(4) The theory of independent origin. As has been already hinted, there remains the possibility that the Ṣúfí mysticism may be an entirely independent and spontaneous growth. “The identity of two beliefs,” as Mr. Nicholson well remarks (op. cit., p. xxx), “does not prove that one is generated by the other: they may be results of a like cause.” Any one who has read that charming work, Vaughan's Hours with the Mystics, will easily recall to mind some of the many striking resemblances, both in substance and form, in the utterances of mystics of the most various creeds, countries, and epochs, between whom it is practically certain that no external relation whatever can have existed; and I would venture to assert that many of the utterances of Eckart, Tauler, or Santa Teresa would, if translated into Persian, easily pass current as the words of Ṣúfí Shaykhs.
Now we must not fall into the error of regarding Ṣúfíism as a doctrine equally definite and systematised with that, for example, of the Isma'ílís, which was considered in the last chapter. The Ṣúfí is essentially an eclectic, and generally a latitudinarian: “the ways of God,” says one of his favourite aphorisms, “are as the number of the souls of men;” while the tradition, “Seek knowledge, were it even in China,” is constantly on his tongue. No one, perhaps, did more to gain for Ṣúfíism a good repute and to give it a philosophical form than the great theologian al-Ghazzálí, “The Proof of Islám” († A.D. 1111-1112), and this is how he describes his eagerness to understand every point of view in his treatise entitled al-Munqidh mina'ḍ-Ḍalál (“The Deliverer from Error”):—
“In the prime of my youth, since I was come to full understanding and ere I reached my twentieth year, until this present time, when my age exceedeth two score and ten, I have never ceased to explore the depths of this deep sea, or to plunge into its expanse as plunges the bold, not the timorous and cautious diver, penetrating into every dark recess, attacking every difficulty, braving every whirlpool, investigating the creed of every sect and unravelling the mysteries of every school, in order that I might learn to distinguish between the true and the false, the observer of authorised practices and the heretical innovator. Wherefore I never meet a Báṭiní (“Esoteric,” i.e., Isma'ílí) without desiring to inform myself of his Esotericism (Báṭiniyyat), nor a Dháhirí (“Externalist,” “Litteralist”) without wishing to know the outcome of his Externalism (Dháhiriyyat), nor a philosopher without endeavouring to understand the essence of his philosophy, nor a schoolman (Mutakallim) without striving to comprehend the result of his scholasticism (Kalám) and his controversial method, nor a Ṣúfí without longing to divine the secret of his mysticism, nor a devout believer without wishing to ascertain what he hath gained by his devotion, nor a heretic (Zindíq) nor an atheist without endeavouring to discover behind him an admonition as to the causes which have emboldened him to profess his atheistical or heretical doctrine. A thirst to comprehend the essential natures of all things was, indeed, my idiosyncrasy and distinctive characteristic from the beginning of my career and prime of my life: a natural gift and temperament bestowed on me by God, and implanted by Him in my nature by no choice or device of mine own, till at length the bond of blind conformity was loosed from me, and the beliefs which I had inherited were broken away when I was yet little more than a boy.”
