Such in the poet’s eye is the dance of angels, but less refined must be that of mortals, and really one sort of it strangely contrasts with the usually grave deportment of bearded ample-robed Muselmans, from Muhammed, who gave the example, down to the Durvishes of our days, who, with frantic howls and vehement whirling motions, by ludicrous and unseemly exhibition, destroy the whole gravity of inward intention. Mohsan Fani adduces some instances of dancing, and quotes throughout his work verses of mystical poetry upon Divine love, in glowing expressions belonging to profane passion. It is known how equivocal in their meaning they appear in the works of Jelal eddin Rumi, Sâdi, Hafiz, and others.[185]
3. It was not always vehement enthusiasm which was nourished in the contemplation of one Supreme Being; mysticism, in Súfis of a milder character, became quietism: he to whom all things are one, who draweth all things to one, and seeth all things in one, may enjoy peace and rest of spirit. I have quoted the words of an English bishop, Jeremy Taylor, and might borrow similar passages from a more ancient Christian bishop, Synesius,[186] for expressing a sort of purely spiritual pantheism. But there is another, which seems not to exclude materialism: the great cause from which the infinite series of all material and spiritual existences originates, is enveloped, as it were, with the vest of the universe; never known as to its essence, but always felt in its manifestations; it is
“All in all, and all in every part.”[187]
In short, God is all, and all is God. This appeared not more incomprehensible, but less complicated than any other system to the pantheistical Súfis.
4. After excessive efforts to transcend the limits of his nature, the philosophic inquirer re-enters into himself, and coerces his futile attempts by the precept: “Know thyself.” Having, as it were, recovered himself, and feeling that every thing proceeds from the depth of his mind, he sees himself in every thing; heaven and earth are his own; “he demands from himself whatever he wishes;” for he is every thing; he finds the God whom he sought in himself, in his own heart, and says, “Who knows himself, knows God.” This is religious psychology, the creed of the egotist class of Súfis.
It is a fact which appears incredible, but is too well attested for the admission of a doubt, that Súfis believed themselves to be gods, and adhered to their belief, amid torments, until death.[188] This psychological fact may be explained by considering that, according to Súfism, God is nothing else but an idea of the highest perfection; he, says our author, from whose sight both worlds vanished, who in the steps of right faith arrived at the rank of perfect purity, from truth to truth, became God; that is, he became one with his own idea of perfection, which cannot be disputed to him; his divinity is an illusion, but nothing else to him is the world; it is all and nothing, dependent upon his own creation and annihilation.
V. Transacting as it were directly with the Divine Being, the Súfis throw off the shackles of the positive religion; pious rebels, they neither fast nor make pilgrimages to the temple of Mecca, nay, they forget their prayers; for with God there is no other but the soundless language of the heart. From excess of religion they have no religion at all. Thus is confirmed the trite saying that “extremes meet.” “The perfection of a man’s state,” says Jami, “and the utmost degree to which saints may attain, is to be without an attribute, and without a mark.” The most fervent zeal sinks into the coldest indifference about religion. The author of the Dabistán declares positively,[189] that “whoever says that the Muselmans are above the Christians, does not know the true Being.” But the whole creed of an emancipated (this is the name I give to one belonging to the fifth order of Súfis) uniting in himself the egotist, pantheistic, and mystical Súfi will be found in the following verses of Jelal-eddin Rúmi, before mentioned:
[190]“O Moslims! what is to be done? I do not know myself; I am neither Jew, nor Christian, nor Gueber, nor Moslim; I am not from the East nor from the West; nor from land nor sea; neither from the region of nature nor from that of heaven; not from Hind nor China; not from Bulgaria nor Irak, nor from the towns of Khorassan. I am neither water nor dust, wind nor fire; not from the highest nor deepest, neither self-existent nor created; I am not from the two worlds, no son of Adam, not from hell nor from heaven, nor paradise. He is the first, the last, the interior, the exterior; I know but him, Yahu! Yahu! Menhu! I looked up, and saw both worlds to be one; I see but one—I seek but one—I know but one. My station is without space, my mark without impression; it is not soul nor body; I am the soul of souls. If I had passed one single day without thee, I would repent to have lived one single hour. When one day the friend stretches out his hand to me in solitude, I tread the worlds under my feet, and open my hands. O Shams Tabrizi,[191] I am so intoxicated here that, except intoxication, no other remedy remains to me.”
We know, by the preceding, what the Súfi is not; we shall now learn what he is.
“O Moslims! I am intoxicated by love in the world. I am a believer—an unbeliever—a drunken monk; I am the Shaikhs Bayazid, Shubli, Juneid, Abu Hanifa, Shafei, Hanbeli; I the throne and tent of heaven, from the dust up to the Pleyads; I am whatever thou seest in separation and enjoyment; I am the distance of two bows-length[193] around the throne; I am the Gospel, the Psalter, the Koran; I am Usa and Lat,[194] the cross, the Bál and Dagon,[195] the Kâbah, and the place of sacrifice. The world is divided into seventy-and-two sects, but there is but one God; the believer in him am I; I am the lie, the truth, the good, the evil, the hard and the soft, science, solitude, virtue, faith, the deepest pit of hell, the greatest torment of flames, the highest paradise, Huri, Risvan,[196] am I. What is the intent of this speech? Say it, O Shams Tabrizi! The intended meaning is: I am the soul of the world.”