It must be borne in mind that this is a theory of perfection, and that those whom it exalts above the Law are saints, spiritual guides, and profound theosophists who enjoy the special favour of God and presumably do not need to be restrained, coerced, or punished. In practice, of course, it leads in many instances to antinomianism and libertinism, as among the Bektāshīs and other orders of the so-called ‘lawless’ dervishes. The same theories produced the same results in Europe during the Middle Ages, and the impartial historian cannot ignore the corruptions to which a purely subjective mysticism is liable; but on the present occasion we are concerned with the rose itself, not with its cankers.
Not all Sūfīs are gnostics; and, as I have mentioned before, those who are not yet ripe for the gnosis receive from their gnostic teachers the ethical instruction suitable to their needs. Jalāluddīn Rūmī, in his collection of lyrical poems entitled The Dīvān of Shamsi Tabrīz, gives free rein to a pantheistic enthusiasm which sees all things under the form of eternity.
“I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one;
One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call.
I am intoxicated with Love’s cup, the two worlds have passed out of my ken;
I have no business save carouse and revelry.”
But in his Masnavī—a work so famous and venerated that it has been styled ‘The Koran of Persia’—we find him in a more sober mood expounding the Sūfī doctrines and justifying the ways of God to man. Here, though he is a convinced optimist and agrees with Ghazālī that this is the best of all possible worlds, he does not airily dismiss the problem of evil as something outside reality, but endeavours to show that evil, or what seems evil to us, is part of the divine order and harmony. I will quote some passages of his argument and leave my readers to judge how far it is successful or, at any rate, suggestive.
The Sūfīs, it will be remembered, conceive the universe as a projected and reflected image of God. The divine light, streaming forth in a series of emanations, falls at last upon the darkness of not-being, every atom of which reflects some attribute of Deity. For instance, the beautiful attributes of love and mercy are reflected in the form of heaven and the angels, while the terrible attributes of wrath and vengeance are reflected in the form of hell and the devils. Man reflects all the attributes, the terrible as well as the beautiful: he is an epitome of heaven and hell. Omar Khayyām alludes to this theory when he says:
“Hell is a spark from our fruitless pain,
Heaven a breath from our time of joy”