We may, however, notice, here, the principal changes in the ideas and the terminology of the Sufistic philosophy after its contact with Alexandrian Philosophy. At first the Sufi believed that creation was the result of the Divine fiat. “Be”, said He, and it was. Allah acted by willing. He wished it, and there were created the heavens and the earth and everything between. And from the surface of the earth He created Adam, “taking a handful of every colour that it comprised; which was kneaded with various waters; and He completely formed it, and breathed into it the soul, so it became an animated sentient being.” After the contact, however, the velle was united with the esse. Nothing was created from external matter. The Haqq simply rayed itself out into creatures. A new terminology is also noticeable. The Logos, or Universal Mind (Aql-i-kull) proceeds from the Deity. It is the eldest offspring of the One Primal Unity, the source of all Existence, the cause of all matter, animate and inanimate, the ground of all being, the Highest Thought, the Highest Good, the Highest Beauty. The Universal Soul (Nafs-i-kull) is begotten by the Universal Mind and is connected with the world of sense, the material world. “The whole world,” says Maulana, “is the outward form of Universal Reason, for it is the father of all creatures of reason.” The doctrine of reabsorption naturally follows, heaven and hell present quite a new aspect, and the “inner light” gives place to ecstasy, kindling the vision and making it clairvoyant.
The Sat, Chit, Ananda of Hindu theosophy are clearly discernible in this Sufi theory of successive emanations of Divinity. Whinfield, however, discerns in it traces of the ancient Persian Angelology as well as Greek Ontology. In a note on the verses in which the author of Gulshan-i-Raz describes these emanations under the figure of the successive chapters of the Quran the erudite translator observes: “The Alexandrian doctrine of emanations—intermediate potencies or intelligences by whom God acts on the world of phenomena—‘links between the Divine spirit and the world of matter’—seems to have sprung from an amalgamation of the ancient Persian Angelology —the Amashaspands, Izads and Fravashis—with Greek Ontology, the ‘ideas’ of Plato, the logos of Philo, the nous of Plotinus”.