1.9.5 - The Connection between Sufism and Early Religions

Before commencing to talk about the movement of Sufism in Maghrib and Andalusia in the pre-Ibn al-Arabi era, it is necessary to emphasize the existence of some similarities and natural connection between the different religions and philosophies, since they all emanate from the same particular source of knowledge, whether heavenly through the Apostles and Prophets or philosophically through the thinkers and scholars. It is not wise, therefore, if we find an idea or method in Sufism similar to some old religious or philosophical beliefs, thus we should not judge that this is alien to Islam. The Messenger, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, was sent to complete the morals and good ethics, not to come up with radically different ones. And that applies in general to knowledge, science, philosophy and doctrine. The similarity between an old dogma and an Islamic faith does not mean a contradiction, nor does it mean that Muslims or Sufis have taken this common knowledge from previous religions or beliefs, but rather from Islam, which contains all these previous valid beliefs before being distorted, either intentionally, by some wasters, or naturally as a result of the long passage of time.

Actually, Shaykh Muhyiddin formalized this interconnection between religions through his illustrious concept of the prophetic inheritance, since some of the Saints may have inherited Jesus, and some of them may have inherited Moses and some may be Muhammadan, or other states belonging to other prophets, but in the end they all benefit from the main source of Islamic law, as we will describe further in the following chapter.

Therefore, we should not follow the ideas of some Orientalists who claimed, that Sufism (and here we mean pure Islamic mysticism) is derived from the sources of previous religions, such as Persian Zoroastrianism and Indian and Christian doctrines, or ancient philosophies such as modern Platonism, mixing all these different tendencies and methods over the ages. Sadly, this wrong opinion is followed by some Muslim scholars, as Ahmed Amin adopted in his “The Noon of Islam” [The Emergence of Islam, Ahmed Amin, Library of the Egyptian Renaissance - Cairo, 1982: v. 2, p. 58]

As we have described, this view is actually advocated by some orientalists such as Adam Metz, who said that the Muslims felt deep in their souls of the new needs introduced in the third century AH, and soon came to satisfy these needs from the ancient religions that were not manifest, especially Christianity, or the Greek philosophy diffused with Christianity. He said that al-Harith Ibn Asad al-Muhasibi (164/781-243/857) was influenced by Christianity, because there is a similarity between his words and the sermon of Christ, and that al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi (143/760-255/869) says that Jesus is the Seal of the Saints, and that the concept of perishing (fanaa) belongs to the Gnostics [See: Chapter IX and X of his book History of Islamic Civilization]. Other Orientalists, such as Reynold Nicholson and Ignac Goldziher, have also said the same.

However, the most obvious proof against this ill claim is that most Sufis had no knowledge of other beliefs and philosophies, because most of them were actually illiterate who did not read or write. Nevertheless, they came out with a high level of eloquence, expressed through their magnificent books and poetry, which became the basis of Islamic and even international literature.