Chapter II: Introduction

The title of this book sufficiently explains why it is included in a Series ‘exemplifying the adventures and labours of individual seekers or groups of seekers in quest of reality.’ Sūfism, the religious philosophy of Islam, is described in the oldest extant definition as ‘the apprehension of divine realities,’ and Mohammedan mystics are fond of calling themselves _Ahl al-Haqq_, ‘the followers of the Real.’[1] In attempting to set forth their central doctrines from this point of view, I shall draw to some extent on materials which I have collected during the last twenty years for a general history of Islamic mysticism--a subject so vast and many-sided that several large volumes would be required to do it anything like justice. Here I can only sketch in broad outline certain principles, methods, and characteristic features of the inner life as it has been lived by Moslems of every class and condition from the eighth century of our era to the present day. Difficult are the paths which they threaded, dark and bewildering the pathless heights beyond; but even if we may not hope to accompany the travellers to their journey’s end, any information that we have gathered concerning their religious environment and spiritual history will help us to understand the strange experiences of which they write.

[1] _Al-Haqq_ is the term generally used by Sūfīs when they refer to God.

In the first place, therefore, I propose to offer a few remarks on the origin and historical development of Sūfism, its relation to Islam, and its general character. Not only are these matters interesting to the student of comparative religion; some knowledge of them is indispensable to any serious student of Sūfism itself. It may be said, truly enough, that all mystical experiences ultimately meet in a single point; but that point assumes widely different aspects according to the mystic’s religion, race, and temperament, while the converging lines of approach admit of almost infinite variety. Though all the great types of mysticism have something in common, each is marked by peculiar characteristics resulting from the circumstances in which it arose and flourished. Just as the Christian type cannot be understood without reference to Christianity, so the Mohammedan type must be viewed in connexion with the outward and inward development of Islam.

The word ‘mystic,’ which has passed from Greek religion into European literature, is represented in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, the three chief languages of Islam, by ‘Sūfī.’ The terms, however, are not precisely synonymous, for ‘Sūfī’ has a specific religious connotation, and is restricted by usage to those mystics who profess the Mohammedan faith. And the Arabic word, although in course of time it appropriated the high significance of the Greek--lips sealed by holy mysteries, eyes closed in visionary rapture--bore a humbler meaning when it first gained currency (about 800 A.D.). Until recently its derivation was in dispute. Most Sūfīs, flying in the face of etymology, have derived it from an Arabic root which conveys the notion of ‘purity’; this would make ‘Sūfī’ mean ‘one who is pure in heart’ or ‘one of the elect.’ Some European scholars identified it with σοφός in the sense of ‘theosophist.’ But Nöldeke, in an article written twenty years ago, showed conclusively that the name was derived from _sūf_ (wool), and was originally applied to those Moslem ascetics who, in imitation of Christian hermits, clad themselves in coarse woollen garb as a sign of penitence and renunciation of worldly vanities.

The earliest Sūfīs were, in fact, ascetics and quietists rather than mystics. An overwhelming consciousness of sin, combined with a dread--which it is hard for us to realise--of Judgment Day and the torments of Hell-fire, so vividly painted in the Koran, drove them to seek salvation in flight from the world. On the other hand, the Koran warned them that salvation depended entirely on the inscrutable will of Allah, who guides aright the good and leads astray the wicked. Their fate was inscribed on the eternal tables of His providence, nothing could alter it. Only this was sure, that if they were destined to be saved by fasting and praying and pious works--then they would be saved. Such a belief ends naturally in quietism, complete and unquestioning submission to the divine will, an attitude characteristic of Sūfism in its oldest form. The mainspring of Moslem religious life during the eighth century was fear--fear of God, fear of Hell, fear of death, fear of sin--but the opposite motive had already begun to make its influence felt, and produced in the saintly woman Rābiʿa at least one conspicuous example of truly mystical self-abandonment.

