THE NATURE OF SUFISM 7

example, was the case as regards cosmology, a science
derived from the pure metaphysic which alone consti-
tutes the indispensable doctrinal foundation of Sufism.
Sufi cosmology was very largely expressed by means of
ideas which had already been defined by such ancient
masters as Empedocles and Plotinus. Again, those Sufi
masters who had had a philosophical training could not
ignore the validity of the teachings of Plato, and the
Platonism attributed to them is of the same order as the
Platonism of the Christian Greek Fathers whose doctrine
remains none the less essentially apostolic.

The orthodoxy of Sufism is not only shown in its
maintaining of Islamic forms; it is equally expressed in
its organic development from the teaching of the Pro-
phet and in particular by its ability to assimilate all
forms of spiritual expression which are not in their
cssence foreign to Islam. This applies, not only to
doctrinal forms, but also to ancillary matters connected
with art. !

Certainly there were contacts between early Sufis
and Christian contemplatives, as is proved in the case
of the Sufi Ibrahim ibn Adham, but the most immediate
explanation of the kinship between Sufism and Christian
monasticism does not lie in historical events. As
‘Abd al-Karim al-Jili explains in his book al-Insan
al-Kamil (“‘Universal Man”’) the message of Christ
unveils certain inner—and therefore esoteric—aspects of

1. Certain Sufis deliberately manifested forms which, though not con-
trary to the spirit of the Tradition, shocked the commonalty of exotericists.
This was a way of making themselves free from the psychic elements and
mental babits of the collectivity surrovading them.