He has ceased to be conceived as a purely supramundane Deity, enthroned above the empyrean heaven, creating the world by one fiat, ruling His subjects, like some mighty monarch, by commands and prohibitions, and paying them wages according to their deserts. He has become a Being immanent and "deeply interfused” in the universe,1 and giving it all the real existence it has. The Koran speaks of Allah as omniscient, but omniscience was now expanded into "omni-essence", if one may use such a word. It was the Plotinian doctrine of the "One" and its Emanations which furnished the Sufi theologians with the material for this wider conception of "The Truth ", the ultimate divine ground of all things, the "Substance" as Spinoza called it. 2. Like all great religious teachers, Muhammad laid chief stress on right conduct, and this consisted in implicit obedience to every one of Allah's commands, as disobedience to any one was sin. The distinction between moral laws and commands merely relating to ritual observances was not clearly laid down. It has been said that Islam means "striving after righteousness". is so, but righteousness was interpreted as including the scrupulous observance of trivial rules as to ablutions, 1 Cf. Wordsworth, "Lines on Tintern Abbey" "A sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, A motion and a spirit that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, That "Or omneity," as Sir Thomas Browne calls it in the Religio Medici, § 35. * Surah lxxii, 14; Hirschfeld, p. 14; and Suhrawardy's Sayings of Muḥammad. Jorjānī defines Islām as unquestioning obedience and submission to Allah's commands (Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits, x, 53). prayers, fasting, etc.1 It may well be doubted if Muḥammad is responsible for some of the directions about ritual which are ascribed to him,2 but, be this as it may, more and more importance came to be assigned to the scrupulous observance of these ritual forms. The early Sufis, like the Quakers, held that divine illumination and grace were imparted directly to every soul, and not through the channel of external observances. They thought that the mechanical routine of rites (taqlīd) only served to induce the spiritual torpor which Dante called "accidia ".3 St. Bernard remarked this result in his monks, but he set it down to the fault of the men, not to that of the system. The Sufi theologians adopted the Neoplatonist view that the ritual law is not binding upon spiritual men. In like manner St. Paul called the Jewish law a "yoke of bondage” (taqlid). Shabistari contrasts the mere outward Islam of ritual observances with the true piety of some heathens, much to the advantage of the latter, and Jalal-ud-din Rumi declares that "Fools exalt the Mosque while they ignore the true temple in the heart ".4 3. Greek philosophy taught the immortality of the soul, but denied the resurrection of the body. And hence the language of the Koran about Heaven and Hell ultimately came to be regarded as merely allegorical. The early Sufis held very strongly that love to God should be quite disinterested and untainted by hope of 1 See the rules about ablution, etc., in the Mishcāt ul Masābīḥ, translated by Matthews (Calcutta, 1809). Cf. Omar Khayyām's "whimsical complaint", Quatrain 180. 2 They seem opposed to the spirit of the text: "Righteousness does not consist in turning to the east or to the west," etc. (Surah ii, 172). 3.66 Purgatory" (canto xvii). From the Greek akēdeia. • Gulshan i Rāz, 1. 877; and Masnavi, p. 100, and Introduction, p. xxxiv (2nd ed.). But elsewhere (at p. 76) Jalāl-ud-din says forms and symbols are generally needed. In default of some outward and visible sign which they can perceive, men find it hard to conceive the inward spirit. Hence the Greek mystics in their "mysteries " used sacraments or outward forms of initiation and communion. reward. They thought "other-worldliness" no better than worldliness. According to the Sufi theologians there is no material heaven or hell. When the particle of real being in each soul is stripped of its mortal vesture, "of what account" (they asked)" will be Paradise and houris?"1 In the case of those who have retained a perfect reasonable soul the divine particle will return intact to the One Real Being. When the soul has in life shrunk to a mere animal or vegetive soul, some remnant of the divine particle within it may still survive and return to the One Being. But if the divine spark has been utterly quenched by evil living there is nothing left which can survive. Dr. Charles in his Eschatology says that some Jewish apocalyptic writers held that there was no resurrection of the wicked. 