“Poor copies out of heaven's original,
Pale earthly pictures mouldering to decay,
What care although your beauties break and fall,
When that which gave them life endures for aye?”

It is the essential nature of Beauty to desire to reveal and manifest itself, which quality it derives from the Eternal Cause of Crea­tion. Beauty. “I was a Hidden Treasure,” God is described by the Ṣúfís as saying to David, “and I wished to be known, so I created creation that I might be known.” Now a thing can only be known through its opposite—Light by Darkness, Good by Evil, Health by Sick- The Nature of Evil. ness, and so on; hence Being could only reveal itself through Not Being, and through the product of this admixture (to use a not very accurate expres­sion), namely, the Phenomenal World. Thus Eternal Beauty manifests itself, as it were, by a sort of self-negation; and what we call “Evil” is a necessary consequence of this manifestation, so that the Mystery of Evil is really identical with the Mystery of Creation, and inseparable therefrom. But Evil must not be regarded as a separate and independent entity: just as Darkness is the mere negation of Light, so Evil is merely the Not-Good, or, in other words, the Non-Existent. All Phenomenal Being, on the other hand, neces­sarily contains some elements of Good, just as the scattered rays of the pure, dazzling white light which has passed through the prism are still light, their light more or less “coloured” and weakened. It is from this fall from the “World of Colourlessness” ('álam-i-bí-rangí) that all the strife and conflict apparent in this world result, as it is said in the Mathnawí:—

“When Colourlessness became the captive of Colour,
A Moses was at war with a Moses.”

*

And so speaks Jámí:—

“Thou art Absolute Being; all else is naught but a Phantasm,
For in Thy universe all things are one.
Thy world-captivating Beauty, to display its perfections,
Appears in thousands of mirrors, but it is one.
Although Thy Beauty accompanies all the beautiful,
In truth the Unique and Incomparable Heart-enslaver is one.
All this turmoil and strife in the world is from love of Him:
It hath now become known that the Ultimate Source of the Mischief
is one.”

From another aspect, which harmonises better with the Neo-Platonist doctrine (to which, as we have already seen, Ṣúfíism was apparently so much indebted for its later more philosophical form), the Grades of Being may be conceived of as a series of Emanations, which become weaker, more unreal, more material and less luminous as they recede further from the Pure Light of Absolute Being.

So far we have spoken chiefly of the “Arc of Descent,” but there is also the “Arc of Ascent,” whereby Man, the final product of this evolutionary chain, returns to his original home, and, by “Annihilation in God” (Faná fi'lláh), is once more merged in the Divine Essence which is the only True Being: as it is said, “Everything returns to its Source.” Here it is that the Ethics, as opposed to the Metaphysics, of Ṣúfíism begin. Evil is, as we have seen, illusion; its cure is to get rid of the ignorance which causes us to take the Phantasms of the World of Sense for Realities. All sinful desire, all sorrow and pain, have their root in the idea of Self, and Self is an illusion. The first and greatest step in the Ṣúfí “Path” (Ṭaríqat) is, then, to escape from self, and even an earthly love may, to some extent, effect this deliverance. It is here especially that the emotional character of Ṣúfíism, so different from the cold and bloodless theories of the Indian philosophies, is apparent. Love here, as with so many of the Mystics in all ages and all countries, is the Sovereign Alchemy, transmuting the base metal of humanity into the Divine Gold. Once more let Jámí speak:—

*

“Though in this world a hundred tasks thou tryest,
'Tis Love alone which from thyself will save thee.
Even from earthly love thy face avert not,
Since to the Real it may serve to raise thee.
Ere A, B, C, are rightly apprehended,
How canst thou con the pages of the Qur'án?
A sage (so heard I) unto whom a scholar
Came craving counsel on the course before him,
Said, ‘If thy steps be strangers to Love's pathways,
Depart, learn love, and then return before me!
For, should'st thou fear to drink wine from Form's flagon,
Thou canst not drain the draughts of the Ideal.
But yet beware! Be not by Form belated;
Strive rather with all speed the bridge to traverse.
If to the bourn thou fain would'st bear thy baggage
Upon the bridge let not thy footsteps linger.’”

Hence the Ṣúfís say: “Al-majázu qanṭaratu'l-Ḥaqíqat” (“The Phantasmal is the Bridge to the Real”): by the typal love the Pilgrim (sálik) learns to forget self and to see only the beloved, until he at length realises that what he loves in his beloved is a mere dim reflection of the Eternal Beauty, which “appears in thousands of mirrors, yet is but One.” Of this rather than of the cold metaphysics of Buddhism might Sir Edwin Arnold have been writing where he says:* —

“For love to clasp Eternal Beauty close,
For glory to be Lord of self, for pleasure
To live beyond the gods; for countless wealth
To lay up lasting treasure

Of perfect service rendered, duties done
In charity, soft speech, and stainless days:
These riches shall not fade away in life,
Nor any death dispraise.

While his equally beautiful definition of Nirvâna* admirably describes the Ṣúfí idea of “Annihilation in God”:—

“Seeking nothing, he gains all;
Foregoing self, the Universe grows ‘I’:
If any teach Nirvâna is to cease,
Say unto such they lie.

If any teach Nirvâna is to live,
Say unto such they err, not knowing this,
Nor what light shines beyond their broken lamps,
Nor lifeless, timeless bliss.”

Ṣúfíism has been discussed by other writers so much more fully than most of the topics mentioned in these pages that I do not propose to devote more space to it in this volume. As already remarked, it essentially differs from most of the creeds hitherto described in its latitudinarian and non-proselytising character. It seeks not so much to convert those of other faiths as to understand what particular aspect of Truth each of these creeds represents. How it understands the Muhammadan doctrine of the Divine Unity we have already seen. In the Dualism of the Magians and the Manichæans it sees typified the interaction of Being and Not Being wherefrom the Phenomenal World results. The Christian Trinity typifies the Light of Being, the Mirror of the purified human soul, and the Rays of the Divine Outpouring. Even from Idolatry there are lessons to be learned.* How far removed is this attitude of mind from that of the dogmatic and exclusive creeds which have hitherto occupied our attention!

*