Many of the favourite Sufi phrases, "The Perfect Man," "The new creation," "The return to God," have a Christian sound, and the modern Babi movement which has so profoundly influenced Persian life and thought owes its very name to the saying of Christ, "I am the Door" ("Ana ul Bab"), adopted by Mirza Ali, the founder of the sect.
When Henry Martyn reached Shiraz in 1811, he found his most attentive listeners among the Sufis. "These Sufis," he writes in his diary, "are quite the Methodists of the East. They delight in everything Christian except in being exclusive. They consider they all will finally return to God, from whom they emanated."
It is certainly noteworthy that some of the highly educated Indian converts from Islam to Christianity have been men who have passed through a stage of Sufism, e.g., Moulvie Imaduddin of Amritsar, on whom Archbishop Benson conferred a D.D. degree, and Safdar Ali, late Inspector of Schools at Jabalpur. In one of the semi-domes of the Mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople is a gigantic figure of Christ in mosaic, which the Mohammedans have not destroyed, but overlaid with gilding, yet so that the outlines of the figure are still visible. Is it not a parable?
APPENDIX IV
CHRIST IN MODAMMEDAN TRADITION.
The following brief article is an attempt to bring together some of the passages in Mohammedan writers in which Christ is accorded a higher place than in the Koran, and in which deeds and words of His are mentioned regarding which the Koran is quite silent. For though the Koran calls Him 'the Spirit of God' and 'a Word proceeding from Him,' at the same time it says 'What could hinder God if He chose to destroy the Messiah and His mother both together?'
In the traditional sayings of Mohammed collected by Al Bokhari, accepted by all Sunni Mohammedans, we have the following:—
1st. The sinlessness of Christ. The Prophet said, 'Satan touches every child at its birth and it cries out from the touch of Satan. This is the case with all, except Mary and her son.'