Every Friday afternoon people flock to a small mosque in one of the alleys in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City. They are there not only to perform the five daily prayers, but to chant hymns in what is known as al-Hadrat among Sufis. This is what sets this mosque apart from the rest of the mosques in the Gaza Strip, not to mention the sign hung on its mihrab (prayer niche) indicating that it is affiliated with the Shadhiliyya Alawiyya order of Sufism.

The majority of the mosques in Gaza are subject to the division between the different political Islamic factions, which use mosques as a means to communicate with their public. For its part, the Hamas movement invests in the political rhetoric to further instill its authority through political speeches delivered in mosques across Gaza. Meanwhile, Sufis sit serenely, meditating spiritually away from mundane matters.

Sufism is a Muslim school of thought that spread in the Muslim world in the third century Hijri (Islamic calendar) as an individual call for asceticism. Those movements evolved into distinctive and well-known practices, which some consider mere delusions and superstitions.

The Sufi movement in Palestine has been active as part of popular religiosity. Notable Sufi Palestinian families include the al-Jabari family of Hebron, al-Saafin and al-Khalidi families in the Gaza Strip, and al-Makdisi family in Jerusalem. The Sufi movement maintained its character as an educational movement that calls for self-improvement and shunning worldly matters, including politics. [...]

On Friday Nov. 13, Al-Monitor visited the zawiya where the murids (the visitors of zawiyas according to Sufism) assembled after the afternoon prayer. They sat in a circle headed by Sheikh Khalidi, who sat in the zawiya's sanctuary. One of the murids started the meeting by chanting the prophetic praises from an old book whose texts, Sheikh Khalidi told Al-Monitor, are attributed to Sheikh Alawi, the founder of the Shadhiliyya Alawiyya order.

At the end of the ritual, Sheikh Khalidi spoke to Al-Monitor about the Sufi message, saying that Sufism is a religious group that rejects violence, shuns politics and has a message of "educating the spirit and the soul." He said that the hymns and body rituals are their way to tune the soul and evoke a state of "divine love."

Khalidi believes that "the Sufi groups in the Gaza Strip are not being harassed by security apparatuses as they do not seek power and, therefore, they are not seen as opponents and do not pose a threat to other political Islam groups."

In the same zawiya, Al-Monitor met with Mahmoud Bashir who frequents the zawiya to take part in the rituals, which he considers a kind of psychological release and training of the self. He prefers the zawiya, where hymns and music are acceptable. "The zawiya is dedicated to prayers only, without any interference in political rhetoric," he said.