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28 AN INTRODUCTION TO SUFI DOCTRINE

themselves in the language of love. For them the Divine
Reality is, first of all, the limitless object of desire. But
this diversity of attitude has nothing to do with any
divergence between different schools, as some have
believed who consider that the Sufis who used an intel-
lectual language had been affected by the influence of
doctrines foreign to Islam such as neo-platonism, and
that only those who represent an emotional attitude are
the mouthpiece of the true mysticism which derives from
the perspective of monotheism. In fact the diversity
in question derives from a diversity of vocation : differ-
ent vocations quite naturally graft themselves on to
different types of human genius and all find their place
in true rasawwuf ; the difference between an intellectual
and an emotional attitude is merely the most important
and the commonest of the differences that are to be
found in this domain.

Hinduism, which is characterised by an extreme
differentiation of spiritual methods, makes an explicit
distinction between the three ways of knowledge (jnana),
love (bhakti) and action (karma). This distinction is
in fact to be found in every complete tradition. In
Sufism the distinction of the three ways corresponds to
the three main motives of aspiration towards God—
knowledge or gnosis (al-ma‘rifah), love (el-mahabbah)
and fear (al-khawf). But Sufism tends rather to syn-
thesis than to differentiation of these ways and in fact in
“classical” Sufism a certain equilibrium of the intel-
tectual and emotional attitudes is noticeable. Doubt-
less the reason for this lies in the general structure of