[seventhtiger]

This is getting back to metis and episteme. I liked how this concept was explored in the Uruk Machine series if you want to read more.

Metis is "local accumulated knowledge" and episteme is "abstract, generalized, theoretical knowledge".

Metis, tradition, is barely knowledge. It is more of a practice without any of the justification needed for knowledge. So if your community knows that it is best to plant seeds during a specific holiday, they might think a supernatural blessing is the reason. Knowing something for the wrong reason isn't knowledge.

Non-knowledge loses arguments to knowledge. When an agricultural scientist comes with theories and results it won't be difficult to say that the farming community actually doesn't know anything. That's fine. But we are too quick to throw out tradition vs knowledge because unless it is specifically measured against it, the practice of tradition may be superior to the practice of current knowledge. Their traditional planting date may be superior to all models. After all, they've successfully farmed here centuries or millennia.

The Sufis might be dancing because having community gatherings allows communities to survive. The dancing and rationalization is incidental but the actual gathering is a crucial matter of survival.