Being once asked why he had abandoned his kingdom of Balkh, he replied—
“One day I was seated on the throne when a mirror was presented to me. I looked therein, and perceived that my destination was the tomb, wherein I should have no friend to cheer me, and that I had before me a long journey for which I had made no provision. I saw a Just Judge, and myself equipped with no proof, and my kingdom grew distasteful to my heart.” ('Aṭṭár.)
A man offered him ten thousand dirhams, but he refused them, saying—
“Wouldst thou for such a sum of money erase my name from the register of Dervishes?” ('Aṭṭár.)
“Three veils must be removed from before the Pilgrim's heart ere the Door of Happiness is opened to him. First, that should the dominion of both worlds be offered to him as an Eternal Gift, he should not rejoice, since whosoever rejoiceth on account of any created thing is still covetous, and ‘the covetous man is debarred’ (from the knowledge of God). The second veil is this, that should he possess the dominion of both worlds, and should it be taken from him, he should not sorrow for his empoverishment, for this is the sign of wrath, and ‘he who is in wrath is tormented.’ The third is that he should not be beguiled by any praise or favour, for whoever is so beguiled is of mean spirit, and such an one is veiled (from the Truth): the Pilgrim must be high-minded.” ('Aṭtár.)
Sayings of Sufyán ath-Thawrí. “When the dervish frequents the rich, know that he is a hypocrite; but when he frequents kings, know that he is a thief.” (Aṭṭár.)
“Glory be to that God who slays our children, and takes away our wealth, and whom withal we love.” ('Aṭṭár.)
“If thou art better pleased when one saith unto thee, ‘Thou art a fine fellow,’ than when one saith unto thee, ‘Thou art a rascal,’ then know that thou art still a bad man.” ('Aṭṭár.)
Sayings of Rábi'a al-'Adawiyya. “The fruit of Wisdom is to turn one's face towards God.” ('Aṭṭár.)
“O God! Give to Thine enemies whatever Thou hast assigned to me of this world's goods, and to Thy friends whatever Thou hast assigned to me in the Life of the Hereafter, for Thou Thyself art sufficient for me.” (Aṭṭár.)
“I ask God's forgiveness for my lack of faithfulness in asking His forgiveness.” (Jámí.)
“O God! If I worship Thee for fear of Hell, send me to Hell; and if I worship Thee in hopes of Paradise, withhold Paradise from me; but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, then withhold not from me the Eternal Beauty.” (Aṭṭár.)
Sayings of Fuḍayl b. 'Iyáḍ. “I worship God in love, because I cannot refrain from worshipping Him.” (Jámí.)
“I would that I were ill, so that I need not attend congregational prayers, for ‘there is safety in solitude.’” ('Aṭṭár.)
“Whoever fears to be alone and craves for men's society is far from salvation.” ('Aṭṭár.)
“All things fear him who fears God, while he who fears aught else but God is in fear of all things.” ('Aṭṭár.)
It would be easy to multiply these aphorisms of the early Ṣúfís a hundredfold, but they are sufficient to illustrate the main characteristics of Muhammadan mysticism in its earliest stage: to wit, asceticism, quietism, intimate and personal love of God, and disparagement of mere lip-service or formal worship. This ascetic Ṣúfíism is regarded by von Kremer as the early Arabian type, which, if influenced at all from without, was influenced rather by Christian monasticism than by Persian, Greek or Indian ideas.
It is with Ṣúfís like Abú Yazíd (Báyazíd) of Bisṭám, a Persian, and the great-grandson of a Magian (his grandfather Ádam being the first of the family to embrace Islám), and Junayd of Baghdad (also, according to Jámí, a Persian), called Sayyidu'ṭ-Ṭá'ifa, “the Chief of the Community” that, in the latter part of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth centuries of our era, the pantheistic element first makes its definite appearance. The former is said* to have declared that he was “an unfathomable ocean, without beginning and without end;” that he was the Throne ('arsh) of God, the “Preserved Tablet” (lawḥ-i-maḥfúdh), the “Pen” or Creative Word of God, the prophets Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, and the Archangels Gabriel, Michael, and Isráfíl; “for,” added he, “whatever attains to True Being is absorbed into God and becomes God.” “Praise be to Me,” he is reported to have said on another occasion; “I am the Truth; I am the True God; I must be celebrated by Divine Praises.” 'Aṭṭár also reports him as saying, “Verily I am God: there is no God but me, therefore worship me;” and adds that “when his words waxed great, so that the formalists could not stomach them, seven times in succession they thrust him forth from Bisṭám.” Yet he remarked on one occasion, “Should I speak of my greater experiences, you could not bear to hear them; therefore I tell you only somewhat of the lesser ones.”
