sufi sufi, where's your kufi?

an interesting thing happened a few weeks ago…  i was walking with my friend heading to the excellent restaurant, dahab.  on the way, we heard the adhan for maghrib and decided to stop and pray.  we saw a sign for a masjid, so we started walking in that direction.  to my surprise, as we closed on the masjid, i saw a brother with a big beard walking in the opposite direction - away from the masjid.

i was confused… “wait, this guy has a big beard, why would he be walking away from the masjid when the salah is about to start?” - so anyway, i ignored the thought and continued walking with my friend towards the masjid.  when we approached the door, the masjid seemed empty… i saw one guy inside praying maghrib (leading himself and only himself), so my friend and i went in and joined him.

the odd and eerie thing was that we were the only 2 people to pray in that masjid with him.  after prayer, i turned around, thinking, “maybe there’s a grave here?” - but i didn’t see a grave or anything suspicious.  we walked out, puzzled at what had happened, and continued our journey towards dahab.

on the way, we passed a huge gathering of people leaving another masjid - and i saw the same guy with the big beard that i had seen earlier.  i went up to him and asked him, “brother, we prayed at the masjid over there and there was no one else there - what is up with that?” - and he said, “the person that leads there is sufi and has lots of bid3a - we tried to advise him but he won’t take our admonition.  in addition, he’s not very polite with the people - for example, someone will pick up a mus7af to read and he’ll say, ‘shouldn’t you ask permission before taking that?’ - etc.  so as a result, we no longer pray there.”

well, i guess that explains that…