SUFISM

Sufism or Islamic mysticism, which becomes prominent in the course of the 3rd cent. A.H., was partly a product of Hellenistic influences, and exercised a considerable influence on the philosophers of the time of Ibn Sina and afterwards. The name Sufi is derived from suf “wool,” and so means “wool-clad,” thus denoting a person who from choice used clothing of the simplest kind and avoided every form of luxury or ostentation. That this is the true meaning is proved by the fact that Persian employs as its equivalent the term pashmina-push, which also means “wool-clad.” By a popular error the Arabic writers on Sufism often treat the word as derived from safa, “purity,” and so make it something akin to “puritan”; and still more incorrectly certain Western writers have supposed that it is a transliteration of the Greek [Greek: sophos σοφός]. The emphasis is laid upon the ascetic avoidance of luxury and the voluntary adoption of simplicity in clothing on the part of those to whom the term is applied. If we regard this as a form of asceticism it will be at once objected that asceticism has no place in the teaching of the Qur´an and is alien to the character of early[Pg 182] Islam. In a sense this is true, and in a sense untrue according to the meaning we attach to the term “asceticism.” As it is used in the history of Christian monasticism, or of the devotees of several Indian religions, or even of the latter Sufis, it implies a deliberate avoidance of the normal pleasures and indulgences of human life, and especially of marriage, as things which entangle the soul and prevent its spiritual progress. In this sense asceticism is alien to the spirit of Islam, and appears amongst Muslims only as an exotic. But the term may be used, not very accurately perhaps, of the puritanical restraint and simplicity which avoids all luxury and display, and deliberately tries to retain a primitively simple and self-denying manner of life. In this latter sense asceticism or puritanism was a distinguishing mark of the “old believer” as contrasted with the secularised Arab of the Umayyad type, and this attitude always had its admirers. The historians constantly refer with commendation to the abstemious lives of the early Khalifs and the “Companions” of the Prophet, and describe how they were abstinent not from poverty but in order to put themselves on an equality with their subjects, and to preserve the traditional mode of life of the Prophet and his first followers, and very often in the recognised Traditions we find mention of the bare and simple mode of life of the first Muslims. Quite early this simplicity appears as the distinctive mark of the strict Muslim, and emphasizes the difference between him and the[Pg 183] worldly followers of the Umayyads, and similar instances appear amongst the devout Muslims of the present day. Such were not Sufis, but they may be regarded as the precursors of the Sufis. The historian al-Fakhri, describing the abstemious life of the first Khalifs, says that they endeavoured by this self-restraint to wean themselves from the lusts of the flesh. This is reading a later idea into a much earlier practice, which was originally designed simply as a more accurate following of the Prophet, who was unable to enjoy any luxury or splendour; but it shows that later generations were inclined to ascribe a more definitely ascetic motive to the affectedly simple life of the earlier Muslims, and no doubt that early puritanism, misunderstood by later ages, contributed to spread asceticism.

Al-Qushayri (cited Browne: Lit. Hist. of Persia, i. pp. 297-8), after referring to the “Companions” and “Followers” of the first age of Islam, then mentions the “ascetes” or “devotees” as the elect of a later age, those who were most deeply concerned with matters of religion, and finally the Sufis as those elect of still later times, “whose souls were set on God, and who guarded their hearts from the disasters of heedlessness.” Historically this is an error, for the saints of early Islam were inspired by a spirit of strict adherence to the traditional life of their desert ancestors and rejected luxury as an “innovation,” very much the same spirit as that observed in the ancient Hebrew prophets; whilst the Sufis were no[Pg 184] enthusiasts for tradition, but eschewed bodily indulgence as an entanglement of the flesh which hindered the progress of the spirit, so that they were in no sense the successors of the “Companions,” but were influenced by new ideas unknown to early Islam. Yet superficially the results were very much alike, and this caused the two to be connected, and helped the later custom of connecting the early puritans with the ascetics of a subsequent age. In its earliest form, also, Islam made a strong appeal to the motive of fear, an appeal not based on divine severity so much as on divine justice and on man’s consciousness of his own sinfulness and unworthiness, and on the fleeting passage of the life lived in this present world. There was an intense concentration on the Day of Judgment and on the perils of the sinner, a teaching which is perceived in the Qur´an even by the most casual reader: but all this was not altogether congenial to the Arab, although he in poetry certainly inclined towards a tone of sadness. The inevitable result of this teaching was asceticism in the puritanical sense, or, perhaps we should say, a tone of severity in religion.

