The Imperfect and Fake Spiritual Guide

There are many people who are not spiritual guides and have no knowledge about Sufi ways. They act like one just to plunder simple people and have made a profession out of it. They perform different tricks to aggrandize themselves.

Now a new category of fraudulent guides has become common, and they have made the shrines of Saints their den to entrap people. Every Thursday or Friday, they visit these sacred places with a few of their henchmen and sit among their followers.

In contrast to contemporary times, people in the past earnestly searched for a perfect spiritual guide. However, as materialism progressed, perfect guides concealed themselves from the world. This created a void which was capitalized by fake spiritual guides.

Remember, the so-called spiritualists who capture jinns and supernatural agents or do black magic are not spiritual guides. Rather, they are devils and accursed who have no relation with Islam.

The proper response to fake guides should have been that people had not followed them and rebuked the desires of self. Instead, they defamed the Saints and the path of Sufism. Consequently, people developed mistrust against Sufism.

Now even women claim the title of a spiritual guide. In Islam, women are not permitted to assume the throne of Divine guidance. According to sharia, women cannot even lead salat, how can they become the leader of the era or a spiritual guide!

I have personally travelled all over Pakistan and was astonished to find that people have been worshipping the descendants of a Saint for seven generations. Though these descendants have no understanding of Sufism, they have merely memorized a few of its teachings to deceive people.

Just as a sinful Muslim due to his vile acts cannot represent Islam, correspondingly a fake and imperfect spiritual guide cannot represent Faqr and Sufism. It is not right to blame pure religion Islam for the sinful acts of a few groups of Muslims.