Текст книги "Literary History of the Arabs "

Автор книги: Reynolds Nicholson

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 36 страниц)

"It is well known," says Goldziher,696 "that the earliest persecution was directed against those individuals who managed The Zindíqs. more or less adroitly to conceal under the veil of Islam old Persian religious ideas. Sometimes indeed they did not consider any disguise to be necessary, but openly set up dualism and other Persian or Manichæan doctrines, and the practices associated therewith, against the dogma and usage of Islam. Such persons were called Zindíqs, a term which comprises different shades of heresy and hardly admits of simple definition. Firstly, there are the old Persian families incorporated in Islam who, following the same path as the Shu‘úbites, have a national interestin the revival of Persian religious ideas and traditions, and from this point of view react against the Arabiancharacter of the Muḥammadan system. Then, on the other hand, there are freethinkers, who oppose in particular the stubborn dogma of Islam, reject positive religion, and acknowledge only the moral law. Amongst the latter there is developed a monkish asceticism extraneous to Islam and ultimately traceable to Buddhistic influences."

The ‘Abbásid Government, which sought to enforce an official standard of belief, was far less favourable to religious liberty than the Umayyads had been. Orthodox and heretic alike fell under its ban. While Ma’mún harried pious Sunnites, his immediate predecessors raised a hue and cry against Zindíqs. The Caliph Mahdí distinguished himself by an organised persecution of these enemies of the faith. He appointed a Grand Inquisitor ( Ṣáḥibu ’l-Zanádiqa697 or ‘Arífu ’l-Zanádiqa) to discover and hunt them down. If they would Persecution of Zindíqs. not recant when called upon, they were put to death and crucified, and their books698 were cut to pieces with knives.699 Mahdí's example was followed by Hádí and Hárún al-Rashíd. Some of the ‘Abbásids, however, were less severe. Thus Khaṣíb, Manṣúr's physician, was a Zindíqwho professed Christianity,700 and in the reign of Ma’mún it became the mode to affect Manichæan opinions as a mark of elegance and refinement.701

The two main types of zandaqawhich have been described above are illustrated in the contemporary poets, Bashshár b. Bashshár b. Burd. Burd and Ṣáliḥ b. ‘Abd al-Quddús. Bashshár was born stone-blind. The descendant of a noble Persian family—though his father, Burd, was a slave—he cherished strong national sentiments and did not attempt to conceal his sympathy with the Persian clients ( Mawálí), whom he was accused of stirring up against their Arab lords. He may also have had leanings towards Zoroastrianism, but Professor Bevan has observed that there is no real evidence for this statement,702 though Zoroastrian or Manichæan views are probably indicated by the fact that he used to dispute with a number of noted Moslem theologians in Baṣra, e.g., with Wáṣil b. ‘Aṭá, who started the Mu‘tazilite heresy, and ‘Amr b. ‘Ubayd. He and Ṣáliḥ b. ‘Abd al-Quddús were put to death by the Caliph Mahdí in the same year (783 a.d.).

This Ṣáliḥ belonged by birth or affiliation to the Arab tribe of Azd. Of his life we know little beyond the circumstance Ṣáliḥ b. ‘Abd al-Quddús. that he was for some time a street-preacher at Baṣra, and afterwards at Damascus. It is possible that his public doctrine was thought dangerous, although the preachers as a class were hand in glove with the Church and did not, like the Lollards, denounce religious abuses.703 His extant poetry contains nothing heretical, but is wholly moral and didactic in character. We have seen, however, in the case of Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya, that Muḥammadan orthodoxy was apt to connect 'the philosophic mind' with positive unbelief; and Ṣáliḥ appears to have fallen a victim to this prejudice. He was accused of being a dualist ( thanawí), i.e., a Manichæan. Mahdí, it is said, conducted his examination in person, and at first let him go free, but the poet's fate was sealed by his confession that he was the author of the following verses:—

"The greybeard will not leave what in the bone is bredUntil the dark tomb covers him with earth o'erspread;For, tho' deterred awhile, he soon returns againTo his old folly, as the sick man to his pain."704