Jami, one of the greatest Persian authorities on Sufism, tells us that the name “Sufi” was first applied to Abu Hashim (d. 162), an Arab of Kufa who spent the greater part of his life in Syria, and is typical of the early Islamic devotee who followed the simplicity of the Prophet’s life and was deeply influenced by the Qur´anic teaching about sin,[Pg 185] judgment, and the brief passage of earthly life. Similar devotees, claimed as Sufis by later Sufi writers, but more properly devotees who were their precursors, appear in the course of the 2nd century, such as Ibrahim b. Adham (d. 162), Da´ud of Tayy (d. 165), Fadayl of `Iyad (d. 188), Ma´ruf of Karkh (d. 200), and others, both men and women. Amongst these there was gradually evolved the beginnings of an ascetic theology in traditional sayings and narratives of their lives and conduct, a hagiology which lays great emphasis upon their penances and self mortification. Of this material the most important is the recorded teaching of Ma´ruf of Karkh, from which we may quote the definition of Sufism as “the apprehension of divine realities,” which, in a slightly altered sense perhaps, becomes the keynote of later Sufism.

Can we trace the origin of these early recluses? Von Kremer (Herrsch, p. 67) considers this type as a native Arab growth developed from pre-Islamic Christian influences. Christian monasticism we know was familiar to the Arabs in the country fringing the Syrian desert and in the desert of Sinai: of this we have evidence both in Christian writers like Nilus and in the pre-Islamic poets, as in the words of Imru l-Qays:—

    “Friend, see the lightning—it flashed and is gone, like the flashing of two hands on a crowned pillar:
    Did its blaze flash forth? or was it the lamp of a monk who poured oil on the twisted wick?”

[Pg 186]

The hermit’s life was known even in Arabia itself, and tradition relates that Muhammad received his first call when he had retired to the cave of Hira and was living as a recluse there, returning periodically to his home and taking back food with him to the cave (cf. Bukhari: Sahih, i.). It seems likely, indeed, that the early recluses of Islam were inspired by the example of Christian monasticism, either directly or through the medium of Muhammad’s traditional retirement. But these recluses were not numerous, and admittedly neglect the Qur´anic command to marry (Qur. 24, 32).

Thus the earlier asceticism shows the character of devout quietism, of a puritanical abstinence from display of wealth and from self-indulgence, of a strict simplicity of life rather than of a voluntary poverty and mortification, of occasional retirement from the world, and only in rare instances of the permanent adoption of the hermit life. An instance of this type occurs in Abu l-`Abbas as-Sabti (d. 184), son of the Khalif Harunu r-Rashid, who renounced rank and fortune for a life of meditation and retirement.

In the latter part of the 3rd cent. we begin to find evidences of a “new Sufism,” which was inspired by religious ideals other than those which had been dominant in early Islam, and which developed from those ideals a theology of its own, which for a long time was not admitted as orthodox. Asceticism still occurs, but whilst, on the one hand, it begins to[Pg 187] take a more definite character in the deliberate seeking of poverty and mortification, it is, on the other hand, relegated to a subordinate place as a merely preparatory stage in the Sufi life, which is technically described as a “journey.” Poverty, which amongst the early Muslims was esteemed simply in so far as it reproduced the modest life of the Prophet and his companions, and was a standing protest against the secularisation of the Umayyads, now assumed greater prominence as a devotional exercise, a change which appears definitely in Da´ud at-Ta´i (d. 165), who limited his possessions to a rush mat, a brick which he used as a pillow, and a leather water bottle. In later Sufism poverty takes a position of great prominence: the terms faqir, “poor man,” and darwish, “mendicant,” become synonyms for “Sufi.” But in Sufi teaching religious poverty does not mean absence of possessions only: it implies the absence of all interest in earthly things, the giving up of all participation in earthly possessions, and desiring God as the only aim of desire. So mortification is the subjugation of the evil part of the animal soul, the nafs which is the seat of the lust and passions, and so the weaning of the soul from material interests, a “dying to self and to the world” as a beginning of a living to God.

