As part of a scholarly and spiritual tour of Southeast Asia, the International Academic Center for Sufi and Aesthetic Studies in Fez took part, through its president Sheikh Dr. Aziz El Kobaiti Idrissi Al-Hassani, in the international scholarly conference hosted by the Republic of Indonesia under the theme "Reviving Sufi Teachings for the Unity of the Ummah and the Establishment of Peace".
The Center presented a lecture entitled "Sufi Tazkiya and Its Role in Achieving the Middle Way and Remedying the Deviations of Contemporary Religiosity". It examined the imbalances of religious life today, a weak moral foundation and a distorted understanding of religion, which can lead to extremism and rigidity on one side and to laxity and moral decay on the other, and showed how tazkiya and a Sunni Sufism grounded in the Qur'an and the Sunna can address them.
The lecture held that a sound understanding of religion rests on bringing together the outward and the inward, the Sharia and the Haqiqa, knowledge and practice, through the purification of the soul and the cultivation of Prophetic character. It highlighted the role of dhikr, spiritual education and the company of a qualified spiritual guide in protecting people from intellectual and behavioural deviation.
It concluded with concrete proposals: giving tazkiya and the spiritual path a place in academic curricula, renewing Sufi and religious discourse to speak to our time, training scholars and preachers in both outward knowledge and inner refinement, and building educational programmes for young people that root tolerance and moderation and guard them against extremism and moral decay.
Since arriving in Malaysia and Indonesia, the Sheikh has been warmly received by those who love him and by his students there.
May God accept this work as sincerely for His sake, and make it of benefit to the religion and the Ummah, in service of the middle way, ihsan, love and peace.