Abu ’l-‘Alá al-Ma‘arrí, himself a bold and derisive critic of Muḥammadan dogmas, devotes an interesting section of his Risálatu ’l-Ghufránto the Zindíqs, and says many hard things about them, which were no Abu ’l-‘Alá al-Ma‘arrí on the Zindíqs. doubt intended to throw dust in the eyes of a suspicious audience. The wide scope of the term is shown by the fact that he includes under it the pagan chiefs of Quraysh; the Umayyad Caliph Walíd b. Yazíd; the poets Di‘bil, Abú Nuwás, Bashshár, and Ṣáliḥ b. ‘Abd al-Quddús; Abú Muslim, who set up the ‘Abbásid dynasty; the Persian rebels, Bábak and Mázyár; Afshín, who after conquering Bábak was starved to death by the Caliph Mu‘taṣim; the Carmathian leader al-Jannábí; Ibnu ’l-Ráwandí, whose work entitled the Dámighwas designed to discredit the 'miraculous' style of the Koran; and Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj, the Ṣúfí martyr. Most of these, one may admit, fall within Abu ’l-‘Alá’s definition of the Zindíqs: "they acknowledge neither prophet nor sacred book." The name Zindíq, which is applied by Jáḥiẓ (õ 868 a.d.) to certain wandering monks,705 seems in the first instance to have been used of Manes ( Mání) and his followers, and is no doubt derived, as Professor Bevan has suggested, from the zaddíqs, who formed an elect class in the Manichæan hierarchy.706

II. The official recognition of Rationalism as the State religion came to an end on the accession of Mutawakkil in 847 a.d. The new Caliph, who owed his throne to the Turkish Prætorians, could not have devised a surer means of making himself popular than by standing forward as the The Orthodox Reaction. avowed champion of the faith of the masses. He persecuted impartially Jews, Christians, Mu‘tazilites, Shí‘ites, and Ṣúfís—every one, in short, who diverged from the narrowest Sunnite orthodoxy. The Vizier Ibn Abí Du’ád, who had shown especial zeal in his conduct of the Mu‘tazilite Inquisition, was disgraced, and the bulk of his wealth was confiscated. In Baghdád the followers of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal went from house to house terrorising the citizens,707 and such was their fanatical temper that when Ṭabarí, the famous divine and historian, died in 923 a.d., they would not allow his body to receive the ordinary rites of burial.708 Finally, in the year 935 a.d., the Caliph Ráḍí issued an edict denouncing them in these terms: "Ye assert that your ugly, ill-favoured faces are in the likeness of the Lord of Creation, and that your vile exterior resembles His, and ye speak of the hand, the fingers, the feet, the golden shoes, and the curly hair (of God), and of His going up to Heaven and of His coming down to Earth.... The Commander of the Faithful swears a binding oath that unless ye refrain from your detestable practices and perverse tenets he will lay the sword to your necks and the fire to your dwellings."709 Evidently the time was ripe for a system which should reconcile the claims of tradition and reason, avoiding the gross anthropomorphism of the extreme Ḥanbalites on the one side and the pure rationalism of the advanced Mu‘tazilites (who were still a power to be reckoned with) on the other. It is a frequent experience that great intellectual or religious movements rising slowly and invisibly, in response, as it were, to some incommunicable want, suddenly find a distinct interpreter with whose name they are henceforth associated for ever. The man, in this case, was Abu ’l-Ḥasan al-Ash‘arí. He belonged to a noble and traditionally orthodox family of Yemenite origin. One of his ancestors was Abú Músá al-Ash‘arí, who, as the reader will recollect, played a somewhat inglorious part in the arbitration between ‘Alí and Abu ’l-Ḥasan al-ash‘arí. Mu‘áwiya after the battle of Ṣiffín.710 Born in 873-874 a.d. at Baṣra, a city renowned for its scientific and intellectual fertility, the young Abu ’l-Ḥasan deserted the faith of his fathers, attached himself to the freethinking school, and until his fortieth year was the favourite pupil and intimate friend of al-Jubbá’í (õ 915 a.d.), the head of the Mu‘tazilite party at that time. He is said to have broken with his teacher in consequence of a dispute as to whether God always does what is best ( aṣlaḥ) for His creatures. The story is related as follows by Ibn Khallikán (De Slane's translation, vol. ii, p. 669 seq.):—

