For over three decades, Sufism Reoriented has existed side by side with the rest of the Saranap community with no real conflict or prejudice. Over this period of time, the rest of the neighborhood has respected the Sufis’ rights to their beliefs and customs. They have very often been our friends as well as our neighbors. This respect is the same that would be afforded to any religious group, as is the inherent tradition of most Americans.

This harmony started to strain when the leadership of Sufism Reoriented attempted to soft-pedal to the Saranap community what most residents in the neighborhood now call a highly inappropriate development. Over the last three plus years they have orchestrated a careful, extremely well financed campaign of misinformation, misrepresentation, and misdirection to fool the neighborhood into thinking that what they want to build will be beneficial to the entire Saranap neighborhood. This has largely been facilitated through slick brochures, petition drives and neighborhood “meetings”.

To further compound the matter, they attempted to silence the critics of their proposed development on the Board of Directors of the Saranap Community Association (SCA) by staging a Sufi takeover of the Board on July 10, 2008.

Although this takeover was technically legal according to loopholes in the SCA bylaws, it nevertheless represents an unscrupulous attempt by Sufism Reoriented to influence the outcome of their proposed development. One of these loopholes allowed for non-residents of Saranap to join the association and vote for Board members.

By their own count, Sufism Reoriented in Walnut Creek has a membership of about 350 congregants, out of which, again by their count, approximately 224 reside in Saranap. That is 224 persons in a neighborhood of over 5,000 residents, according to the 2010 US Census. They are a clear minority in Saranap, yet in 2008 they flooded the SCA Annual Meeting as a large group and voted themselves into a majority on the SCA board.

Although their terms called for another year of service, it was out of protest of this most deplorable hijacking that the three remaining non-Sufis on the SCA Board of Directors resigned within weeks of the takeover. They had no wish to be part of the farce the Saranap Community Association has become and they didn’t want to be party to such a blatantly obvious conflict of interest between this new board and Sufism Reoriented’s proposed development. Before this takeover, only one Sufi board member out of four ever recused himself from voting on this project because of the clear conflict of interest. This member also resigned from the Board at a later date.

It should also be noted that not one Sufi came forward for the original formation of this neighborhood association in 1997. It wasn’t until between 2003 and 2007 that suddenly members of Sufism Reoriented took an interest in the Association. These dates directly coincide with the dates that Sufism Reoriented began purchasing the homes on Boulevard Way to be used for their development. Sufism Reoriented also incorporated as a church in 2003, which also coincides with the purchase of the property and the sudden interest in neighborhood issues. We believe that the leadership of Sufism Reoriented has demonstrated an “ends justify the means” position, at the expense of the rest of the neighborhood.

We believe the SCA has been tainted by these actions and can no longer be trusted to represent the interests and values of this neighborhood. As a result, many of us renounced our membership in the SCA and a new Saranap organization was formed, the Saranap Homeowners Organization. (If you are a homeowner in Saranap we urge you to join us. Go to the Saranap Homeowners Organization website at www.saranap.org.) This new organization has improved bylaws that address previous loopholes. We also believe this organization will more effectively represent the majority of Saranap residents. It is also our belief that any large development should receive serious and significant review to protect all members of the neighborhood from potential overlooked or unidentified problems resulting from said proposed development.

Despite accusations by some Sufism Reoriented members, this current discord has never been a matter of conflict of religions or antagonism toward the Sufis themselves. Sufism Reoriented has a church in Saranap now—they have for 36 years—and nobody has ever tried to persecute them or force them out of the neighborhood. This is, and always will be, a land use issue, not a religious one. Our opposition to the size, scale and inappropriate architecture in our residential neighborhood would be the same were it any other developer similarly assaulting our neighborhood’s character.

This is why concerned residents formed “Save Our Saranap”, to help preserve the semi-rural character of our neighborhood. This is our one and only goal.