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Updated: May 25, 2025
Sufism, in some form or another, could not possibly be confined to Asia.
In Persia, Sufism, a form of mysticism, made great progress. It extolled the unselfish love of God, and a contemplative and ascetic life. Law was studied; and on the basis of the Koran, and of reasonings upon it, systems of jurisprudence were created. Science and Literature kept pace with legal studies. Poetry flourished through the whole period of the Eastern caliphate.
The Greeks, though strangers to the mystic element of that Beauty-worship which in Asia became afterwards sufism, could not have exhibited a passion for concrete beauty such as theirs without feeling that, deeper than Tartarus, stronger than Destiny and Death, the great heart of Nature is beating to the tune of universal love and beauty. Weeks passed by.
The theoretical part of the reformed doctrine seems to be a kind of Sufism, the general character of which mode of Islam, long prevalent in the adjacent kingdom of Persia, has been described by our own orientalists.
The above mentioned brothers Faizî and Abul Fazl introduced to his impressionable spirit the exalted teaching of Sûfism, the Mohammedan mysticism whose spiritual pantheism had its origin in, or at least was strongly influenced by, the doctrine of the All-One, held by the Brahman Vedânta system.
Where persuasion failed, threats of fire and sword were resorted to; and in many instances promises of adherence were guaranteed by hostages sent to Himri. And so by dint of argument, intimidation, and force, the new doctrine of political Sufism was in the course of a few months diffused over the greater part of the Lesghian highlands.
You must record upon them only the best acts and memories. "Would you a Sufi be, you must Subdue your passions; banish lust And anger; be of none afraid, A hundred wounds take undismayed." In time, by dint of plain living, high thinking, and stifling generally the impulses of his nature, Burton became a Master Sufi, and all his life he sympathised with, and to some extent practised Sufism.
He was finding out in youth, or rather in early manhood, what it took Koheleth a lifetime to discover, namely, that "all is vanity." This being the state of his mind it is not surprising that he drifted into Sufism. He fasted, complied with the rules and performed all the exercises conscientiously.
In time of comparative peace, while one half of them keep watch over the life of the imam, rendering access to him a matter of extreme difficulty, the other half act as lay preachers of his political Sufism; and in time of actual war, they are the soul of his army, caring not for their lives but only for his, leading the raid, covering the retreat, a strong wall of defence around the faithful, and the terror of the enemy, by whom not one of them has ever been taken alive.
"Dear Sir, We look upon the consulship of Trieste as a gift to Sir Richard Burton for his services to the nation, and we must decline to interfere with him in any way." Burton's Religion. As regards religion, Burton had in early life, as we have seen, leaned to Sufism; and this faith influenced him to the end.
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