Ash‘arí proposed to Jubbá’í the case of three brothers, one of whom was a true believer, virtuous and pious; the second an infidel, a debauchee and a reprobate; and the third an infant: Story of the three brothers. they all died, and Ash‘arí wished to know what had become of them. To this Jubbá’í answered: "The virtuous brother holds a high station in Paradise; the infidel is in the depths of Hell, and the child is among those who have obtained salvation."711 "Suppose now," said Ash‘arí, "that the child should wish to ascend to the place occupied by his virtuous brother, would he be allowed to do so?" "No," replied Jubbá’í, "it would be said to him: 'Thy brother arrived at this place through his numerous works of obedience towards God, and thou hast no such works to set forward.'" "Suppose then," said Ash‘arí, "that the child say: 'That is not my fault; you did not let me live long enough, neither did you give me the means of proving my obedience.'" "In that case," answered Jubbá’í, "the Almighty would say: 'I knew that if I had allowed thee to live, thou wouldst have been disobedient and incurred the severe punishment (of Hell); I therefore acted for thy advantage.'" "Well," said Ash‘arí, "and suppose the infidel brother were to say: 'O God of the universe! since you knew what awaited him, you must have known what awaited me; why then did you act for his advantage and not for mine?" Jubbá’í had not a word to offer in reply.

Soon afterwards Ash‘arí made a public recantation. One Friday, while sitting (as his biographer relates) in the chair Ash‘arí's conversion to orthodoxy. from which he taught in the great mosque of Baṣra, he cried out at the top of his voice: "They who know me know who I am: as for those who do not know me I will tell them. I am ‘Alí b. Ismá‘íl al-Ash‘arí, and I used to hold that the Koran was created, that the eyes of men shall not see God, and that we ourselves are the authors of our evil deeds. Now I have returned to the truth; I renounce these opinions, and I undertake to refute the Mu‘tazilites and expose their infamy and turpitude."712

These anecdotes possess little or no historical value, but illustrate the fact that Ash‘arí, having learned all that the Mu‘tazilites could teach him and having thoroughly mastered their dialectic, turned against them with deadly force the weapons which they had put in his hands. His doctrine on the subject of free-will may serve to exemplify the method of Kalám(Disputation) by which he propped up the orthodox creed.713 Here, as in other instances, Ash‘arí took Ash‘arí as the founder of Scholastic Theology. the central path– medio tutissimus—between two extremes. It was the view of the early Moslem Church—a view justified by the Koran and the Apostolic Traditions—that everything was determined in advance and inscribed, from all eternity, on the Guarded Tablet ( al-Lawḥ al-Maḥfúẓ), so that men had no choice but to commit the actions decreed by destiny. The Mu‘tazilites, on the contrary, denied that God could be the author of evil and insisted that men's actions were free. Ash‘arí, on his part, declared that all actions are created and predestined by God, but that men have a certain subordinate power which enables them to acquire the actions previously created, although it produces no effect on the actions themselves. Human agency, therefore, was confined to this process of acquisition ( kasb). With regard to the anthropomorphic passages in the Koran, Ash‘arí laid down the rule that such expressions as " The Merciful has settled himself upon His throne," " Both His hands are spread out," &c., must be taken in their obvious sense without asking 'How?' ( bilá kayfa). Spitta saw in the system of Ash‘arí a successful revolt of the Arabian national spirit against the foreign ideas which were threatening to overwhelm Islam,714 a theory which does not agree with the fact that most of the leading Ash‘arites were Persians.715 Von Kremer came nearer the mark when he said "Ash‘arí's victory was simply a clerical triumph,"716 but it was also, as Schreiner has observed, "a victory of reflection over unthinking faith."

