Can Sufism help fight back Wahhabism?

I’m reading a book on Soufism, by Amadou Hampaté Bâ: Vie et enseignement de Tierno Bokar. It’s been translated into English as A Spirit of Tolerance: The Inspiring Life of Tierno Bokar.

The author, born in 1901 to an aristocratic Peul family in Bandiagara, Sudan Occidental (modern Mali), was both educated traditionally (Quranic school) and forced to attend the French colonial school system called the Schools of Hostages, because their pupils were the sons of noble families forced into formal scolarisation, all the while they were kept hostage so their fathers would not rebel against the French authorities…

In 1933, he studied with Cheikh Tierno Bokar from the Tijaniyya Sufi order, who became his spiritual leader.

Bâ held several posts in the colonial administration in Ouagadougou and Bamako. He later became a significant West African historian and writer, UNESCO head, etc. What’s interesting in his profile is his capacity to express in excellent modern French the teachings of a mystic who spoke Fullani and lived a small Sahelian village in the 30’s, from the perspective of the culture he lived in rather than as a foreign ethnographer would. The first part of the book is a biography of Tierno Bokar’s life and the second part presents his teachings.

The teachings are essentially that one should love God’s creation in all its diversity, including one’s enemies. E.g. the following Quranic verse is quoted in the context of a discussion of how Allah loves the unfaithful (i.e. us westerners):

The diversity of your languages and of your colors are wonders [signs, lessons] for those who think. (Sura XXX, verse 22).

It’s all very “Gospel-compatible” but more articulate, more rationally explained than in the Gospels. The book constantly derides the literalists and the narrow-minded among the immediate environment of Bokar, and even among fellow clerics from the same Tijan Sufi order. While Bokar spent his life teaching others about Islam and God, he was brought down by his countrymen’s jealousy, tribalism, and deliberate refusal to understand his message. And yet the message seems to be genuinely rooted in Mohammad’s prophecy.

Bokar’s teaching was very different from what Islam is sadly known for today: sectarian hatred, honor killings, jihad, etc. To me the book works as a great antidote to the “temptation of revenge” after the Nice Bastille day massacre. It soothes my anger… and gives me much to think about.

Sufism is a thousand year tradition(s), but unfortunately it is now retreating from the world’s stage. The book explains that Wahhabism – the fundamentalist version of Islam spread by Saudi Arabia across the world and inspiring most of today’s Islamic terrorism – has always been a steadfast enemy of Sufism, right from Wahhabism start in the late 19th century. Recently, when Al Qaeda and co took over Timbuktu in northern Mali, they destroyed many of the city’s tombs of Sufi saints.

So now I am thinking of how the western world should love its enemies, rather than make war with them… How we could support a cure to Wahhabism (which I consider a dangerous form of fascism) from within the religion, and whether Sufism could play that role.

The downside with Sufism is that it is old, traditional, not “modern” and quite magic-oriented. There are secret names of Allah, for instance, which are considered very powerful. Not sure all this can speak to modern kids. Somebody would need to propose a dusted-off version, I guess.

Another question is: is there anything Westerners or ME regimes can do to support a revival of Sufism, without appearing as manipulative?