These considerations show that the question as to the origin of Ṣúfiism cannot be answered in a definite and exclusive way. None of the rival theories is completely true, nor is any of them without a partial justification. The following words of Dr. Goldziher should be borne in mind by all who are interested in this subject:—
"Ṣúfiism cannot be looked upon as a regularly organised sect within Islam. Its dogmas cannot be compiled into a regular system. It Goldziher on the character of Ṣúfiism. manifests itself in different shapes in different countries. We find divergent tendencies, according to the spirit of the teaching of distinguished theosophists who were founders of different schools, the followers of which may be compared to Christian monastic orders. The influence of different environments naturally affected the development of Ṣúfiism. Here we find mysticism, there asceticism the prevailing thought."[731]
The four principal foreign sources of Ṣúfiism are undoubtedly Christianity, Neo-platonism, Gnosticism, and Indian asceticism and religious philosophy. I shall not attempt in this place to estimate their comparative importance, but it should be clearly understood that the speculative and theosophical side of Ṣúfiism, which, as we have seen, was first elaborated in ‘Iráq, Syria, and Egypt, bears unmistakable signs of Hellenistic influence.
The early Ṣúfís are particularly interested in the theory of mystical union (faná wa-baqá) and often use expressions which it is easy to associate with pantheism, yet none of them can fairly be called a pantheist in the true sense. The step from theosophy to pantheism was not, I think, made either by Ḥalláj († 922 a.d.) or by the celebrated Abú Yazíd, in Persian Báyazíd († 874-75 a.d.), of Bisṭám, a town in the province of Qúmis situated near the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea. Báyazíd of Bisṭám. While his father, Surúshán, was a Zoroastrian, his master in Ṣúfiism seems to have been connected with Sind (Scinde), where Moslem governors had been installed since 715 a.d. Báyazíd carried the experimental doctrine of faná (dying to self) to its utmost limit, and his language is tinged with the peculiar poetic imagery which was afterwards developed by the great Ṣúfí of Khurásán, Abú Sa‘íd b. Abi ’l-Khayr († 1049 a.d.). I can give only a few specimens of his sayings. Their genuineness is not above suspicion, but they serve to show that if the theosophical basis of Ṣúfiism is distinctively Greek, its mystical extravagances are no less distinctively Oriental.
"Creatures are subject to 'states' (aḥwál), but the gnostic has no 'state,' because his vestiges are effaced and his essence is annihilated by the essence of another, and his traces are lost in another's traces.
"I went from God to God until they cried from me in me, 'O Thou I!'
"Nothing is better for Man than to be without aught, having no asceticism, no theory, no practice. When he is without all, he is with all.
"Verily I am God, there is no God except me, so worship me!
"Glory to me! how great is my majesty!
"I came forth from Báyazíd-ness as a snake from its skin. Then I looked. I saw that lover, beloved, and love are one, for in the world of unification all can be one.