Sufism is an especially mystical faith tradition, with widely varying forms of expression within its array of orders. A Sufi's ultimate goal is to be reunited with the Divine Beloved—the Source from which we came, of which we are part, and to which we shall return.
A collection of quotes follows from The Mystics of Islam by Reynold A. Nicholson (first published by Routledge, London, 1914; World Wisdom's New Edition, 2002). This book provides an expansive and fascinating window into the mystical dimensions of Islam.
Nicholson (1868-1945) was a 20th century scholar, specialist in Islamic mysticism, and world-renowned translator. “He combined exact scholarship with notable literary gifts. Some of his versions of Arabic and Persian poetry entitle him to be considered a poet in his own right.” (www.britannica.com)
The following selected quotes offer a mere taste of this spiritual classic. (Unattributed quotes are by Nicholson.) For more, see: www.sacred-texts.com/isl/moi/moi.htm#1.
1. “Though all the great types of mysticism have something in common, each is marked by peculiar characteristics resulting from the circumstances in which it arose and flourished.”
2. “ ‘O God, I never listen to the cry of animals or to the quivering of trees or to the murmuring of water or to the warbling of birds or to the rustling wind or to the crashing thunder without feeling them to be an evidence of Thy unity.’ ” (9th century CE)
3. “Publicly I say, ‘O my God!’ but privately I say, ‘O my Beloved!’ ” (9th century CE)
4. “The child is born weeping, for the soul knows its separation from Allah, the One Reality. And when the child cries in its sleep, it is because the soul remembers something of what it has lost.” (from “The Way of a Mohammedan Mystic, W.H.T. Gairdner, Leipzig, 1912)
5. “Theologians, who interpret the letter, cannot be expected to reach the same conclusions as mystics, who interpret the spirit.”
6. “Let your heart be with Him always, let it not be withdrawn from Him for a single moment.”
7. “According to a mystical interpretation of the famous passage in the Koran where the light of Allah is compared to a candle burning in a lantern of transparent glass, which is placed in a niche in the wall, the niche is the true believer's heart; therefore his speech is light and his works are light and he moves in light.”
“Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The Parable of His Light is as if there were a Niche and within it a Lamp: the Lamp enclosed in Glass: the glass as it were a brilliant star… Light upon Light! Allah doth guide whom He will to His Light…” (Surah 24:35, The Qur’an)
8. “Numerous anecdotes (exist) of persons who were thrown into ecstasy on hearing a verse of the Koran or a heavenly voice (hatif) or poetry or music.”
9. “God has inspired every created thing to praise Him in its own language, so that all the sounds in the universe form, as it were, one vast choral hymn by which He glorifies Himself. Consequently those whose hearts He has opened and endowed with spiritual perception hear His voice everywhere, and ecstasy overcomes them as they listen to the rhythmic chant of the muezzin, or the street cry of the saqqa shouldering his waterskin, or, perchance, to the noise of wind…or the piping of a bird.”
10. “The enlightened mystic regards God as the real agent in every act.”
11. “Pythagoras and Plato are responsible for a theory, to which the Sufi poets frequently allude, that music awakens in the soul a memory of celestial harmonies heard in a state of pre-existence, before the soul was separated from God. Thus, says Jalaluddin Rumi:
‘The song of the spheres in their revolutions
Is what men sing with lute and voice...
We have heard these melodies in Paradise.
Though earth and water have cast their veil upon us,
We retain faint reminiscences of these heavenly songs;
But while we are thus shrouded by gross earthly veils,
How can the tones of the dancing spheres reach us?’ ”
(E. H. Whinfield, abridged translation of Rumi’s Masnavi)
12. “What kind of symbolism each mystic will prefer depends on his temperament and character.”
13. “Love is…the physician of all our infirmities.” (Jalaluddin Rumi)
14. “I fancied that I loved Him, but on consideration I saw that His love preceded mine.” (Bayazid)
15. “Love thrilled the chord of love in my soul's lute,
And changed me all to love from head to foot.” (Jami)
16. “Love is the essence of all creeds:
the true mystic welcomes it whatever guise it may assume:
‘My heart has become capable of every form:
it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
And a temple for idols, and the pilgrim's Ka‘ba,
and the tables of the Tora and the book of the Koran.
I follow the religion of Love, whichever way his camels take.’ ”
(Rumi)
17. “…he sees by the light of Allah…” (traditional)
18. “ ‘He reaches Me, and I am his home, and his abode is with Me’—that is to say, he comprehends all the divine attributes and embraces all mystical experiences. He is not satisfied with the names (attributes), but seeks the Named. He contemplates the essence of God and finds it identical with his own. He does not pray. Prayer is from man to God, but in waqfat there is nothing but God.”
19. “…periods of intense aridity and acute suffering…sometimes fill the interval between lower and higher states of ecstasy. Descriptions of this experience—the Dark Night of the Soul, as it is called by Christian authors—may be found in almost any biography of Mohammedan saints.”
20. “He has the right to guide others to God… In our day his due title is Director of Souls, and he is a blessing to those who invoke his aid, because he comprehends the innate capacities of all mankind and, like a camel-driver, speeds everyone to his home… He is the horizon of every mystical station and transcends the furthest range of experience known to each grade of seekers.”
21. “No religion is more sublime than a religion of love and longing for God.” (Ibn al-‘Arabi)
22. “ ‘He who discourses of eternity must have within him the lamp of eternity.’ ” (Bayazid)
23. “To be united, here and now, with the World-Soul is the utmost imaginable bliss.”
24. “…infusion of the divine essence (hulul)…” “…he becomes the very Light…”
25. “The light in the soul, the eye by which it sees, and the object of its vision, all are One.”
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First published by Routledge, Kegan Paul, London, 1914
First paperback edition: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1975
Also: Arkana Penguin Books, 1989
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