Ṣúfíism, then, by reason of that quietism, eclecticism and latitudinarianism which are amongst its most characteristic features, is the very antithesis, in many ways, to such definite doctrines as the Manichæan, the Isma'ílí, and others, and would be more justly described as an indefinite immobility than as a definite movement. This point is often overlooked, and even scholars—especially such as have never visited the East— often speak of such sects as the Isma'ílís or the Bábís of to-day as though they were akin to the Ṣúfís, whereas a great hostility usually exists between them, the natural antagonism between dogmatism and eclecticism. The Bábís in particular equal their Shí'ite foes in their hatred of the Ṣúfís, whose point of view is quite incompatible with the exclusive claims of a positive and dogmatic creed, and this same abhorrence of the Ṣúfí latitudinarianism is very noticeable in the writings of the Christian missionary Henry Martyn. As for the Shí'ite mullás, their general attitude towards the Ṣúfís is admirably depicted by Morier in the twentieth chapter of his incomparable Hajji Baba. Yet Ṣúfíism has at various times, more especially, perhaps, in Sunní countries, stood the orthodox in good stead, and any one who is familiar with the Mathnawí of that greatest of all the Ṣúfí poets, Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí, will recall passages directed against the Mu'tazilites, philosophers, and other free-thinkers. And many of those who suffered death for their religious opinions, though subsequently canonised by the Ṣúfís, were in reality the exponents of various heretical doctrines; as was the case, for instance, with Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj (of whom something will be said later in this chapter), who appears to have been a dangerous and able intriguer, in close touch with the Carmathians; with Shaykh Shihábu'd-Dín Yaḥyá Suhrawardí “the Martyr” (al-Maqtúl, put to death in A.D. 1191), the author of the Ḥikmatu'l-Ishráq (“Philosophy of Illumination,”)* who, as Jámí tells us (Nafaḥát, pp. 683-4) was charged with atheism, heresy, and believing in the ancient philosophers; with Faḍlu'lláh the inventor of the Ḥurúfí doctrine,* who was put to death by Tímúr in A.D. 1401-2, and his follower Nasímí, the Turkish poet, who was flayed alive at Aleppo in A.D. 1417-8. The garb of a Ṣúfí dervish or religious mendicant was one of the most obvious disguises for a heretical propagandist to assume, and in fact it was on numerous occasions adopted by the fidá'ís of the Assassins.
But even the genuine Ṣúfís differed considerably one from
another, for their system was essentially individualistic and
little disposed towards propagandism. The fully developed
'Árif, “Gnostic” or Adept, had passed through many grades
and a long course of discipline under various pírs, murshids,
or spiritual directors, ere he had attained to the Gnosis ('Irfán)
which viewed all existing religions as more or less faint utterances
of that great underlying Truth with which he had
finally entered into communion; and he neither conceived
it as possible nor desirable to impart his conceptions of this
Truth to any save those few who, by a similar training, were
prepared to receive it. The three great classes into which
Vaughan divides all mystics, the theosophic, the theopathetic,
and the theurgic, are all represented amongst the Ṣúfís; but
it is the second which most prevails in the earlier time which
we are chiefly considering in this chapter. If we read what
is recorded in the hagiologies of al-Qushayrí, al-Yáfi'í, Farídu
'd-Dín 'Aṭṭár, Jámí, and others, concerning the earlier Ṣúfís,
such as Ibráhím Adham († A.D. 777-8), and his contemporaries
Sufyán ath-Thawrí, Dá'úd of Ṭayy, Abú Hashim
and the woman Rábi'a al-'Adawiyya, or of Fuḍayl 'Iyáḍ
(† A.D. 803), Ma'rúf of Karkh († A.D. 815-6), Bishr b.
al-Ḥárith († A.D. 841-2), Aḥmad b. Khidrawayh († A.D.
854-5), al-Muḥásibí († A.D. 857-8), Dhu'n-Nún of Egypt
(† A.D. 859-860), Sirrí as-Saqatí († A.D. 867) and the like,
we find their utterances reflecting little more than a devout
quietism, an earnest desire for something deeper and more
satisfying to ardent souls than the formalism generally
prevalent in Islám, and a passionate love of God for His
own sake, not for the sake of the rewards or punishments
which He may bestow. The following sayings, taken almost
at random from the biographies of some of the abovementioned
devotees given by 'Aṭṭár in his Tadhkiratu'l-
Sayings of Ibráhím Adham. “O God, Thou knowest that in mine eyes the Eight Paradises weigh no more than the wing of a gnat compared with that honour which Thou hast shown me in giving me Thy love, or that familiarity which Thou hast given to me by the commemoration of Thy Name, or that freedom from all else which Thou hast vouchsafed to me when I meditate on the Greatness of Thy Glory.” ('Aṭṭár.)