I

SUFISM AND MYSTICISM

 

SCIENTIFIC works commonly define Sufism as

“Moslem mysticism” and we too would readily adopt
the epithet “mystical” to designate that which distin-
guishes Sufism from the simply religious aspect of Islam
if that word still bore the meaning given it by the
Greek Fathers of the early Christian Church and those
who followed their spiritual line : they used it to
designate what is related to knowledge of ‘‘the mys-
teries.”” Unfortunately the word “mysticism’—and so
also the word “mystical”’—has been abused and extended
to cover religious manifestations which are strongly
marked with individualistic subjectivity and governed
by a mentality which does not look beyond the horizons
of exotericism. It is true that there are in the East,
as in the West, borderline cases such as that of the
majdhub in whom the Divine attraction (al-jadhb) so
strongly predominates as to invalidate the working of
the mental faculties with the result that the majdhubd
cannot give doctrinal formulation to his contemplative
state. It may also be that a state of spiritual realisation
comes about in exceptional cases almost without the
support of a regular method, for “the Spirit bloweth
whither It listeth.”” None the less the term Tasawwuf is
applied in the Islamic world only to regular contempla-
tive ways which include both an esoteric doctrine and