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as equally good, and attached no importance to any of the formalities of
the ceremonial law, the strict observation of which was considered by
the orthodox as binding on every good Moslem. Thus, the reading of the
Koran, with rhythmical intonation, as practised in every mosque, had in
their eyes no value. To adore God with a pure heart, according to them,
was infinitely more important than all outward observances.

Such ideas could not be acceptable to the Ulemas, who saw the absolute
authority in religious matters slipping from their hands. Only a
moderate power of perception was needed to understand what dangers for
the official hierarchy lurked in the ideas of these enthusiasts who
claimed to derive divine wisdom from a source so different to that of
which the Ulemas believed themselves to be the sole dispensers.

It is true that Arab mysticism had never taken such a bold flight as
Persian theosophy, which proclaimed openly a Pantheistic system, in
which the authority of the books revealed to different prophets was
displaced by a poetic belief. According to this faith, the universe was
an emanation of God, the human soul a spark of the Divine Essence gone
astray in this transitory world, but destined to return finally to God,
after having been purified of its earthly stains. The Arab Sufis did not
go so far; for them the Koran was always the Word of God, and Muhammed
was His prophet. They conformed externally to the precepts of Islam, but
claimed at the same time to understand God and His law better than the
theologians, and that not by the study of large volumes of exegesis and
traditions, but by celestial inspiration. The orthodox mullahs
understood the danger, and did not conceal their growing irritation
against these audacious heretics. The government and the great majority
of Moslems were on the side of the Ulema, but the mystics found sympathy
among the people, and their ideas spread with incredible rapidity.

In the eleventh century, a man of great ability, of whom the Muhammadans
are justly proud, made a vigorous effort to reconcile orthodox Islam
with the Sufi doctrines current in his time. This man was Ghazzali. He
consecrated the labour of a lifetime to this task, and his chief work,
"The Revival of the Religious Sciences," is a veritable encyclopaedia of
Islam. He did not work in vain, but succeeded in erecting a system in
which dogmatic theology is cleverly combined with the theosophy of the
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