1856.] Notes on the oldest work on Siifism. 145 



we conceived that he has any political views. His only object 

 is to save his soul, not however by praying and fasting alone 

 but by scrupulously acting up to the commandments of God as 

 laid down in the Qoran and Sunnah. He goes very far in his 

 scruples. Starting from the principle that a person who purchases, 

 or accepts, or makes use of unlawfully acquired property, he considers 

 it unlawful to pray in a mosque or purchase the necessaries of life 

 in a market, which stand on ground to which the owner has not a 

 clear right, or which have been built from means which have not 

 been lawfully acquired. It is hardly necessary to say that he con- 

 demns in the strongest terms even those who accept from the servants 

 of the government or other persons, whose hands are not pure, pecu- 

 niary assistance for performing the pilgrimage, or for proceeding as 

 volunteers to the frontier for lighting against the enemies of the 

 Islam. Abstain from sin, before you attempt to do works of piety, 

 is his motto. He therefore praises Yiisof Ibn Asba£ (d. 196,) who 

 says, that he had come all the way from Transoxania to Syria not in 

 order to fight for the Islam, but to gain his livelihood by tilling a 

 ground which was in the hands of its lawful proprietors. 



It appears from quotations of the sayings of pious men of the 

 first and second centuries that this resignation and contempt for the 

 world were very common immediately after the termination of the 

 civil wars between the family of the prophet and the Omayyides, 

 which ended in establishing a selfish despotism. He often quotes 

 Awza'y (d. 157 at the age of 72), iZasan Bacry (was born during 

 the reign of 'Omar and died in 110), Sofyan Thawry (was born in 

 97, d. 161), Tawus (d. 106), Ibn Syryn (d. 110 at the age of 77 years), 

 and Fodhayl b. 'iyadh (d. 187) who held the same opinions. 

 It farther appears (particularly from pp. 185 et seqq.) that they 

 arose from the disgust with which these men were filled in wit- 

 nessing the oppressions of the government. The origin of Siifism 

 therefore is not due to the introduction of some exotic system of phi- 

 losophy from India or Grreece. As leaves, flowers and fruits are the 

 natural results of the development of the seed that is put into the 

 ground, in like manner Sufism is the result of the development of 

 the Islam. As manure promotes the growth of a plant, thus Sufism 

 has in the earliest times profited by w r orks of edification (like the books 



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