them absolute powers. Khalífs can be assassinated, murdered, banished, but so long as they reign anything like constitutional liberty is impossible. It is a fatal mistake in European politics and an evil for Turkey to recognize the Sultán as the Khalíf of Islám, for, if he be such, Turkey can never take any step forward to newness of political life.1 This, however, is a digression from the subject of this chapter.

There has been from the earliest ages of Islám a movement which exists to this day. It is a kind of mysticism, known as Súfíism. It has been especially prevalent among the Persians. It is a re-action from the burden of a rigid law, and a wearisome ritual. It has now existed for a thousand years, and if it has the element of progress in it, if it is the salt of Islám some fruit should now be seen. But what is Súfíism? The term Súfi is most probably derived from the Arabic word Súf, "wool," of which material the garments worn by Eastern ascetics used to be generally made. Some persons, however, derive it from the Persian, Súf, "pure," or the Greek σopía, "wisdom." Tasawwuf, or Súfíism, is the abstract form of the word, and is, according to Sir W. Jones, and other learned orientalists, a figurative mode, borrowed mainly from the Indian philosophers of the Vedanta school, of expressing the fervour of devotion. The chief idea is that the souls of men differ in degree, but not

1. Nothing shows this more plainly than the Fatvá pronounced by the Council of the 'Ulamá in July 1879 anent Khair-ud-din's proposed reform, which would have placed the Sultán in the position of a constitutional sovereign. This was declared to be directly contrary to the Law. Thus :"The law of the Sheri does not authorize the Khalíf to place beside him a power superior to his own. The Khalíf ought to reign alone and govern as master. The Vakils (Ministers) should never possess any authority beyond that of representatives, always dependent and submissive. It would consequently be a transgression of the unalterable principles of the Sheri, which should be the guide of all the actions of the Khalíf, to transfer the supreme power of the Khalíf to one Vakil." This, the latest and most important decision of the jurists of Islám, is quite in accordance with all that has been said about Muhammadan Law. It proves as clearly as possible that so long as the Sultán rules as Khalíf, he must oppose any attempt to set up a constitutional Government. There is absolutely no hope of reform,

The

He

in kind, from the Divine Spirit, of which they are emanations, and to which they will ultimately return. Spirit of God is in all He has made, and it in Him. alone is perfect love, beauty, etc.-hence love to him is the only real thing; all else is illusion. Sa'dí says: "I swear by the truth of God, that when He showed me His glory all else was illusion." This present life is one of separation from the beloved. The beauties of nature, music, and art revive in men the divine idea, and recall their affections from wandering from Him to other objects. These sublime affections men must cherish, and by abstraction concentrate their thoughts on God, and so approximate to His essence, and finally reach the highest stage of bliss-absorption into the Eternal. The true end and object of human life is to lose all consciousness of individual existence-to sink "in the ocean of Divine Life, as a breaking bubble is merged into the stream on the surface of which it has for a moment risen."1

Súfís, who all accept Islám as a divinely established religion, suppose that long before the creation of the world a contract was made by the Supreme Soul with the assembled world of spirits, who are parts of it. Each spirit was addressed separately, thus: "Art thou not with thy Lord ?" that is, bound to him by a solemn contract. To this they all answered with one voice, "Yes."

Another account says that the seed of theosophy (m'arifat) was placed in the ground in the time of Adam; that the plant

1. It is instructive to compare the words of the Christian poet with the Súfí idea of absorption into the Divine Being.

"That each who seems a separate whole
Should move his rounds, and fusing all
The skirts of self again, should fall

Remerging in the general soul,

Is faith as vague as all unsweet:
Eternal form shall still divide
The eternal soul from all beside;
And I shall know him when we meet."

Tennyson's "In Memoriam."

The

came forth in the days of Noah, was in flower when Abraham was alive and produced fruit before Moses passed away. grapes of this noble plant were ripe in the time of Jesus, but it was not till the age of Muhammad that pure wine was made from them. Then those intoxicated with it, having attained to the highest degree of the knowledge of God, could forget their own personality and say :-"“ Praise to me, is there any greater than myself? I am the Truth." The following verse of the Qurán is quoted by Súfís in support of their favourite dogma-the attaining to the knowledge of God: "When God said to the angels, 'I am about to place a viceregent on the earth,' they said: 'Wilt Thou place therein one who shall commit abomination and shed blood? Nay; we celebrate Thy praise and holiness.' God answered them, 'Verily I know that ye wot not of."" (Súra ii. 28.) It is said that this verse proves that, though the great mass of mankind would commit abomination, some would receive the divine light and attain to a knowledge of God. A Tradition states that David said: "Oh Lord! why hast Thou created mankind?' God replied, 'I am a hidden treasure, and I would fain become known."" The business of the mystic is to find this treasure, to attain to the Divine light and the true knowledge of God.