What was the source of the theology developed in the newer Sufism? Undoubtedly this was neo-Platonic, as has been proved by Dr. Nicholson (Selected Poems from the Diwan of Shams-i-Tabriz,[Pg 188] Camb., 1898, and The Mystics of Islam, Lond. 1914), and by Prof. Browne (Literary Hist. of Persia, Lond., 1902, chap. xiii.), and forms part of the influence which came into Islam at the introduction of Greek philosophy under the `Abbasids. But as in philosophy and other cultural transmissions direct Greek influence was preceded by an indirect influence brought to bear through Syriac and Persian, so it was also in neo-platonic theology, for neo-Platonic influences had already been brought to bear upon the Syrians and Persians in the pre-Islamic period. In the forefront of the later direct influence must be placed the so-called Theology of Aristotle, which it is no exaggeration to describe as the most prominent and the widest circulated manual of neo-Platonism which has ever appeared. It is, as we have already stated, an abridged translation of the last three books of Plotinus’ Enneads. Now the mysticism of Plotinus is philosophical and not religious, but it lends itself to a theological interpretation very easily, just as neo-Platonism as a whole very readily became a theological system in the hands of Jamblichus, of the pagans of Harran, and such like; and the Sufis were inclined to make this application, whilst the falasifa confined themselves to its philosophical side. It seems probable that the influence of the Pseudo-Dionysius was brought to bear upon Islam about the same time. The Pseudo-Dionysian writings consist of four treatises, of which two, a treatise “On Mystical Theology” in five chapters,[Pg 189] and a treatise “On the Names of God” in thirteen chapters, have been the chief source of Christian mystical theology. The first reference to these writings occurs in A.D. 532, when the claim was made that they were the work of Dionysius, the Areopagite, a pupil of St. Paul, or at least represent his teaching. In several places the writer cites Hierotheus as his teacher, and this enables us to identify the source as a Syrian monk named Stephen Bar Sudaili, who wrote under the name of Hierotheus (cf. Asseman, Bibl. Orient. ii. 290-291). This Bar Sudaili was abbot of a convent at Edessa, and was involved in controversy with James of Sarugh, so that we may refer the writings to the latter part of the 5th century A.D. They were translated into Syriac very soon after their first appearance in Greek, and, as familiar to Syriac Christians, must have become indirectly known to the Muslims. We have no direct evidence as to their translation into Arabic, but Mai gives fragments of other works of Bar Sudaili which appear in Arabic MSS. in his Spicilegium Romanum (iii. 707). The traditional view of the relations between Sufism and philosophy is described in the anecdote cited by Prof. Browne (Lit. Hist. of Persia, ii. 261, from Akhlag-i-Jalali) of the Sufi Abu Sa`id b. Abi l-Khayr (d. 441 A.H. = 1049 A.D.), who is said to have met and conversed with Ibn Sina; when they parted Abu Sa`id said of Ibn Sina, “What I see, he knows,” whilst Ibn Sina said, “What I know, he sees.”

[Pg 190]

But there were other influences of a secondary character at work in `Iraq and Persia which become important when we remember that it was the subject population of those parts which had, to a large extent, replaced the Arabs as the leaders of Islam during the `Abbasid period. In connection with the Sufis probably we cannot refer any influence to the Zoroastrian religion proper, which had a non-ascetic and national character; but the Manichæan and Masdekite religions, the two “free churches” of Persia, show a definitely ascetic tone, and when we find, as is the case, that many of the early Sufis were converts from Zoroastrianism, or the sons of such converts, we are inclined to suspect that, though professing that recognised religion, they were in all probability actually Zindiqs, that is to say secretly heretics and initiates of the Manichæan or Masdekite sect making external profession of the more recognised cult, as was the common practice of these Zindiqs. Note must also be made of the Gnostic influences transmitted through the Saniya of the fen country between Wasit and Basra, the Mandæans, as they are called to distinguish them from the so-called Sabians of Harran. The Sufi Ma´ruf of Karkh was himself the son of Sabian parents. And again we must not ignore the probability of Buddhist influences, for Buddhist propaganda had been active in pre-Islamic times in Eastern Persia and Transoxiana. Buddhist monasteries existed in Balkh, and it is noteworthy that the ascete Ibrahim b. Adham (d. 162—cf. supra) is[Pg 191] traditionally described as a prince of Balkh who left his throne to become a darwish. On closer examination, however, it does not appear that Buddhist influence can have been very strong, as there are essential differences between Sufi and Buddhist theories. A superficial resemblance exists between the Buddhist nirvana and the fana or reabsorption of the soul in the Divine Spirit of Sufism. But the Buddhist doctrine represents the soul as losing its individuality in the passionless placidity of absolute quiescence, whilst the Sufi doctrine, though also teaching a loss of individuality, regards everlasting life as consisting in the ecstatic contemplation of the Divine Beauty. There is an Indian parallel to fana, but it is not in Buddhism, but in the Vedantic pantheism.