The victory, however, was not soon or easily won.717 Many of the orthodox disliked the new Scholasticism hardly less than the old Rationalism. Thus it is not surprising to read in the Kámilof Ibnu ’l-Athír under the year 456 a.h. = 1063-4 a.d., that Alp Arslán's Vizier, ‘Amídu ’l-Mulk al-Kundurí, having obtained his master's permission to have curses pronounced against the Ráfiḍites (Shí‘ites) from the pulpits of Khurásán, included the Ash‘arites in the same malediction, and that the famous Ash‘arite doctors, Abu ’l-Qásim al-Qushayrí and the Imámu ’l-Ḥaramayn Abu ’l-Ma‘álí al-Juwayní, left the country in consequence. The great Niẓámu ’l-Mulk exerted himself on behalf of the Ash‘arites, and the Niẓámiyya College, which he founded in Baghdád in the year 1067 a.d., was designed to propagate their system of theology. But the man who stamped it with the impression of his own powerful genius, fixed its ultimate form, and established it as the universal creed of orthodox Islam, was Abú Ḥámid al-Ghazálí (1058-1111 a.d.). We have already sketched the outward course of his life, and need only recall that he lectured at Baghdád in the Niẓámiyya College for four years (1091-1095 a.d.).718 At the end of that time he retired from the world as a Ṣúfí, and so brought to a calm and fortunate close the long spiritual travail which he has himself described in the Munqidh mina ’l-Ḍalál, or 'Deliverer from Error.'719 We must now attempt to give the reader some notion of this work, both on account of its singular psychological interest and because Ghazálí's search for religious truth exercised, as will shortly appear, a profound and momentous influence upon the future history of Muḥammadan thought. It begins with these words:—

"In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Praise be to God by the praise of whom every written or spoken discourse Ghazálí's autobiography. is opened! And blessings on Muḥammad, the Elect, the Prophet and Apostle, as well as on his family and his companions who lead us forth from error! To proceed: You have asked me, O my brother in religion, to explain to you the hidden meanings and the ultimate goal of the sciences, and the secret bane of the different doctrines, and their inmost depths. You wish me to relate all that I have endured in seeking to recover the truth from amidst the confusion of sects with diverse ways and paths, and how I have dared to raise myself from the abyss of blind belief in authority to the height of discernment. You desire to know what benefits I have derived in the first place from Scholastic Theology, and what I have appropriated, in the second place, from the methods of the Ta‘límites720 who think that truth can be attained only by submission to the authority of an Imám; and thirdly, my reasons for spurning the systems of philosophy; and, lastly, why I have accepted the tenets of Ṣúfiism: you are anxious, in short, that I should impart to you the essential truths which I have learned in my repeated examination of the (religious) opinions of mankind."

In a very interesting passage, which has been translated by Professor Browne, Ghazálí tells how from his youth upward he was possessed with an intense thirst for knowledge, which impelled him to study every form of religion and philosophy, and to question all whom he met concerning the nature and meaning of their belief.721 But when he tried to distinguish the true from the false, he found no sure test. He could not trust the evidence of his senses. The eye sees a shadow and declares it to be without movement; or a star, and deems it no larger than a piece of gold. If the senses thus deceive, may not the mind do likewise? Perhaps our life is a dream full of phantom thoughts which we mistake for realities—until the awakening comes, either in moments of ecstasy or at death. "For two months," says Ghazálí, "I was actually, though not avowedly, a sceptic." Then God gave him light, so that he regained his mental balance and was able to think soundly. He resolved that this faculty must guide him to the truth, since blind faith once lost never returns. Accordingly, he set himself to examine the foundations of belief in four classes of men who were devoted to the search for truth, namely, Scholastic Theologians, Ismá‘ílís ( Bátiniyya), Philosophers, and Ṣúfís. For a long while he had to be content with wholly negative results. Scholasticism was, he admitted, an excellent purge against heresy, but it could not cure the disease from which he was suffering. As for the philosophers, all of them—Materialists ( Dahriyyún), Naturalists ( Ṭabí‘iyyún), and Theists ( Iláhiyyún)—"are branded with infidelity and impiety." Here, as often in his discussion of the philosophical schools, Ghazálí's religious instinct breaks out. We cannot imagine him worshipping at the shrine of pure reason any more than we can imagine Herbert Spencer at Lourdes. He next turned to the Ta‘límites (Doctrinists) or Báṭinites (Esoterics), who claimed that they knew the truth, and that its unique source was the infallible Imám. But when he came to close quarters with these sectaries, he discovered that they could teach him nothing, and their mysterious Imám vanished into space. Ṣúfiism, therefore, was his last hope. He carefully studied the writings of the mystics, and as he read it became clear to him that now he was on the right path. He saw that the higher stages of Ṣúfiism could not be learned by study, but must be realised by actual experience, that is, by rapture, ecstasy, and moral transformation. After a painful struggle with himself he resolved to cast aside all his worldly ambition and to live for God alone. In the month of Dhu ’l-Qa‘da, 488 a.h. (November, 1095 a.d.), he left Baghdád and wandered forth to Syria, where he found in the Ṣúfí discipline of prayer, praise, and meditation the peace which his soul desired.

