VI

SUFI INTERPRETATION OF THE QURAN

SINCE Sufism represents the inner aspect of Islam its

doctrine is in substance an esoteric commentary on
the Quran. Now the Prophet himself gave the key to
all Quranic exegesis in teachings he gave orally which
are verified by the concordance of the chains of inter-
mediaries.! Among these sayings of the Prophet some
are fundamental for Sufism and they are those which the
Prophet enunciated, not as a law-giver, but as a con-
templative saint, sayings which were addressed to those
of his companions who later became the first Sufi mas-
ters. There are also the ‘“holy utterances’ (ahadith
qudsiyah) in which God speaks in the first person by the
mouth of the Prophet. These latter have the same
degree of inspiration as the Quran, though not the same
‘“ objective ’ mode of revelation, and in the main they

1. Certain ‘“ specialists ** in judging of the authenticity of the akadith of
the Prophet suppose that they can estzblish the following criteria, disregarding
thirteen centuries of Moslem scholarship. They are these: 1. If some kadith
can be interpreted as favouring some particular group or school, this means it
has certainly been invented If, for instance, it is in favour of the spiritual
life, then the Sufis invented it : if on the contrary it provides an argument for
literalists hostile to spirituality, then the literalists fabricated it. 2. The more
complete the chain of intermediaries indicated by traditionalists the greater the
chance that the particular 4ad th is false because, say they, the need of proofs
grows in proportion to the lapse of time. Such arguments are truly diabolical
for, taken as a whole, they amount to this reasoning : if you bring me no proof
it is because you are wiong, but if you do bring proofs it means you need them
and so again you are wrong. How can these orientalists believe that countless
Moslem learned men—men who feared God and hell—could have deliberately
fabricated sayings of the Prophet ? It would lead one to suppose bad faith to
be the most natural thing in the world were it not that ‘“specialists *> have
almost no feeling for psychological incompatibilities.