The Mystics of IslamIslamScholarly ReconstructionEnglish study drawing on Arabic and Persian Sufi sourcesShareThe Mystics of Islam 5Reynold A. Nicholson 1914 - EnglishMoreVersion - 1 availableReynold A. Nicholson 1914LanguageEnglishEspañol‹The Mystics of Islam 2The Mystics of Islam 3The Mystics of Islam 4The Mystics of Islam 5The Mystics of Islam 7The Mystics of Islam 9The Mystics of Islam 11The Mystics of Islam 12The Mystics of Islam 14The Mystics of Islam 16The Mystics of Islam 18›Iv. BuddhismThe Mystics of Islam 5ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1Before 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. 2The 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: 3“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.” 4“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.” 5“I went from God to God, until they cried from me in me, ‘O Thou I!’” 6This, 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. 7While 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: 8“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.” 9Apart 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. 10The 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. 11How, 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. 12Let 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. 13“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). 14It 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. 15The 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.” 16The 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; 17and 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. 18In 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. 19Although 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. 20“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.” 21“Sūfism is wholly self-discipline.” 22“Sūfism is, to possess nothing and to be possessed by nothing.” 23“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.” 24“Sūfism is freedom and generosity and absence of self-constraint.” 25“It is this: that God should make thee die to thyself and should make thee live in Him.” 26“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.” 27“Sūfism is control of the faculties and observance of the breaths.” 28“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.” 29The 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. ‹Previous chapterThe Mystics of Islam 4Next chapterThe Mystics of Islam 7›Similar passagesBy tradition and source labelFind similarCompare selectedCompare with similarAsk Deep ThoughtSelect passages to search for parallels.Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Public domain in the United States via Project Gutenberg