Mr. Duncan B. Macdonald, to whom we owe the best and fullest life of Ghazálí that has yet been written, sums up his work and influence in Islam under four heads722:—

First, he led men back from scholastic labours upon theological dogmas to living contact with, study and exegesis of, the Word and the Traditions.

Second, in his preaching and moral exhortations he re-introduced the element of fear.

Third, it was by his influence that Ṣúfiism attained a firm and assured position within the Church of Islam.

Fourth, he brought philosophy and philosophical theology within the range of the ordinary mind.

"Of these four phases of al-Ghazzālī's work," says Macdonald, "the first and third are undoubtedly the most important. He made his Ghazálí's work and influence. mark by leading Islam back to its fundamental and historical facts, and by giving a place in its system to the emotional religious life. But it will have been noticed that in none of the four phases was he a pioneer. He was not a scholar who struck out a new path, but a man of intense personality who entered on a path already trodden and made it the common highway. We have here his character. Other men may have been keener logicians, more learned theologians, more gifted saints; but he, through his personal experiences, had attained so overpowering a sense of the divine realities that the force of his character—once combative and restless, now narrowed and intense—swept all before it, and the Church of Islam entered on a new era of its existence."

III. We have traced the history of Mysticism in Islam from the ascetic movement of the first century, in which it originated, Ṣúfiism in the ‘Abbásid period. to a point where it begins to pass beyond the sphere of Muḥammadan influence and to enter on a strange track, of which the Prophet assuredly never dreamed, although the Ṣúfís constantly pretend that they alone are his true followers. I do not think it can be maintained that Ṣúfiism of the theosophical and speculative type, which we have now to consider, is merely a development of the older asceticism and quietism which have been described in a former chapter. The difference between them is essential and must be attributed in part, as Von Kremer saw,723 to the intrusion of some extraneous, non-Islamic, element. As to the nature of this new element there are several conflicting theories, which have been so clearly and fully stated by Professor Browne in his Literary History of Persia(vol. i, p. 418 sqq.) that I need not dwell upon them here. Briefly it is claimed—

( a) That Ṣúfiism owes its inspiration to Indian philosophy, and especially to the Vedanta.

( b) That the most characteristic ideas in Ṣúfiism are of Persian origin.

( c) That these ideas are derived from Neo-platonism.

Instead of arguing for or against any of the above theories, all of which, in my opinion, contain a measure of truth, I propose in the following pages to sketch the historical evolution of the Ṣúfí doctrine as far as the materials at my disposal will permit. This, it seems to me, is the only possible method by which we may hope to arrive at a definite conclusion as to its origin. Since mysticism in all ages and countries is fundamentally the same, however it may be modified by its peculiar environment, and by the positive religion to which it clings for support, we find remote and unrelated systems showing an extraordinarily close likeness and even coinciding in many features of verbal expression. Such resemblances can prove little or nothing unless they are corroborated by evidence based on historical grounds. Many writers on Ṣúfiism have disregarded this principle; hence the confusion which long prevailed. The first step in the right direction was made by Adalbert Merx,724 who derived valuable results from a chronological examination of the sayings of the early Ṣúfís. He did not, however, carry his researches beyond Abú Sulaymán al-Dárání (õ 830 a.d.), and confined his attention almost entirely to the doctrine, which, according to my view, should be studied in connection with the lives, character, and nationality of the men who taught it.725 No doubt the origin and growth of mysticism in Islam, as in all other religions, ultimatelydepended on general causes and conditions, not on external circumstances. For example, the political anarchy of the Umayyad period, the sceptical tendencies of the early ‘Abbásid age, and particularly the dry formalism of Moslem theology could not fail to provoke counter-movements towards quietism, spiritual authority, and emotional faith. But although Ṣúfiism was not called into being by any impulse from without (this is too obvious to require argument), the influences of which I am about to speak have largely contributed to make it what it is, and have coloured it so deeply that no student of the history of Ṣúfiism can afford to neglect them.