So far, there was no great difference between the Sūfī and the orthodox Mohammedan zealot, except that the Sūfīs attached extraordinary importance to certain Koranic doctrines, and developed them at the expense of others which many Moslems might consider equally essential. It must also be allowed that the ascetic movement was inspired by Christian ideals, and contrasted sharply with the active and pleasure-loving spirit of Islam. In a famous sentence the Prophet denounced monkish austerities and bade his people devote themselves to the holy war against unbelievers; and he gave, as is well known, the most convincing testimony in favour of marriage. Although his condemnation of celibacy did not remain without effect, the conquest of Persia, Syria, and Egypt by his successors brought the Moslems into contact with ideas which profoundly modified their outlook on life and religion. European readers of the Koran cannot fail to be struck by its author’s vacillation and inconsistency in dealing with the greatest problems. He himself was not aware of these contradictions, nor were they a stumbling-block to his devout followers, whose simple faith accepted the Koran as the Word of God. But the rift was there, and soon produced far-reaching results.

Hence arose the Murjites, who set faith above works and emphasised the divine love and goodness; the Qadarites who affirmed, and the Jabarites who denied, that men are responsible for their actions; the Muʿtazilites, who built a theology on the basis of reason, rejecting the qualities of Allah as incompatible with His unity, and predestinarianism as contrary to His justice; and finally the Ashʿarites, the scholastic theologians of Islam, who formulated the rigid metaphysical and doctrinal system that underlies the creed of orthodox Mohammedans at the present time. All these speculations, influenced as they were by Greek theology and philosophy, reacted powerfully upon Sūfism. Early in the third century of the Hegira--the ninth after Christ--we find manifest signs of the new leaven stirring within it. Not that Sūfīs ceased to mortify the flesh and take pride in their poverty, but they now began to regard asceticism as only the first stage of a long journey, the preliminary training for a larger spiritual life than the mere ascetic is able to conceive. The nature of the change may be illustrated by quoting a few sentences which have come down to us from the mystics of this period.

“Love is not to be learned from men: it is one of God’s gifts
and comes of His grace.”

“None refrains from the lusts of this world save him in whose
heart there is a light that keeps him always busied with the next
world.”

“When the gnostic’s spiritual eye is opened, his bodily eye is
shut: he sees nothing but God.”

“If gnosis were to take visible shape all who looked thereon
would die at the sight of its beauty and loveliness and goodness
and grace, and every brightness would become dark beside the
splendour thereof.”[2]

“Gnosis is nearer to silence than to speech.”

“When the heart weeps because it has lost, the spirit laughs
because it has found.”

“Nothing sees God and dies, even as nothing sees God and lives,
because His life is everlasting: whoever sees it is thereby made
everlasting.”

“O God, I never listen to the cry of animals or to the
quivering of trees or to the murmuring of water or to the warbling
of birds or to the rustling wind or to the crashing thunder without
feeling them to be an evidence of Thy unity and a proof that there
is nothing like unto Thee.”

“O my God, I invoke Thee in public as lords are invoked, but in
private as loved ones are invoked. Publicly I say, ‘O my God!’ but
privately I say, ‘O my Beloved!’”

[2] Compare Plato, _Phædrus_ (Jowett’s translation): “For sight is the keenest of our bodily senses; though not by that is wisdom seen; her loveliness would have been transporting if there had been a visible image of her.”

These ideas--Light, Knowledge, and Love--form, as it were, the keynotes of the new Sūfism, and in the following chapters I shall endeavour to show how they were developed. Ultimately they rest upon a pantheistic faith which deposed the One transcendent God of Islam and worshipped in His stead One Real Being who dwells and works everywhere, and whose throne is not less, but more, in the human heart than in the heaven of heavens. Before going further, it will be convenient to answer a question which the reader may have asked himself--Whence did the Moslems of the ninth century derive this doctrine?

