Primitive Sufiism is not doctrinal; it is an 'experience,' a 'feeling of God,' a 'mystery of godliness,' and does not primarily have anything to do with the notions of the intellect. Within two hundred years from its origin, however, it assumed doctrinal forms and it remained set tled in them. though it never gave up the main characteristics of its beginning. The two chief doctrines of Snfiism are that of the One (Abed) and that of 'the Way to the One' (tariyat). A Sufi first of all endeavors to realize that 'the one' is the only existence, that there is not only 'no god but God,' but that there is nothing but God. Next, be enters upon 'the journey to the rose-garden of Union.' The Sufi's belief is not pantheism in the Greek sense: lie does not 'make everything God except God him self ;' on the contrary, everything is naught ex cept Divinity and it is Divinity that gives life to the dead Non-Being. The world is a phantas magory, and the time will come when it shall pass away. God's reason for creating the world is found in this saying: "1 was a Bidden Treas ure and I wished to be known, so 1 created Crea tion that I might be known." The form of crea tion is not only truth and goodness, but also and essentially beauty. Sufis lay more stress upon the conception of Divinity as beauty than other mystics or religions.
The Sufi 'way to God' is similar to the well known ideas on that subject among Western mystics. With the help of a guide, 'the traveler' ascends step by step to Union with God or through awakening to regeneration and sanctifi cation to union. The 'Way' is ascetic and full of occult practices, such as dances, silences, etc. All men may reach union. Every man is essentially both a microthcos and a microcosmos, or. as Shamsi of Tabriz sings in echo of numerous other Sufis: "1\ly place is in the Placeless; my trace is in the Traceless." "1 gazed into my own heart; there I saw One." Sufi symbolism is a mystery and permeates the entire system of Sufiism. A symbol to a Sufi is not merely an object which stands for some other object o• idea. Fo• him every object has besides its own immediate signification also an ideal content, and it is this latter which is the real object of the Sufi's search. He finds it by means of Love (isq). The object is to the ecstatic a vivid, instantaneous revelation of the inscrutable. Objects are therefore 'veils,' not veils that hide, but 'veils' that reveal the One. All Sufi poetry is written with a double sense and the initiates can read five others besides. The now comparatively well-known ghazels of Hafiz, Sadi, Jami. and others abound in 'veils,'
which the Occidental calls voluptuous and bac chanalian, but to the Sufi, Oriental as he is. they are not low- or degraded, but simply descriptive of emotions or soul-life. As such they suggest to him deeper and more universal states of life. The brace means discovery of the mysteries of Godhead; wine divine love and wisdom; a tavern signifies what w•e call a church, because through the rapture of the wine and the wonder of the embrace the Sufi is filled with thoughts of the Beloved; a red rose is the beloved damsel and the nightingale is the lover; but the Beloved is al ways God.
There are many sects among the Sufis, but 'their differences are not strictly Sufiistic; they have arisen on external and unessential ground and are of little interest outside of Sutiism. Sutlism has exerted a powerful influence where Alohammedanism rules, especially in Arabia, Persia, and Egypt, and it is flourishing to-day in Turkey. India also has a large number of Sufis. Persian literature, more than any other, bears strong impress of it.
Consult: Jalal-ud-Din Rumi, Math/la/el, trans lated by Redhouse (London, 1881) and by Whin field (iii., 1887) ; Farid-ud-Din Attar, at-Tair, edited and translated by Garein de Tassy (Paris, 1857-63) ; Mahmud Shabistari. GuMin i-Raz, edited and translated by Whinfield (Lon don, 1880) ; Tholuek. Nufisin us, sire Theosophia Persaruni Pantheist ica (Berlin. 1821) ; id., Bliitrmsuranclung aus dry niorgenliindisehrn Mys tik (ib., 1825) ; Palmer, Oriental Jlysticism• (Cambridge. 1867) ; Brown. The Derrishes. or Oriental Spiritualism ( London. 186S) ; Kremer. Gcsehiehtc der hrrrsehenden ]deem des !slam (Leipzig, 1868) : Eth(q. "Der c6fismus and seine drei Hauptvertreter in der persischen Poesie." in his Jlou•genlindischc Studien (Bt. 1870): id., Die mystischc, didaktisehe and lyrisehe Poesie and das splitcre Schrifttum der Perser (Ham burg, 1888) ; id.. "Neupersische Litteratur,' in Geiger and Kuhn, Orendriss der• iranisehen lologie, vol. ii. (Strassburg, 1896-97) ; Frank. Beitrag zit?. Erkenntniss des Sufisnias 1 Leipzig, 1884 ) ; Pi zzi, Storia della Porsia persiana I Turin. 1894) : Gibbs. History of Ottoman Poetry (Lou don, 1900) ; Browne. "Suflism." in Religious Systems of the World (P)., Q92) ; i 1., Literary History of Persia (ib., 1902) : Bjerregaard. Sufi Interpretations of the Q t it/8 of Khayyam and Fitzgerald (New York. 19021: "Maedonald, Derelopment of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitutional Theory (ib., 1903).