Seeking treatment with a Sufi counselor

1-4-2015 | IslamWeb

Question:

Salam, I have an important question that is bothering me for a while. I am in contacted with a counselor to help me with my struggles for a month. I often see her everyday for our sessions for an hour and sometimes an hour and a half. However, recently I discovered that she is a Sufi Sunni. I saw on her surface that she is participating in an event, who the speaker is a Sufi scholar. I looked up the Sufi scholar and found out that he is a Sufi Sunni. Should I still be her client? We only have been talking about what's bothering me and she's helping me out along the way. If I should not be her client anymore, I will have a hard time to find a counselor who follows the straight path(Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l-Jamaa'ah).

---

Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

Sufi groups and orders are not the same; some are close to the Truth while others are more distant from it. Sunni Sufism means material asceticism and sincere devotion to worship. This was common among the early Muslims such as Al-Junayyid, Al-Haarith Al-Muhaasibi, and Sahl ibn ‘Abdullaah At-Tustari . For more information about Sufism, please, refer to Fatwa 83615.

In any case, there is no harm in seeking treatment with this counselor even if she is a Sufi. In fact, a non-Muslim female doctor takes precedence in treating a Muslim woman over a Muslim male doctor. This has been previously highlighted in Fatwa 85492.

Allaah Knows best.