Modern research has proved that the origin of Sūfism cannot be traced back to a single definite cause, and has thereby discredited the sweeping generalisations which represent it, for instance, as a reaction of the Aryan mind against a conquering Semitic religion, and as the product, essentially, of Indian or Persian thought. Statements of this kind, even when they are partially true, ignore the principle that in order to establish an historical connexion between A and B, it is not enough to bring forward evidence of their likeness to one another, without showing at the same time (1) that the actual relation of B to A was such as to render the assumed filiation possible, and (2) that the possible hypothesis fits in with all the ascertained and relevant facts. Now, the theories which I have mentioned do not satisfy these conditions. If Sūfism was nothing but a revolt of the Aryan spirit, how are we to explain the undoubted fact that some of the leading pioneers of Mohammedan mysticism were natives of Syria and Egypt, and Arabs by race? Similarly, the advocates of a Buddhistic or Vedāntic origin forget that the main current of Indian influence upon Islamic civilisation belongs to a later epoch, whereas Moslem theology, philosophy, and science put forth their first luxuriant shoots on a soil that was saturated with Hellenistic culture. The truth is that Sūfism is a complex thing, and therefore no simple answer can be given to the question how it originated. We shall have gone far, however, towards answering that question when we have distinguished the various movements and forces which moulded Sūfism, and determined what direction it should take in the early stages of its growth.

Let us first consider the most important external, _i.e._ non-Islamic, influences.

I. CHRISTIANITY

It is obvious that the ascetic and quietistic tendencies to which I have referred were in harmony with Christian theory and drew nourishment therefrom. Many Gospel texts and apocryphal sayings of Jesus are cited in the oldest Sūfī biographies, and the Christian anchorite (_rāhib_) often appears in the _rôle_ of a teacher giving instruction and advice to wandering Moslem ascetics. We have seen that the woollen dress, from which the name ‘Sūfī’ is derived, is of Christian origin: vows of silence, litanies (_dhikr_), and other ascetic practices may be traced to the same source. As regards the doctrine of divine love, the following extracts speak for themselves:

“Jesus passed by three men. Their bodies were lean and their
faces pale. He asked them, saying, ‘What hath brought you to this
plight?’ They answered, ‘Fear of the Fire.’ Jesus said, ‘Ye fear
a thing created, and it behoves God that He should save those who
fear.’ Then he left them and passed by three others, whose faces
were paler and their bodies leaner, and asked them, saying, ‘What
hath brought you to this plight?’ They answered, ‘Longing for
Paradise.’ He said, ‘Ye desire a thing created, and it behoves God
that He should give you that which ye hope for.’ Then he went on
and passed by three others of exceeding paleness and leanness, so
that their faces were as mirrors of light, and he said, ‘What hath
brought you to this?’ They answered, ‘Our love of God.’ Jesus said,
‘Ye are the nearest to Him, ye are the nearest to Him.’”

The Syrian mystic, Ahmad ibn al-Hawārī, once asked a Christian hermit:

“‘What is the strongest command that ye find in your
Scriptures?’ The hermit replied: ‘We find none stronger than this:
“Love thy Creator with all thy power and might.”’”

Another hermit was asked by some Moslem ascetics:

“‘When is a man most persevering in devotion?’ ‘When love takes
possession of his heart,’ was the reply; ‘for then he hath no joy
or pleasure but in continual devotion.’”

The influence of Christianity through its hermits, monks, and heretical sects (_e.g._ the Messalians or Euchitæ) was twofold: ascetic and mystical. Oriental Christian mysticism, however, contained a Pagan element: it had long ago absorbed the ideas and adopted the language of Plotinus and the Neoplatonic school.

II. NEOPLATONISM

Aristotle, not Plato, is the dominant figure in Moslem philosophy, and few Mohammedans are familiar with the name of Plotinus, who was more commonly called ‘the Greek Master’ (_al-Sheykh al-Yaunānī_). But since the Arabs gained their first knowledge of Aristotle from his Neoplatonist commentators, the system with which they became imbued was that of Porphyry and Proclus. Thus the so-called _Theology of Aristotle_, of which an Arabic version appeared in the ninth century, is actually a manual of Neoplatonism.

Another work of this school deserves particular notice: I mean the writings falsely attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, the convert of St. Paul. The pseudo-Dionysius--he may have been a Syrian monk--names as his teacher a certain Hierotheus, whom Frothingham has identified with Stephen Bar Sudaili, a prominent Syrian gnostic and a contemporary of Jacob of Sarūj (451-521 A.D.). Dionysius quotes some fragments of erotic hymns by this Stephen, and a complete work, the _Book of Hierotheus on the Hidden Mysteries of the Divinity_, has come down to us in a unique manuscript which is now in the British Museum. The Dionysian writings, turned into Latin by John Scotus Erigena, founded medieval Christian mysticism in Western Europe. Their influence in the East was hardly less vital. They were translated from Greek into Syriac almost immediately on their appearance, and their doctrine was vigorously propagated by commentaries in the same tongue. “About 850 A.D. Dionysius was known from the Tigris to the Atlantic.”

