Most orthodox scholars looked upon the claim of the Sufis of experiencing
the Presence of God, directly and in this world, with great suspicion. Such
an assertion seemed unacceptable, for it refuted the uniqueness of
prophethood, and the divine communication received by the prophets.
However, the Sufis claimed there were many ways of knowing God and theirs
was merely one of them.They also maintained that not all can travel the Sufi
path, and not all who attempt to do so can achieve their final goal – the
vision of God is a gift that is given at His will, at any time and to anybody
upon whom He chooses to bestow it. Al Ghazali, a theologian turned Sufi,
confirmed this claim for them.
Early Sufi writings
The Sufis might trace their origin to the age of the Prophet Muhammad
and his companions, but, as explained in the chapter ‘What is Sufism?’, the
term Sufi, or
tasawwuf,
was not used in any writings before the 8
th
century
AD. It appears neither in the Qur’an nor the
hadith,
nor does it figure in
the dictionaries composed in the early days of Islam.The Sufis were obviously
more concerned with their personal piety than the propagation of their views.
This, however, changed in the 10
th
century AD, when the first works
mentioning the Sufis made an appearance. Though a few might have been
written by non-Sufis, the Sufis themselves authored most of these. Some
were merely reports of the words and deeds of the famous saints, others
tried to explain the phenomenon of Sufism on its own terms, while yet
others were written to refute the attacks on the Sufis.
The most remarkable of these writings were works, which later came to
be referred to as ‘the Sufi manuals.’ They explained the practices of the
Sufis and offered advice for those aspiring to the Sufi path. Usually, the
T owar d s Mys t i c i sm 42
