SUFI. A Faith Based Organization

SUFI (Spiritual Union for Institution) is a faith based organization founded on the principle of Maizbhandari spiritualism and philosophy of universal love.   Maizbhandari spiritualism has emerged in the beginning of 19th century to give disgruntle Muslims a new sense of direction toward religious plurality.  In other word, Maizbhandari is essentially a spiritual movement that is shaped by the spirituality of Islam.  Today, millions of devotees of Maizbhandar across Bangladesh, South Asia, Middle East, Asia, Europe and North America have developed unique communication nexus and network.  They have seminal influence on communities where they live.  As an outcome, every years million of devotees and non-devotees visit Maizbhandar for spiritual blessing with which they can organize their lives.  

SUFI Vision:

SUFI works to promote a global spiritual society for enlightening the practice of universal spiritual love.  

SUFI Objectives:

The objectives are to promote several discourses in order to evolve a framing device for entering into an uncharted territory of development.  These discourses are:

• Economic Discourse (ED):  ED promotes “spiritual economy’ to evolve a safety net for poor devotee households and prepare the poor devotees with skills and knowledge to grow with the neo-liberal market requirements.    
• Religious Discourse (RD):  RD promotes religious plurality to accommodate non-Islamic groups and organizations.  It also promotes Sufi ideology as a framework for religious governance. 
• Moral Discourse (MD):  MD emphasizes for morality and religious tolerance.   
• Institutional Discourse (ID): ID is working to transform some elements of Maizbhandari movement into organization to give it an institutional cohesiveness.
• Negotiation Discourse (ND):  ND provides spaces for negotiation, dialogue among representatives of competing religious values belonging to various creeds, colors, casts, classes and cultures. 
• Networking Discourse (ND):  ND is creating a condition for networking among the Maizbhandari devotes in the country and abroad; Sufi organization across the globe; and Non-Islamic faith based organizations in various countries 

Why SUFI ?

Three impulses contribute to the formation of SUFI.  The first impulse is the need to coordinate in better way the diverse welfare activities into a common developmental framework.   The second impulse is the dissemination sermons and orations of present spiritual leader Syed Md. Hasan in order to evolve a moral discourse.  The third impulse is the need for continuous dialogue and negotiation both with the diverse Islamic and non-Muslim groups and organizations in Bangladesh and abroad.   

SUFI is strategic apex organization to coordinate the present diverse activities.  Among these activities are: 

• Maizbhandari Academic:  A forum for intellectuals.   It organizes seminars, conferences, round table with members of religious, business and civil societies at Dhaka and Chittagong.
• Madrasha:   Religious school incorporated modern information technology.  Its aim is to give exposure to technology that may yield a modernization with less hostile attitude towards technology.      
• Prottasha:  Prottasha is a mirco-credit program founded on the savings of devotes.  It supports the needy poor to overcome their poverty.  The aim of Prottasha is to promote a value based spiritual economy and nurture a notion of “moral money.”   Prottasha is in experimental stage from which it aspires to grow with experience.    
• Maizbhandar Clinic:  It offers free medical and health services to poor people.
• Welfare Activities:  Organizes marriage in order to discourage dowry.
• Moromi:  A spiritual music group which is working to preserve the Maizbhandari music and lyrics in its original form.  Moromi performs in different functions and events. 
• Alokdhara:  A journal of spiritual enlightenment, where contributors regularly write to highlight different aspects of religion and spiritualism.  
• Web Communication:  It hoisted Maizbhandar website http://www.sufimaizbhandari.org/  to provide services to million of devotees and to give access to global audience.  Currently it encourages global debate on music and song, replying various questions on Sufism and Maizbhandar, etc.    
• Visit:  It organizes visit to Maizbhandar, particularly from Middle East, Europe and North American visitors.
• Applied Research:  SUFI is planning to start research in the following thematic areas:  Locating Maizbhandari philosophy within the framework of Islam.  How Maizbhandar allocates religious spaces to Hinduism, Christians, Buddhism, etc.  Mapping of Islamic groups, organizations, etc. in Bangladesh.  How the religion of Islam is interpreted to promoted different shades of Islamic groups and organizations.  Islam and Security. Impact of Globalization on Islam and Islamic globalization. Confronting radical and political Islam. Translate Sufi and spiritual literature into English and English to Bangla language.

SUFI Organogram:

The spiritual leader and philosophical mentor of SUFI is Shayak Syed Md Hasan.  Under his leadership, SUFI has three wings. 

• Knowledge Wing (KW):  Knowledge wing works as a “Think Tank.”   It primary functions to produce knowledge, dialogue and negotiation, and prepare devotees to adopt with modern reality.  It is working to evolve an innovative framework of ‘spiritual economy’ to bring benefits to its followers.
• Information Wing (IW):  IW works to generate information and data.  It is working to develop a “data bank” by mapping Islamic groups, organizations and communities in Bangladesh.  IW assists KW to interpret and transform information into knowledge and disseminate through Maizbhandari network.
• Application Wing (AW):  AW develops and implements welfare projects based on principle of spirituality and morality.

SUFI Partnership:

SUFI aspires to grow with partnership.   It has two types of partners.

• Strategic Alliance Partner (SAP):   There are two types of SAP.  First, it is working to develop a partnership with faith based organizations from all religions of the world.  Secondly, it is working with shrine based religious organizations.   SAP evolves through exchange of dialogue and knowledge.

• Strategic Implementation Partner (SIP):  SUFI implements projects thorough more than 250 Committees in Bangladesh.  SIP also envisions to implement projects in collaboration with NGO, faith based organizations, civil society, etc.