Besides literary tradition, there were other channels by which the doctrines of emanation, illumination, gnosis, and ecstasy were transmitted, but enough has been said to convince the reader that Greek mystical ideas were in the air and easily accessible to the Moslem inhabitants of Western Asia and Egypt, where the Sūfī theosophy first took shape. One of those who bore the chief part in its development, Dhu ’l-Nūn the Egyptian, is described as a philosopher and alchemist--in other words, a student of Hellenistic science. When it is added that much of his speculation agrees with what we find, for example, in the writings of Dionysius, we are drawn irresistibly to the conclusion (which, as I have pointed out, is highly probable on general grounds) that Neoplatonism poured into Islam a large tincture of the same mystical element in which Christianity was already steeped.

III. GNOSTICISM[3]

[3] Cf. Goldziher, “Neuplatonische und gnostische Elemente im Hadīt,” in _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, xxii. 317 ff.

Though little direct evidence is available, the conspicuous place occupied by the theory of gnosis in early Sūfī speculation suggests contact with Christian Gnosticism, and it is worth noting that the parents of Maʿrūf al-Karkhī, whose definition of Sūfism, as ‘the apprehension of divine realities’ was quoted on the first page of this Introduction, are said to have been Sābians, _i.e._ Mandæans, dwelling in the Babylonian fenland between Basra and Wāsit. Other Moslem saints had learned ‘the mystery of the Great Name.’ It was communicated to Ibrāhīm ibn Adham by a man whom he met while travelling in the desert, and as soon as he pronounced it he saw the prophet Khadir (Elias). The ancient Sūfīs borrowed from the Manichæans the term _siddīq_, which they apply to their own spiritual adepts, and a later school, returning to the dualism of Mānī, held the view that the diversity of phenomena arises from the admixture of light and darkness.

“The ideal of human action is freedom from the taint of
darkness; and the freedom of light from darkness means the
self-consciousness of light as light.”[4]

[4] Shaikh Muhammad Iqbal, _The Development of Metaphysics in Persia_ (1908), p. 150.

The following version of the doctrine of the seventy thousand veils as explained by a modern Rifāʿī dervish shows clear traces of Gnosticism and is so interesting that I cannot refrain from quoting it here:

“Seventy Thousand Veils separate Allah, the One Reality, from
the world of matter and of sense. And every soul passes before
his birth through these seventy thousand. The inner half of these
are veils of light: the outer half, veils of darkness. For every
one of the veils of light passed through, in this journey towards
birth, the soul puts _off_ a divine quality: and for every one of
the dark veils, it puts _on_ an earthly quality. Thus the child is
born _weeping_, for the soul knows its separation from Allah, the
One Reality. And when the child cries in its sleep, it is because
the soul remembers something of what it has lost. Otherwise,
the passage through the veils has brought with it forgetfulness
(_nisyān_): and for this reason man is called _insān_. He is
now, as it were, in prison in his body, separated by these thick
curtains from Allah.

“But the whole purpose of Sūfism, the Way of the dervish,
is to give him an escape from this prison, an apocalypse of the
Seventy Thousand Veils, a recovery of the original unity with The
One, _while still in this body_. The body is not to be put off; it
is to be refined and made spiritual--a help and not a hindrance
to the spirit. It is like a metal that has to be refined by fire
and transmuted. And the sheikh tells the aspirant that he has the
secret of this transmutation. ‘We shall throw you into the fire of
Spiritual Passion,’ he says, ‘and you will emerge refined.’”[5]

[5] _“The Way” of a Mohammedan Mystic_, by W. H. T. Gairdner (Leipzig, 1912), pp. 9 f.