Towards the end of the eighth century of our era the influence of new ideas is discernible in the sayings of Ma‘rúf Ma‘rúf al-Karkhí (õ 815 a.d.). al-Karkhí (õ 815 a.d.), a contemporary of Fuḍayl b. ‘Iyáḍ and Shaqíq of Balkh. He was born in the neighbourhood of Wásiṭ, one of the great cities of Mesopotamia, and the name of his father, Fírúz, or Fírúzán, shows that he had Persian blood in his veins. Ma‘rút was a client ( mawlá) of the Shí‘ite Imám, ‘Alí b. Músá al-Riḍá, in whose presence he made profession of Islam; for he had been brought up as a Christian (such is the usual account), or, possibly, as a Ṣábian. He lived during the reign of Hárún al-Rashíd in the Karkh quarter of Baghdád, where he gained a high reputation for saintliness, so that his tomb in that city is still an object of veneration. He is described as a God-intoxicated man, but in this respect he is not to be compared with many who came after him. Nevertheless, he deserves to stand at the head of the mystical as opposed to the ascetic school of Ṣúfís. He defined Ṣúfiism as "the apprehension of Divine realities and renunciation of human possessions."726 Here are a few of his sayings:—

"Love is not to be learned from men; it is one of God's gifts and comes of His grace.

"The Saints of God are known by three signs: their thought is of God, their dwelling is with God, and their business is in God.

"If the gnostic ( ‘árif) has no bliss, yet he himself is in every bliss.

"When you desire anything of God, swear to Him by me."

From these last words, which Ma‘rúf addressed to his pupil Sarí al-Saqaṭí, it is manifest that he regarded himself as being in the most intimate communion with God.

Abú Sulaymán (õ 830 a.d.), the next great name in the Ṣúfí biographies, was also a native of Wásiṭ, but afterwards emigrated to Syria and settled at Dárayá (near Abú Sulaymán al-Dárání (õ 830 a.d.). Damascus), whence he is called 'al-Dárání.' He developed the doctrine of gnosis ( ma‘rifat). Those who are familiar with the language of European mystics– illuminatio, oculus cordis, &c.—will easily interpret such sayings as these:—

"None refrains from the lusts of this world save him in whose heart there is a light that keeps him always busied with the next world.

"When the gnostic's spiritual eye is opened, his bodily eye is shut: they see nothing but Him.

"If Gnosis were to take visible form, all that looked thereon would die at the sight of its beauty and loveliness and goodness and grace, and every brightness would become dark beside the splendour thereof.727

"Gnosis is nearer to silence than to speech."

We now come to Dhu ’l-Nún al-Misrí (õ 860 a.d.), whom the Ṣúfís themselves consider to be the primary author of their Dhu ’l-Nún al-Misrí (õ 860 a.d.). doctrine.728 That he at all events was among the first of those who helped to give it permanent shape is a fact which is amply attested by the collection of his sayings preserved in ‘Aṭṭár's Memoirs of the Saintsand in other works of the same kind.729 It is clear that the theory of gnosis, with which he deals at great length, was the central point in his system; and he seems to have introduced the doctrine that true knowledge of God is attained only by means of ecstasy ( wajd). "The man that knows God best," he said, "is the one most lost in Him." Like Dionysius, he refused to make any positive statements about the Deity. "Whatever you imagine, God is the contrary of that." Divine love he regarded as an ineffable mystery which must not be revealed to the profane. All this is the very essence of the later Ṣúfiism. It is therefore desirable to ascertain the real character of Dhu ’l-Nún and the influences to which he was subjected. The following account gives a brief summary of what I have been able to discover; fuller details will be found in the article mentioned above.

