United States or Saint Barthélemy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The very idea that Christianity was sent to subvert, that is, the old Oriental idea of self-expiation, seen among the fakirs and sofis and Brahmins alike, and in a less repulsive form among the Pharisees, became once again the ruling idea of theologians.
It is said he was distinguished for his piety from his earliest youth, and that he joined the Sofis, or the Religious sect in Mecca, under the direction of Fodhail. He went from there to Damas, where he died in the year 166 of the Hegira.
Now what, more specifically, were the ideas which the early monks borrowed from India, Persia, and Egypt, which ultimately took such a firm hold of the European mind? One was the superior virtue of a life devoted to purely religious contemplation, and for the same end that animated the existence of fakirs and sofis.
They have been described as drinking well when they do break the religious law, for they have a saying that 'there is as much sin in a glass as in a flagon. The Persians have never thoroughly accommodated themselves to the creed of their Semitic conquerors; they show profound respect for the externals of Mohammedanism, and are sincere in their practice of piety and the obligations of religion and charity; but they have always indulged in the fancies and ideas of the great school of free-thinking philosopher Sofis, whose observance of the ordinances of severe and joyless life is notedly lax.
Word Of The Day