Broken Kashkol of Sufidom HB

From the publisher:

In his book the author examines and elaborates upon the distorted and contaminating trends and innovations in certain areas of Sufic practice within the Tariqas. Exposing exaggerations, errors and deviations from the true Path, he nevertheless formulates and explains the essential contents and significance of the original teachings.
While the approach of this treatise is direct, firm and clear, it does not leave the reader in a state of confusion or disillusionment, but offers a way forward, a new approach to spirituality in our present era, a revival.
It will be of benefit for wayfarers on the Path and spiritual seekers, and for those readers who wish to gain a clearer understanding of the essential quest of tasawwuf; a bright beacon, warning of dangers, whilst illumining the way to the restoration of authentic Sufism, the technology of self-effacement and the divine encounter.

Albalagh Note:

Overall this book offers a constructive critique of current Sufi practices, with one exception. The comments on 'Urs, offer a strange justification for the dark practices found there. (P 79). It defies logic, common sense, the theme of the rest of the book, or Sharia teachings.  ("The darkness is necessary in order to dampen the glare of those emanations of light and spiritual energy which at times are so intense that common people would go mad if they were exposed to it without a filter.")

Shaykh Abu Faydan Faridi, alias Muhammad Harun Riedinger, was born in 1947 in a Christian family in Germany, where he spent the first part of his life.

At age 27 he left everything behind and set out on a journey to the East in pursuit of his spiritual aspirations. On this voyage he had profound mystical encounters with the great saint Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi − may Allah be pleased with him − which eventually led him to accepting Islam in Pakistan in 1975, where he also attended a seminary for some time, acquiring some basic Islamic learning.

Soon after becoming a Muslim he met an eminent shaykh of the Chishti Sufi Order, Hadrat Shahidullah Faridi − may Allah sanctify his secret − who initiated him into the Sufi Path of Divine Love and Gnosis. After his master’s departure from this world, he undertook the pilgrimage, and stayed on in Madinah for a year. Thereafter he traveled widely, associating with, and benefiting from a number of masters of various Sufi orders, and scholars. During a journey to Morocco in 2011, an intense encounter with Shaykh Ebrahim Schuitema of the Shadhili-Darqawi Order prompted the latter to confer on him the ‘Idhn of Shaykh’ (i.e. the authorization of a Sufi master) of that order.