Spiritual Sketchings

Issue 90 March 2012

Driven by their interest in Islamic history and comic books, brothers Ali and Arif launched Sufi Comics to portray their faith in a new light.

 Ali

I was always an avid reader of comics growing up. I found the stories of Tintin and Asterix to be a wonderful way of expressing ideas and thoughts in a visually appealing way. My brother and I were also taught about Islam, and took inspiration from many of the historical stories and traditions, which then grew to become a moral compass, teaching us right from wrong. Naturally, we felt the best way to portray these stories would be through comics.

Neither of us knew how to draw comics, but the extra motivation gave us the energy to study the art and perfect it. But even at the start, there was no harm in putting up amateur comics on our blog. We received a positive response, so we decided to compile forty into a book, and have also launched a dedicated website.

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Arif

I wish I could claim to be the brains behind this project, but it was Ali’s brilliant idea. We both saw so much timeless wisdom and truth in classical Islamic literature, which is often concealed from the world, so we hoped to share a sliver of these profound messages to introduce a greater level of God-consciousness and awareness of higher truths, purposes and morals to the wider public. There was never any hesitation about the idea—beautiful messages told through a comic format, a perfect match if you ask me!

Ali pretty much single-handedly sketched all forty comics for our first book, as well as compiling the verses and hadith for each one. But he insisted that my name goes on the cover alongside his, even though my role and input paled in comparison to his own. My respect and admiration for Ali after this grew even more than I could have imagined. He has this great quality of clarity in his vision and purpose.

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