Junayd spoke much in the same fashion. “For thirty years,” said he, “God spoke with mankind by the tongue of Junayd, though Junayd was no longer there, and men knew it not.” “The supreme degree of the Doctrine of the Divine Unity is the denial of the Divine Unity.” In short, with these men, whom the Ṣúfís reckon amongst their greatest teachers, a very thorough-going pantheism is superadded to the quietism of the older mystics. The transition is in reality a natural one: from regarding God as the only proper object of love and subject of meditation; man as a mere instrument under His controlling Power, “like the pen in the hands of the scribe;” and the Spiritual Life alone as important, to regarding God as the One Reality and the Phenomenal World as a mere Mirage or Shadow of Being, is but a short step. It is noteworthy that both Báyazíd and Junayd were Persians, and may very likely have imported into the mysticism which they so ardently embraced ideas long endemic in their country, for it was certainly the Persian Ṣúfís who went to the greatest lengths in developing the Pantheistic aspect of Ṣúfíism; yet we must bear in mind that, as appears from a study of other forms of Mysticism, the step from Quietism to Pantheism is neither long nor difficult.
Here it behoves us to say something of the celebrated
Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj, who, as has been already hinted,
was probably, to judge by the oldest and most credible records,
a much less innocuous teacher than even the more advanced
Ṣúfís, though by the later mystics, such as Farídu'd-Dín 'Aṭṭár,
Ḥáfidh, and the like, he is regarded as a hero, whose only fault,
if fault he had, was “that he divulged the secret.” Of this
man, who flourished at the beginning of the tenth century,
and was put to death for heterodoxy during the Caliphate of
al-Muqtadir in A.D. 922, chiefly, as commonly asserted, because
in one of his ecstasies he had cried out, “I am the Truth!”
(i.e., God), the most circumstantial of the older accounts are
given in the Fihrist (pp. 190-192), and in 'Aríb's Supplement
to Ṭabarí's History (ed. de Goeje, pp. 86-108), to which Ibn
Miskawayh's narrative is appended by the learned editor.
According to the Fihrist he was a Persian, but whether of
Níshápúr, Merv, Ṭáliqán, Ray, or Kúhistán is uncertain.
He is there described as “a wily fellow, expert in conjuring,
affecting the doctrines of the Ṣúfís, adorning his discourse with
their expressions, and claiming acquaintance with every science,
though in fact devoid of all. He knew something of Alchemy,
and was an ignorant, pushing, headstrong fellow, over-bold
against authorities, meddling in high matters, eager to subvert
governments, claiming divinity amongst his disciples, preaching
the Doctrine of Incarnation, pretending to kings that he was
of the Shí'a, and to the common folk that he held the opinions
of the Ṣúfís … claiming that the Deity had become incarnate
in him, and that he was God (Mighty and Holy is He,
and far above what such as these assert!).” Being arrested in
the course of his wanderings (in A.D. 913, according to Ṭabarí,
iii, p. 2289), he was examined by Abu'l-Ḥasan 'Alí b. 'Ísá,
the wazír of the Caliph al-Muqtadir, who found him “totally
ignorant of the Qur'án and its ancillary sciences of Jurisprudence,
Tradition, &c., and of Poetry and Arabic philology,”
and told him that “it would be better for him to study how to
purify himself and observe the obligations of Religion than to
compose treatises in which he knew not what he said, uttering
such wild rhapsodies as, ‘There descendeth the effulgent Lord of
Light, who flasheth after His shining,’*
and the like.” After
being affixed for a while (apparently with cords, not nails) to a
cross or gibbet first on one and then on the other side of the
Tigris in the presence of the soldiers of the guard, he was committed
to prison, where he strove to win favour by conforming
in some measure to the Sunnite ritual. He was originally one
of the missionaries or propagandists of 'Alí ar-Riḍá, the Eighth
Imám of the Shí'a of the “Sect of the Twelve,” in which
capacity he was arrested and punished by scourging in Kúhistán,
in Persia. He attempted to win over Abú Sahl Naw-