I.The Doctrine of the Ṣūfīs.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Hughes, Thomas Patrick
The following is a succinct account of the doctrines of the Ṣūfīs:—
1. God only exists. He is in all things, and all things are in Him.
2. All visible and invisible beings are an emanation from Him, and are not really distinct from Him.
3. Religions are matters of indifference: they however serve as leading to realities. Some for this purpose are more advantageous than others, among which is al-Islām, of which Ṣūfīism is the true philosophy.
4. There does not really exist any difference between good and evil, for all is reduced to Unity, and God is the real Author of the acts of mankind.
5. It is God who fixes the will of man: man therefore is not free in his actions.
6. The soul existed before the body, and is confined within the latter as in a cage. Death, therefore, should be the object of the wishes of the Ṣūfī, for it is then that he returns to the bosom of Divinity.
7. It is by this metempsychosis that souls which have not fulfilled their destination here below are purified and become worthy of reunion with God.
8. Without the grace of God, which the Ṣūfīs call Fayaẓānu ʾllāh, or Faẓlu ʾllāh, no one can attain to this spiritual union, but this, they assert, can be obtained by fervently asking for it.
9. The principal occupation of the Ṣūfī, whilst in the body, is meditation on the waḥdānīyah, or Unity of God, the remembrance of God’s names [ZIKR], and the progressive advancement in the T̤arīqah, or journey of life, so as to attain unification with God.