Thread by @Jawnmard1

Those who follow this way believe that Sufism—not the name, but the thing itself—derives directly from the Prophet Muhammad. The name came later, to describe something implicit in the religion from the very start.
(1/)

And that’s an important point, because many Western oriental­ists have tried to attribute the development of Sufism to foreign influences, “borrowings”—Neoplatonism, Hindu Vedanta and so on. It’s an understandable misconception.
(2/)

Early Islamic mysti­cism was, in a sense, inarticulate; it was there, but it did not pos­ sess the technical terms by which to define itself. Neoplatonism in particular offered a convenient terminology—so why not use it?
(3/)

“All wisdom”, it is said, “is the believer’s lost camel.” And all wisdom is one. Islam does not “borrow” what is alien to its true nature, but it makes use of what comes to it from elsewhere pro­ vided this fits the pattern.
(4/)

But whatever the language in which it finds expression, Sufism is rooted in the Qur’an and in the teach­ing of the Prophet, and these are the sources which guarantee both its truth and its efficacy.
(5/5)

#sufism
#tasawwuf
#islamicmysticism