4. Muḥammad had no taste for speculation. He said: "Think on the mercies of God, not on the essence of God." And again: "Sit not with those who discuss predestination." His language on predestination is merely popular. In one passage it is that of determinism, in another that of freewill. In one place Allah constrains all, guiding some aright and causing others to err.2 Elsewhere man acts freely without constraint. But the theologians fastened on these obscure problems, and did their best to shift the religious centre of gravity from right conduct to right opinion on these problems. In a word they preached salvation by gnosis. The traditionists fathered on Muḥammad various sayings to prove that he regarded orthodoxy on these "afterthoughts of theology as allimportant for salvation. Thus the saying "My people shall be split into seventy-three sects, all of whom but one shall perish in hell fire" is one which betrays theological authorship. In Muḥammad's lifetime the contest was not with sects within Islām, but with aliens who rejected Islam altogether. For these he had no mercy, but he 1 Gulshan i Rāz, 1. 701. 2 Koran, xvi, 38, 39. would scarcely have been so hard on his own people for venial errors of opinion. Again, he could hardly have said "Qadarians are Magian (dualists)" at a time when (as is almost certain) no sect of that name had yet arisen.1 The early Sufis did not concern themselves with the disputes of the sects. But the Sufi theologians could not altogether ignore them. They took sides against the sects which leaned to anthropomorphism, and, on the other hand, fully agreed with the doctrine of the Compulsionists or extreme Predestinarians.2 That sect held that God, as the One Real Agent, not only permitted evil, but of set purpose allotted evils, present or future, to the majority of mankind. This strange doctrine (which has its counterpart in Europe) forced the Sufi theologians to attempt some reconciliation of Divine power, as thus interpreted, with Divine goodness, and here, like Augustine, they availed themselves of the "not-being" ('adm) of Plotinus.3 Perhaps, however, the true Sufi spirit was best interpreted by Jalal-ud-din Rūmi, when he declared that he agreed with all seventy-three sects as being all honest attempts to grasp the obscure truth. Errors in naming the names of God" are of small account. According to the Hadith, "He who does the works will know the doctrine." And true love to God atones for all mistakes of doctrine.1 Jāmi is a typical Șufi theologian. He works hard to construct a reasoned basis for Sufism, but finally realizes that his logical definitions and syllogisms cannot express the truth as it really is, and add nothing to the grounds 1 The Qadarians would be classed as semi-Pelagians by Western theologians. 2 See Gulshan i Raz, 11. 105, 538. 3 See Masnavi (2nd ed.), Introduction, p. xxx, etc., and Flash XXVII in this treatise. See the parable of Moses and the shepherd who was faulty in theology but fervent in spirit (Masnavī, p. 82, and also p. 139). on which the convictions of Sufis must always rest. It is only by means of the spiritual clairvoyance generated by love that Divine knowledge (ma'rifat) can be attained.1 Those who have these spiritual intuitions do not need demonstrations, and to those who have them not all demonstrations are useless. 5. Muḥammad, like Luther, rejected asceticism. Suhrawardy quotes several of his anti-ascetic sayings, including the familar one "There is no monasticism in Islām". He approved of poverty, it is true, and prescribed a month of fasting, but set his face firmly against the cloistered life and celibacy. The early Sufis were, perhaps, attracted to asceticism by the example of the Christians in Syria, where the first Sufi convent was built; and Neoplatonist doctrine furnished the rationale of ascetic practice. Matter was evil, and therefore all material and sensuous taint, including the natural instincts (phronēma sarkos), must be purged away and extirpated by all who claimed to be spiritual men. Thus a double system of religious conduct was set up the external law for ordinary men and "the counsels of perfection", the more perfect way of asceticism and contemplation, for spiritual men. The external law of ritual observances had no longer any dominion over spiritual men. This abrogation of the ceremonial law naturally tempted some undisciplined Sufis, as it has tempted some professing followers of St. Paul, to laxity in the observance of the moral law. The Malamatis, 1 See Masnavi, p. 260. Newman (Apologia, p. 19) quotes Keble as saying, "The firmness of assent which we give to religious doctrine is due, not to the probabilities which introduced it, but to the living power of faith and love which accepted it." This is worked out in Newman's Grammar of Assent. 2 See the Sayings of Muḥammad, by Suhrawardy (Constable, 1905), Nos. 125, 304, 186, etc. 3 Jalāl-ud-din Rūmi, however, takes occasion to warn his disciples that this counsel of perfection is not to be taken too literally. See the parable of the peacock who tore off his plumage to avoid the pursuit of the fowlers (Masnavi, p. 228). 4 See Masnavi, p. 224. |