IV. BUDDHISM

Before the Mohammedan conquest of India in the eleventh century, the teaching of Buddha exerted considerable influence in Eastern Persia and Transoxania. We hear of flourishing Buddhist monasteries in Balkh, the metropolis of ancient Bactria, a city famous for the number of Sūfīs who resided in it. Professor Goldziher has called attention to the significant circumstance that the Sūfī ascetic, Ibrāhīm ibn Adham, appears in Moslem legend as a prince of Balkh who abandoned his throne and became a wandering dervish--the story of Buddha over again. The Sūfīs learned the use of rosaries from Buddhist monks, and, without entering into details, it may be safely asserted that the method of Sūfism, so far as it is one of ethical self-culture, ascetic meditation, and intellectual abstraction, owes a good deal to Buddhism. But the features which the two systems have in common only accentuate the fundamental difference between them. In spirit they are poles apart. The Buddhist moralises himself, the Sūfī becomes moral only through knowing and loving God.

The Sūfī conception of the passing-away (_fanā_) of individual self in Universal Being is certainly, I think, of Indian origin. Its first great exponent was the Persian mystic, Bāyazīd of Bistām, who may have received it from his teacher, Abū ʿAlī of Sind (Scinde). Here are some of his sayings:

“Creatures are subject to changing ‘states,’ but the gnostic
has no ‘state,’ because his vestiges are effaced and his essence
annihilated by the essence of another, and his traces are lost in
another’s traces.”

“Thirty years the high God was my mirror, now I am my own
mirror,” _i.e._ according to the explanation given by his
biographer, “that which I was I am no more, for ‘I’ and ‘God’ is a
denial of the unity of God. Since I am no more, the high God is
His own mirror.”

“I went from God to God, until they cried from me in me, ‘O
Thou I!’”

This, it will be observed, is not Buddhism, but the pantheism of the Vedānta. We cannot identify _fanā_ with Nirvāṇa unconditionally. Both terms imply the passing-away of individuality, but while Nirvāṇa is purely negative, _fanā_ is accompanied by _baqā_, everlasting life in God. The rapture of the Sūfī who has lost himself in ecstatic contemplation of the divine beauty is entirely opposed to the passionless intellectual serenity of the Arahat. I emphasise this contrast because, in my opinion, the influence of Buddhism on Mohammedan thought has been exaggerated. Much is attributed to Buddhism that is Indian rather than specifically Buddhistic: the _fanā_ theory of the Sūfīs is a case in point. Ordinary Moslems held the followers of Buddha in abhorrence, regarding them as idolaters, and were not likely to seek personal intercourse with them. On the other hand, for nearly a thousand years before the Mohammedan conquest, Buddhism had been powerful in Bactria and Eastern Persia generally: it must, therefore, have affected the development of Sūfism in these regions.

While _fanā_ in its pantheistic form is radically different from Nirvāṇa, the terms coincide so closely in other ways that we cannot regard them as being altogether unconnected. _Fanā_ has an ethical aspect: it involves the extinction of all passions and desires. The passing-away of evil qualities and of the evil actions which they produce is said to be brought about by the continuance of the corresponding good qualities and actions. Compare this with the definition of Nirvāṇa given by Professor Rhys Davids:

“The extinction of that sinful, grasping condition of mind
and heart, which would otherwise, according to the great mystery
of Karma, be the cause of renewed individual existence. That
extinction is to be brought about by, and runs parallel with, the
growth of the opposite condition of mind and heart; and it is
complete when that opposite condition is reached.”

Apart from the doctrine of Karma, which is alien to Sūfism, these definitions of _fanā_ (viewed as a moral state) and Nirvāṇa agree almost word for word. It would be out of place to pursue the comparison further, but I think we may conclude that the Sūfī theory of _fanā_ was influenced to some extent by Buddhism as well as by Perso-Indian pantheism.