His name was Abu ’l-Fayḍ Thawbán b. Ibráhím, Dhu ’l-Nún (He of the Fish) being a sobriquet referring to one of his miracles, and his father was a native of Nubia, or of Ikhmím in Upper Egypt. Ibn Khallikán describes Dhu ’l-Nún as 'the nonpareil of his age' for learning, devotion, communion with the Divinity ( ḥál), and acquaintance with literature ( adab); adding that he was a philosopher ( ḥakím) and spoke Arabic with elegance. The people of Egypt, among whom he lived, looked upon him as a zindíq(freethinker), and he was brought to Baghdád to answer this charge, but after his death he was canonised. In the Fihristhe appears among "the philosophers who discoursed on alchemy," and Ibnu ’l-Qifṭí brackets him with the famous occultist Jábir b. Ḥayyán. He used to wander (as we learn from Mas‘údí)730 amidst the ruined Egyptian monuments, studying the inscriptions and endeavouring to decipher the mysterious figures which were thought to hold the key to the lost sciences of antiquity. He also dabbled in medicine, which, like Paracelsus, he combined with alchemy and magic.

Let us see what light these facts throw upon the origin of the Ṣúfí theosophy. Did it come to Egypt from India, Persia, or Greece?

Considering the time, place, and circumstances in which it arose, and having regard to the character of the man who The origin of theosophical Ṣúfiism. bore a chief part in its development, we cannot hesitate, I think, to assert that it is largely a product of Greek speculation. Ma‘rúf al-Karkhí, Abú Sulaymán al-Dárání, and Dhu ’l-Nún al-Miṣrí all three lived and died in the period (786-861 a.d.) which begins with the accession of Hárún al-Rashíd and is terminated by the death of Mutawakkil. During these seventy-five years the stream of Hellenic culture flowed unceasingly into the Moslem world. Innumerable works of Greek philosophers, physicians, and scientists were translated and eagerly studied. Thus the Greeks became the teachers of the Arabs, and the wisdom of ancient Greece formed, as has been shown in a preceding chapter, the basis of Muḥammadan science and philosophy. The results are visible in the Mu‘tazilite rationalism as well as in the system of the Ikhwánu ’l-Ṣafá. But it was not through literature alone that the Moslems were imbued with Hellenism. In ‘Iráq, Syria, and Egypt they found themselves on its native soil, which yielded, we may be sure, a plentiful harvest of ideas—Neo-platonic, Gnostical, Christian, mystical, pantheistic, and what not? In Mesopotamia, the heart of the ‘Abbásid Empire, dwelt a strange people, who were really Syrian heathens, but who towards the beginning of the ninth century assumed the name of Ṣábians in order to protect themselves from the persecution with which they were threatened by the Caliph Ma’mún. At this time, indeed, many of them accepted Islam or Christianity, but the majority clung to their old pagan beliefs, while the educated class continued to profess a religious philosophy which, as it is described by Shahrastání and other Muḥammadan writers, is simply the Neo-platonism of Proclus and Iamblichus. To return to Dhu ’l-Nún, it is incredible that a mystic and natural philosopher living in the first half of the ninth century in Egypt should have derived his doctrine directly from India. There may be Indian elements in Neo-platonism and Gnosticism, but this possibility does not affect my contention that the immediate source of the Ṣúfí theosophy is to be sought in Greek and Syrian speculation. To define its origin more narrowly is not, I think, practicable in the present state of our knowledge. Merx, however, would trace it to Dionysius, the Pseudo-Areopagite, or rather to his master, a certain "Hierotheus," whom Frothingham has identified with the Syrian mystic, Stephen bar Sudaili ( circa500 a.d.). Dionysius was of course a Christian Neo-platonist. His works certainly laid the foundations of mediæval mysticism in Europe, and they were also popular in the East at the time when Ṣúfiism arose.