The Reconciliation of Races and Religions | Page 6

of Islam, which many Muslims seek to allegorize.] when they are in ignorance alike of its apparent and of its inward meaning, and have fallen far, very far from it! One may perhaps say of them that those people who have no understanding have chosen the route which is entirely of darkness and of doubt.'
Ignorance, then, is, according to the Bab, the great fault of the Sufis [Footnote: Yet the title Sufi connotes knowledge. It means probably 'one who (like the Buddha on his statues) has a heavenly eye.' Prajnaparamita (_Divine Wisdom_) has the same third eye (Havell, Indian Sculpture and Painting, illustr. XLV.).] whom he censures, and we may gather that that ignorance was thought to be especially shown in a crude pantheism and a doctrine of incarnation which, according to the Bab, amounts to sheer polytheism. [Footnote 4: The technical term is 'association.'] God in Himself, says the Bab, cannot be known, though a reflected image of Him is attainable by taking heed to His manifestations or perfect portraitures.
Some variety of Sufism, however, sweetly and strongly permeates the teaching of the Bab. It is a Sufism which consists, not in affiliation to any Sufi order, but in the knowledge and love of the Source of the Eternal Ideals. Through detachment from this perishable world and earnest seeking for the Eternal, a glimpse of the unseen Reality can be attained. The form of this only true knowledge is subject to change; fresh 'mirrors' or 'portraits' are provided at the end of each recurring cosmic cycle or aeon. But the substance is unchanged and unchangeable. As Prof. Browne remarks, 'the prophet of a cycle is naught but a reflexion of the Primal Will,--the same sun with a new horizon.' [Footnote: NH, p. 335.]
THE BAB
Such a prophet was the Bab; we call him 'prophet' for want of a better name; 'yea, I say unto you, a prophet and more than a prophet.' His combination of mildness and power is so rare that we have to place him in a line with super-normal men. But he was also a great mystic and an eminent theosophic speculator. We learn that, at great points in his career, after he had been in an ecstasy, such radiance of might and majesty streamed from his countenance that none could bear to look upon the effulgence of his glory and beauty. Nor was it an uncommon occurrence for unbelievers involuntarily to bow down in lowly obeisance on beholding His Holiness; while the inmates of the castle, though for the most part Christians and Sunnis, reverently prostrated themselves whenever they saw the visage of His Holiness. [Footnote: NH, pp. 241, 242.] Such transfiguration is well known to the saints. It was regarded as the affixing of the heavenly seal to the reality and completeness of Bab's detachment. And from the Master we learn [Footnote: Mirza Jani (NH, p. 242).] that it passed to his disciples in proportion to the degree of their renunciation. But these experiences were surely characteristic, not only of Babism, but of Sufism. Ecstatic joy is the dominant note of Sufism, a joy which was of other-worldly origin, and compatible with the deepest tranquillity, and by which we are made like to the Ever-rejoicing One. The mystic poet Far'idu'd-din writes thus,--
Joy! joy! I triumph now; no more I know Myself as simply me. I burn with love. The centre is within me, and its wonder Lies as a circle everywhere about me. [a]
[Footnote a: Hughes, _Dict. of Islam_, p. 618 b.]
And of another celebrated Sufi Sheykh (Ibnu'l Far'id) his son writes as follows: 'When moved to ecstasy by listening [to devotional recitations and chants] his face would increase in beauty and radiance, while the perspiration dripped from all his body until it ran under his feet into the ground.' [Footnote: Browne, Literary History of Persia, ii. 503.]
EFFECT OF SUFISM
Sufism, however, which in the outset was a spiritual pantheism, combined with quietism, developed in a way that was by no means so satisfactory. The saintly mystic poet Abu Sa'id had defined it thus: 'To lay aside what thou hast in thy head (desires and ambitions), and to give away what thou hast in thy hand, and not to flinch from whatever befalls thee.' [Footnote: Ibid. ii. 208.] This is, of course, not intended as a complete description, but shows that the spirit of the earlier Sufism was profoundly ethical. Count Gobineau, however, assures us that the Sufism which he knew was both enervating and immoral. Certainly the later Sufi poets were inclined to overpress symbolism, and the luscious sweetness of the poetry may have been unwholesome for some--both for poets and for readers. Still I question whether, for properly trained readers, this evil result should follow. The doctrine of the impermanence of all that is not