The receptivity of Islam to foreign ideas has been recognised by every unbiassed inquirer, and the history of Sūfism is only a single instance of the general rule. But this fact should not lead us to seek in such ideas an explanation of the whole question which I am now discussing, or to identify Sūfism itself with the extraneous ingredients which it absorbed and assimilated in the course of its development. Even if Islam had been miraculously shut off from contact with foreign religions and philosophies, some form of mysticism would have arisen within it, for the seeds were already there. Of course, we cannot isolate the internal forces working in this direction, since they were subject to the law of spiritual gravitation. The powerful currents of thought discharged through the Mohammedan world by the great non-Islamic systems above mentioned gave a stimulus to various tendencies within Islam which affected Sūfism either positively or negatively. As we have seen, its oldest type is an ascetic revolt against luxury and worldliness; later on, the prevailing rationalism and scepticism provoked counter-movements towards intuitive knowledge and emotional faith, and also an orthodox reaction which in its turn drove many earnest Moslems into the ranks of the mystics.

How, it may be asked, could a religion founded on the simple and austere monotheism of Mohammed tolerate these new doctrines, much less make terms with them? It would seem impossible to reconcile the transcendent personality of Allah with an immanent Reality which is the very life and soul of the universe. Yet Islam has accepted Sūfism. The Sūfīs, instead of being excommunicated, are securely established in the Mohammedan church, and the _Legend of the Moslem Saints_ records the wildest excesses of Oriental pantheism.

Let us return for a moment to the Koran, that infallible touchstone by which every Mohammedan theory and practice must be proved. Are any germs of mysticism to be found there? The Koran, as I have said, starts with the notion of Allah, the One, Eternal, and Almighty God, far above human feelings and aspirations--the Lord of His slaves, not the Father of His children; a judge meting out stern justice to sinners, and extending His mercy only to those who avert His wrath by repentance, humility, and unceasing works of devotion; a God of fear rather than of love. This is one side, and certainly the most prominent side, of Mohammed’s teaching; but while he set an impassable gulf between the world and Allah, his deeper instinct craved a direct revelation from God to the soul. There are no contradictions in the logic of feeling. Mohammed, who had in him something of the mystic, felt God both as far and near, both as transcendent and immanent. In the latter aspect, Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth, a Being who works in the world and in the soul of man.

“If My servants ask thee about Me, lo, I am near” (Kor. =2=.
182); “We (God) are nearer to him than his own neck-vein” (=50.=
15); “And in the earth are signs to those of real faith, and in
yourselves. What! do ye not see?” (=51.= 20-21).

It was a long time ere they saw. The Moslem consciousness, haunted by terrible visions of the wrath to come, slowly and painfully awoke to the significance of those liberating ideas.

The verses which I have quoted do not stand alone, and however unfavourable to mysticism the Koran as a whole may be, I cannot assent to the view that it supplies no basis for a mystical interpretation of Islam. This was worked out in detail by the Sūfīs, who dealt with the Koran in very much the same way as Philo treated the Pentateuch. But they would not have succeeded so thoroughly in bringing over the mass of religious Moslems to their side, unless the champions of orthodoxy had set about constructing a system of scholastic philosophy that reduced the divine nature to a purely formal, changeless, and absolute unity, a bare will devoid of all affections and emotions, a tremendous and incalculable power with which no human creature could have any communion or personal intercourse whatsoever. That is the God of Mohammedan theology. That was the alternative to Sūfism. Therefore, “all thinking, religious Moslems are mystics,” as Professor D. B. Macdonald, one of our best authorities on the subject, has remarked. And he adds: “All, too, are pantheists, but some do not know it.”

The relation of individual Sūfīs to Islam varies from more or less entire conformity to a merely nominal profession of belief in Allah and His Prophet. While the Koran and the Traditions are generally acknowledged to be the unalterable standard of religious truth, this acknowledgment does not include the recognition of any external authority which shall decide what is orthodox and what is heretical. Creeds and catechisms count for nothing in the Sūfī’s estimation. Why should he concern himself with these when he possesses a doctrine derived immediately from God? As he reads the Koran with studious meditation and rapt attention, lo, the hidden meanings--infinite, inexhaustible--of the Holy Word flash upon his inward eye. This is what the Sūfīs call _istinbāt_, a sort of intuitive deduction; the mysterious inflow of divinely revealed knowledge into hearts made pure by repentance and filled with the thought of God, and the outflow of that knowledge upon the interpreting tongue. Naturally, the doctrines elicited by means of _istinbāt_ do not agree very well either with Mohammedan theology or with each other, but the discord is easily explained. Theologians, who interpret the letter, cannot be expected to reach the same conclusions as mystics, who interpret the spirit; and if both classes differ amongst themselves, that is a merciful dispensation of divine wisdom, since theological controversy serves to extinguish religious error, while the variety of mystical truth corresponds to the manifold degrees and modes of mystical experience.

