physical, or supernatural. A mother supplicates for a job for her son; a man expresses gratitude for having the saint cure him; a young woman weeps silently, forehead leaning against the marble. At such points, the book by Safvi resembles the diary of a concerned person more than that of a historian. She refers to Sufism as a "living history," which is the title the book deserves. Those shrines are not history museums; they are sites of faith still experimenting with devotion and love. A History of Inclusion The big idea in Safvi's book is that Sufism brought together disparate groups in India for centuries. Centuries before the term "syncretism" ever appeared in textbooks, Sufi saints were practising it. What they taught was inclusive of Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims alike. In Ajmer, the Dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, also referred to as Gharib Nawaz or "the benefactor of the poor," is the only site in India where distinctions such as caste, religion, and social class are nullified. Hindus bind threads, Sikhs offer chadars, and Muslims recite fatiha together. That inclusivist attitude, says Safvi, was the reason why Sufism became so deeply ingrained in India. It spoke the people's language. It spoke in metaphors and poetry, and music with which the Indian listened. The Sufis never demanded conversion; they brought the message of love. At a moment when global Islam seems typically fractured along the lines of "moderate" and "extremist," Safvi's India demonstrates that for centuries there existed a different kind — the plural, local, humane Islam. Sufism and the Contemporary Crisis in Faith Safvi's book arrives at a moment when Islamist extremism is damaging the image of Islam globally. Organisations pretending to defend Islam have misappropriated it for fear, domination, and politics. To such organisations, religion only exists for the sake of domination. Sufism is very different from that. It is not about having control; it is about letting go. The Quranic verse that Sufis often quote says: "فَأَيْنَمَا تُوَلُّوا فَثَمَّ وَجْهُ اللَّهِ" — “Wherever you turn, there is the face of God.” (Qur’an 2:115) This describes the way the Sufis experience the world — God's everywhere, not only in some book of law or in a mosque. Safvi's account demonstrates that Sufism provides the answer to a question that extremism does not: How does it feel to experience God, rather than obey Him? Where the extremist derives order from violence, the Sufi derives peace from remembrance (dhikr). Where the extremist demands compliance, the Sufi resides in the richness of diversity. Where the extremist divides, the Sufi unites. The Power of Love Over Fear Throughout the book, one message echoes: Love is stronger than fear. Sufis have also always preached that fear of God (Khauf) must be replaced with love of God (Ishq). Religion for them isn't about retribution but about a desire for proximity with God. In the famous Sufi Rumi's own words: "Your love is the connection between you and everything." Safvi shows the ways in which the love language changed the religiosity in India. Poets like Bulleh Shah, Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, and Khwaja Banda Nawaz Gesudaraz used regional languages — Punjabi, Sindhi, Urdu, Dakhani — in order to popularise divine love among the people. This love was real. It showed itself through helping others — giving food to the hungry, providing shelter for travellers, and comforting those who are heartbroken. On the other hand, extreme views of Islam, focused on control and purity, allow little space for love or kindness. Sufism focuses on compassion and recognising the divine spark in every person. This is the best cure against such beliefs. Sufism's Moral Revolution Safvi also discusses an excellent point that rarely comes up in current-day debates: Sufism does not conflict with Islamic law (Shari’ah), but rather reinforces it. It breathes life into the regulations. Rather than restricting others with the law, the way the extremists do, the law guides the person with Sufism. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said: "الإحسان أن تعبد الله وكأنك تر "Ihsan means to worship God as if you can see Him." (Hadith, Sahih Muslim) This idea of Ihsan — doing things well and sincerely — is the heart of Sufism. It makes obedience feel close and faith feel beautiful. Safvi's book demonstrates that the problem lies not with Islam, but with the loss of its intrinsic spirituality. When religion loses its beauty, it becomes an idea. When it loses gentleness, it breeds cruelty. A Counter-Narrative Against Extreme In a fear-gripped world that fears Islam, In Search of the Divine narrates a different story — one that acknowledges the pain of the day but strives to mend the same through remembrance. Safvi does not preach politics; she presents lives. But through those lives, a quiet politics emerges — a politics of coexistence. When a Hindu woman lights a lamp in a Dargah, or an indigent person feels respected in the Dargah's kitchen, it thwarts all the extremists who speak that religion should divide humankind. Sufism wins the day over extremism, not with argument but with example. Its strength lies in its patience. It invites and does not impose. It hears and does not bellow. As Nizamuddin Auliya once put it, and widely quoted by Safvi: The lights are different, but the light intensity does not change. Why Sufism Matters Today For young Muslims looking to balance faith with contemporary living, Sufism provides a means to reconcile. It allows one to be religious without being fanatical and spiritual without being excessively superstitious. For non-Muslims who fear Islam because of the news, Sufism opens another door — one that smells of roses and echoes with poetry, not bombs. Safvi's writing demonstrates to us that Islam in its very nature was never a political catchword. It was a journey inwards. The saints whom she discusses were reformers in their own right: they battled against pride, not against armies; they conquered hearts, not lands. In this respect, In Search of the Divine isn't merely history — it's possibility. It proposes that the cure for hate isn't argument, but adoration; isn't force, but lyric; isn't segregation, but identification. A Few Honest Reflections The book also has some restrictions. Some people may believe that Safvi only portrays the positive aspects of Sufism. She does not discuss much about the negative aspects of the shrine culture, such as commercialisation and exploitation of religion, and corruption among caretakers at times. Maybe that isn't its purpose. Its book isn't a history of the Sufi orders; it's an encomium to the tradition of Sufism itself. And in that regard, she succeeds. Her work is well-grounded, her writing passionate, and her tone extremely humane. The Message of the Book Ultimately, In Search of the Divine isn't the search for Sufism so much — it's the search for the divine in one's own self. Safvi's journey to shrines rebounds in the face of the reader, making them ask questions like: What does it even mean to be spiritual in a divided world? How does love become sustainable in the face of politics and hate? Her reply, born from centuries of Indian Sufi philosophy, becomes quite simple: with compassion, with beauty, with humility. She puts it thus: "Every Dargah that I went to made me remember that divinity is not in a prayer mat; it is in human goodness." That's the crux of her message. Conclusion: A Faith that Heals In Search of the Divine is more than a book; it's a reminder. In a divided world divided by ideas, Sufism becomes a bridge — connecting people, religions, and the human and the divine. Rana Safvi defines the real miracle of the Sufi saints as something other than tales of flying and curing people. The real miracle is that their message — of love, humility, and helping others — reaches hearts till date in the 21st century. Extremism might say it defends Islam, but Sufism shows how Islam can help humanity. So long as qawwals sing in the courtyards of Dargahs and lamps burn in front of saints' shrines, the word of divine love shall survive amidst the din of hate. And perhaps that's the divine that Safvi sought — not up in the heaven above, but in the hearts where people still think the best kind of faith is love. URL: https://www.newageislam.com/books-documents/divine-sufism-hope-extremism/d/137285 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism