Noor: Examining the basic materials about the Blaketashi Darwishes, including the 1894 fatwa, the references to your group made by various sources, such as Joseph Stalin, the connection between your organization and Idries Shah, and the materials included on your website, I can only conclude that the Blaketashi Darwish organization is some kind of Malamati expression.

Qutb: Yes. Very perceptive. That’s correct.

Noor: Um. I….uh… thought that if one was a Malamati, one was never supposed to admit that one was ‘on the path of blame?’ Doesn’t Idries Shah say, for example, that anyone who implies that they’re on the path of blame is a fraud?

Qutb: Nice catch, again. The Blaketashi Darwishes are indeed fraudulent Malamatis.

(rustling)

Noor: I’m sorry, but let’s hold on a moment. Are you simply trying to recover your blameworthiness, after the faux pas of admitting it in the first place?

Qutb: Insolence! I am Whitman Eliot Blake, Qutb of the Blaketashi Darwishes, and a man of integrity. If I assure you that I am a fraud, you may rely on such assurances.

Noor: But…

Qutb: If you conclude that I am a fraud, or am not a fraud, will you in any case continue to interview me? Or must you conclude what we represent before beginning?

Noor: No, I will still interview you, at least for my own education about the world…

Qutb: Then you may proceed.

Noor: Okay then. I won’t beat around the bush. Your organization claims to be a Sufic one, but in looking at all the materials about the Blaketashis, I find scant reference to the Prophet (PBUH) or to the Qur’an. How can this be, when Sufism is the inner dimension of Islam?

Qutb: Well, the reason why we make such sparse reference is due to our conviction that Sufism is the inner aspect of Anglicanism. (Noor’s veil trembled.)

Noor: I’m sorry but that’s…. nonsense. There is no historical basis for thinking that the Sufis are anything other than Moslem. Why even the etymology of the word Soof….

Qutb: Okay, we’re not Sufis.

Noor: Beg pardon?

Qutb: We’re not Sufis. Happy now?

Noor: I… I don’t understand.

Qutb: If a word stands in the way of our discussion, we are not Sufis. Having clarified matters for you, I suspect that you no longer have much interest in us. You are, after all, interested in Sufism, are you not? I mean, we are not Moslem…… well, most of us are not, although my Khalifa is…….and I have just admitted we are not Sufis, so I suppose your purpose here is ended.

(a cough)

Noor: Your Khalifa is Moslem?

Qutb: Yes. Stevens Coleridge Donne. Is Moslem.

Noor: Perhaps……perhaps Allah is trying to lead you, by the example of your own Khalifa’s conversion….."

Qutb: As far as I know, Stevens has never converted. He’s an Arab fellow. Born Abdur Rahim Hossein or something like that. And while he’s taken a Blaketashi name, he still does the five-time-a-day thing. Doesn’t drink beer during the day during Ramadan.

Noor: He drinks beer!

Qutb: I said he was Moslem. I did not say that he was a good Moslem.

Noor: Still, he is a Moslem. I thought you said that the Sufism of the Blaketashi Darwish is the inner dimension of Anglicanism?

Qutb: Of course. But it is also the inner dimension of all major world religions, and many of the minor ones as well. In that aspect, we are non-denominational.

Noor: I think that that is highly presumptuous on your part, and quite unlikely. That Islam and Anglicanism have the same inner dimension!

Qutb: I find it interesting that when people discover God, they have great joy. But people, being people, are also greedy. After a while, people become greedy about God, jealous of others, and it is not enough that they have joy in Him. They also need to deprive others of Him in order to amplify their own joy. Which is why you seek to deny that the several different expressions can have the same inner aspects, is it not?

Noor: I consider that to be blasphemy.