In the chapter on the gnosis I shall enter more fully into the attitude of the Sūfīs towards positive religion. It is only a rough-and-ready account of the matter to say that many of them have been good Moslems, many scarcely Moslems at all, and a third party, perhaps the largest, Moslems after a fashion. During the early Middle Ages Islam was a growing organism, and gradually became transformed under the influence of diverse movements, of which Sūfism itself was one. Mohammedan orthodoxy in its present shape owes much to Ghazālī, and Ghazālī was a Sūfī. Through his work and example the Sūfistic interpretation of Islam has in no small measure been harmonised with the rival claims of reason and tradition, but just because of this he is less valuable than mystics of a purer type to the student who wishes to know what Sūfism essentially is.

Although the numerous definitions of Sūfism which occur in Arabic and Persian books on the subject are historically interesting, their chief importance lies in showing that Sūfism is undefinable. Jalāluddīn Rūmī in his _Masnavī_ tells a story about an elephant which some Hindoos were exhibiting in a dark room. Many people gathered to see it, but, as the place was too dark to permit them to see the elephant, they all felt it with their hands, to gain an idea of what it was like. One felt its trunk, and said that the animal resembled a water-pipe; another felt its ear, and said it must be a large fan; another its leg, and thought it must be a pillar; another felt its back, and declared that the beast must be like an immense throne. So it is with those who define Sūfism: they can only attempt to express what they themselves have felt, and there is no conceivable formula that will comprise every shade of personal and intimate religious feeling. Since, however, these definitions illustrate with convenient brevity certain aspects and characteristics of Sūfism, a few specimens may be given.

“Sūfism is this: that actions should be passing over the Sūfī
(_i.e._ being done upon him) which are known to God only, and that
he should always be with God in a way that is known to God only.”

“Sūfism is wholly self-discipline.”

“Sūfism is, to possess nothing and to be possessed by nothing.”

“Sūfism is not a system composed of rules or sciences but a
moral disposition; _i.e._ if it were a rule, it could be made one’s
own by strenuous exertion, and if it were a science, it could be
acquired by instruction; but on the contrary it is a disposition,
according to the saying, ‘Form yourselves on the moral nature of
God’; and the moral nature of God cannot be attained either by
means of rules or by means of sciences.”

“Sūfism is freedom and generosity and absence of
self-constraint.”

“It is this: that God should make thee die to thyself and
should make thee live in Him.”

“To behold the imperfection of the phenomenal world, nay, to
close the eye to everything imperfect in contemplation of Him who
is remote from all imperfection--that is Sūfism.”

“Sūfism is control of the faculties and observance of the
breaths.”

“It is Sūfism to put away what thou hast in thy head, to give
what thou hast in thy hand, and not to recoil from whatsoever
befalls thee.”

The reader will perceive that Sūfism is a word uniting many divergent meanings, and that in sketching its main features one is obliged to make a sort of composite portrait, which does not represent any particular type exclusively. The Sūfīs are not a sect, they have no dogmatic system, the _tarīqas_ or paths by which they seek God “are in number as the souls of men” and vary infinitely, though a family likeness may be traced in them all. Descriptions of such a Protean phenomenon must differ widely from one another, and the impression produced in each case will depend on the choice of materials and the prominence given to this or that aspect of the many-sided whole. Now, the essence of Sūfism is best displayed in its extreme type, which is pantheistic and speculative rather than ascetic or devotional. This type, therefore, I have purposely placed in the foreground. The advantage of limiting the field is obvious enough, but entails some loss of proportion. In order to form a fair judgment of Mohammedan mysticism, the following chapters should be supplemented by a companion picture drawn especially from those moderate types which, for want of space, I have unduly neglected.