What is it, then, in S??ufism that excites the Ba?„b's indignation? It
is not the doctrine of the soul's oneness with God as the One Absolute
Being, and the reality of the soul's ecstatic communion with Him.
Several passages are quoted by Mons. Nicolas [Footnote: _Beyan
arabe_, pp. 3-18.] on the attitude of the Ba?„b towards S??ufism;
suffice it here to quote one of them.
'Others (i.e. those who claim, as being identified with God, to
possess absolute truth) are known by the name of S??ufis, and believe
themselves to possess the internal sense of the Shari'at [Footnote:
The orthodox Law of Islam, which many Muslims seek to allegorize.]
when they are in ignorance alike of its apparent and of its inward
meaning, and have fallen far, very far from it! One may perhaps say of
them that those people who have no understanding have chosen the route
which is entirely of darkness and of doubt.'
Ignorance, then, is, according to the Ba?„b, the great fault of the
S??ufis [Footnote: Yet the title S??ufi connotes knowledge. It means
probably 'one who (like the Buddha on his statues) has a heavenly
eye.' Prajna?„paramita?„ (_Divine Wisdom_) has the same third
eye (Havell, _Indian Sculpture and Painting_, illustr. XLV.).]
whom he censures, and we may gather that that ignorance was thought to
be especially shown in a crude pantheism and a doctrine of incarnation
which, according to the Ba?„b, amounts to sheer polytheism.
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