It is generally accepted that the first exponent of Sufi doctrine was the Egyptian, or Nubian, Dhu n-Nun (d. 245-246), a pupil of the jurist Malik b. ´Anas, who lived at the time when there was much percolation of Hellenistic influence into the Islamic world. He was indeed nearly contemporary with `Abdullah, the son of Maymum, whose work we have already noticed. Dhu n-Nun’s teaching was recorded and systematized by al-Junayd of Baghdad (d. 297), and in it appears essential doctrine of Sufism, as of all mysticism, in the teaching of tawhid, the final union of the soul with God, a doctrine which is expressed in a way closely resembling the neo-Platonic teaching, save that in Sufism the means[Pg 192] whereby this union is to be attained is not by the exercise of the intuitive faculty of reason but by piety and devotion. Still the two come very close when we find in the teachings of the later philosophers that the highest exercise of reason consists in the intuitive apprehension of the eternal verities rather than in any other activity of the intellect. Al-Junayd is stated by Jami to have been a Persian, and it is chiefly in Persian hands that the doctrines of Sufism develop and turn towards pantheism. Both agnosticism and pantheism are present practically in the later neo-Platonism; agnosticism as regards the unknowable First Cause, the God from the Agent Intellect is an emanation, a doctrine which develops in the teaching of the philosophers and of the Isma`ilians and kindred sects; but Sufi teaching centres its attention upon the knowable God, which the philosopher would describe as the Agent Intellect or Logos, and this develops more usually in a pantheistic direction. The doctrines thus developed and expressed by al-Junayd were boldly preached by his pupil, ash-Shibli of Kurasan (d. 335).

Al-Husayn b. Mansur al-Hallaj (d. 309) was a fellow-student of ash-Shibli, and shows Sufism as allied with extremely unorthodox elements. He was of Zoroastrian descent and closely in touch with the Qarmatians, and seems to have held those doctrines which are usually associated with the ghulat or extreme Shi`ites, such as transmigration, incarnation, etc. He was put to death as a heretic for[Pg 193] declaring “I am the truth”, thus identifying himself with God. The accounts given of him show great differences of opinion: for the most part the earlier historians, approaching the subject from an orthodox stand-point, represent him as a wily conjurer who by pretended miracles gained a number of adherents, but later Sufi writers regard him as a saint and martyr who suffered because he disclosed the great secret of the union between the soul and God. The doctrine of hulul, or the incarnation of God in the human body, was one of the cardinal tenets of the ghulat. According to al-Hallaj, man is essentially divine because he was created by God in his own image, and that is why, in Qur. 2, 32, God bids the angels worship Adam. In hulul, which is treated as tawhid taking place in this present life, the deity of God enters the human soul in the same way that the soul at birth enters the body. This teaching is a fusion of the old pre-Islamic Persian beliefs as to incarnation and the philosophical theories of neo-Platonism, of the Intellect or rational soul or spirit, as it is more commonly called by English writers, the part added to the animal soul is an emanation from the Agent Intellect, to which it will ultimately return and with which it will be united (cf. Massignon: Kitab al-Tawasin, Paris, 1913). This is an extremely interesting illustration of the fusion of oriental and Hellenistic elements in Sufism, and shows that the theoretical doctrines of Sufism, whatever they may have borrowed from Persia and India, receive their interpretative hypotheses from[Pg 194] neo-Platonism. It is interesting also as shewing in the person of al-Hallaj a meeting-point between the Sufi and the philosopher of the Isma`ilian school.

Very similar was the teaching of Abu Yazid or Bayazid of Bistam (d. 260), who was also of Zoroastrian descent. The pantheistic element is very clearly defined: “God,” he said, “is an unfathomable ocean”; he himself was the throne of God, the preserved Tablet, the Pen, the Word—all images taken from the Qur´an—Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Gabriel, for all who obtain true being are absorbed into God and become one with God.

Pantheistic views and the doctrine of hulul occur frequently in Sufi teaching, but they are by no means universal. Indeed, we cannot make any accurate statement of Sufi doctrine in deta............