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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
INTRODUCTION.
This difference, however, is more nominal than real; for potwithstanding their belief in the doctrine which maintains the identity of the divine and the human soul, the Sufis are very
certain as to the exact nature of the union they so impassionately long for. One of the greatest saints of this order, whose mystic poetry is held in the highest veneration, Mowlaná Jelálud-din Rumi, has a verse which entirely scouts the idea of actual absorption into the deity. He writes :
" Now, mystic Lovers! with strange delight, To heavenly mansions wing your rapturous flight; Tread, of yon halls august, the marble floor,
Behold the ETERNAL FAIR, and face to face adore.” The history of Sufism is involved in obscurity; nothing is known of the first promulgators of the system and of its subsequent progress till the time of Sheikh Mohiuddin Ali, who in the middle of the 11th century published his “Fatúhát e Mákki and “Fasús ul Húkam," which have ever since been reckoned as the text books of the sect. Allah o bas, “ God and nothing else" is a favourite dogma of the Sufis, and they ascribe it to Abu Saïd Abul Khair who lived about nine hundred years ago. Some of them maintain that Mahommed was the first promulgator of their religion, and was himself a Sufi of the highest order. That the Prophet of Mecca was greatly aided in the dissemination of his religion by a body of ardent enthusiasts, there can be no doubt, and that he inculcated many pantheistic dogmas admits of proof, but whether they owe their paternity to him or to a foreign source, and how far they assimilate to the doctrine of the modern Sufis, are problems which must await further research for their solution.
Of the doctrine of Bhaktí the earliest record is the Bhagavad Gitá in which Krishqa maintains the superiority of Faith over Knowledge, as a means of salvation. From the Gitá it is to be traced to the Sri Bhágavat, where it appears in a high state of development and ready to supersede the doctrines of the Vedas and the Darsaņas. But it does not appear that on its promulya
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