The earlier Muhammadan mystics sought to impart life to a rigid and formal ritual, and though the seeds of Pantheism were planted in their system from the first, they maintained that they were orthodox. "Our system of doctrine," says Al-Junaid, "is firmly bound up with the dogmas of the faith, the Qurán and the Traditions." There was a moral earnestness about many of these men which frequently restrained the arm of unrighteous power, and their sayings, often full of beauty, show that they had the power of appreciating the spiritual side of life. Some of these sentences. are worthy of any age. "As neither meat nor drink," says one, "profit the diseased body, so no warning avails

to touch the heart full of the love of this world."

"The

work of a holy man doth not consist in this, that he eats grain, and clothes himself in wool, but in the knowledge of God and submission to His will." "Thou deservest not the name of a learned man till thy heart is emptied of the love of this world." "Hide thy good deeds as closely as thou wouldst hide thy sins." A famous mystic was brought into the presence of the Khalíf Hárún-ur-Rashíd who said to him: "How great is thy abnegation ?" He replied, "Thine is greater." "How so?" said the Khalíf. "Because I make abnegation of this world, and thou makest abnegation of the next." The same man also said: "The display of devotional works to please men is hypocrisy, and acts of devotion done to please men are acts of polytheism."

But towards the close of the second century of the Hijra, this earlier mysticism developed into Súfíism. Then AlHalláj taught in Baghdád thus: "I am the Truth. There is nought in Paradise but God. I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I; we are two souls dwelling in one body. When thou seest me, thou seest Him; and when thou seest Him thou seest me.' "" This roused the opposition of the orthodox divines by whom Al-Hallaj was condemned to be worthy of death. He was then by order of the Khalif flogged, tortured and finally beheaded. Thus died one of the early martyrs of Súfíism, but it grew in spite of bitter persecution.

In order to understand the esoteric teaching of Súfíistic poetry, it is necessary to remember that the perceptive sense is the traveller, the knowledge of God the goal, the doctrines of this ascent, or upward progress is the Tarikat, or the road. The extinction of self is necessary before any progress can be made on that road. A Súfí poet writes::

"Plant one foot upon the neck of self,
The other in thy Friend's domain;
In everything His presence see,

For other vision is in vain.".

Sa'dí in the Bustun says: "Art thou a friend of God? Speak not of self, for to speak of God and of self is infidelity." Shaikh Abu'l-Faiz, a great poet and a friend of the Emperor Akbar, from whom he received the honourable title of Málik-ush-Shu'ará-Master of the Poets, says: "Those who have not closed the door on existence and non-existence reap no advantage from the calm of this world and of the world to come." Khusrau, another wellknown poet says :

"I have become Thou: Thou art become I,

I am the body, Thou the soul;

Let no one henceforth say

That I am distinct from Thee, and Thou from me."

The fact is, that Persian poetry is almost entirely Súfíistic. It is difficult for the uninitiated to arrive at the esoteric meaning of these writings. Kitmán, or the art of hiding from the profane religious beliefs, often contrary to the revealed law, has always been a special quality of the East. Pantheistic doctrines are largely inculcated.1 Thus :

"I was, ere a name had been named upon earth;
Ere one trace yet existed of aught that has birth;
When the locks of the Loved One streamed forth for a sign,
And Being was none, save the Presence Divine!

Named and name were alike emanations from Me,

Ere aught that was 'I' existed, or 'We.'"

:

The poet then describes his fruitless search for rest and peace in Christianity, Hinduism, and the religion of the Parsee. Even Islám gave him no satisfaction, for—

'Nor above nor beneath came the Loved One to view,

I toiled to the summit, wild, pathless and lone,

Of the globe-girding Kaf 2 :-but the 'Anka 3 had flown!

1. "Le spiritualisme des Sofis, quoiqu'il soit le contraire du matérialisme, lui est en réalité identique. Mais si leur doctrine n'est pas plus raisonnable, elle est du moins plus élevee et plus poétique." Poézie Philosophique et religieuse chez les Persans, par M. Garcin De Tassy, p. 2. 2. Kaf―a chain of mountains supposed to encircle the earth.

3. 'Anka-the Phoenix.