Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/215

 principles brought forward by the neo-Platonic Aristotelian works in general circulation were so far influential and regarded as reconcilable with the Qur'an that Sufism, in so far as it was neo-Platonic, did not appear to be destructive of Islam, but only at variance with customary usage.

Nevertheless, Sufism was generally looked upon as heretical, not only from the "innovations" we have mentioned, but because of the close alliance between the doctrines of its extremer advocates and those of the more advanced Shi'ites. It is indeed most significant that it developed chiefly amongst the same elements which gave the readiest hearing to philosophy and still adhered to Zoroastrian and Masdekite ideas. No doubt the ill repute of Sufism was largely due to the bad company it kept. It was not until the time of al-Ghazali (d. 505) that Sufism began to take its place in orthodox Islam. Al-Ghazali, left an orphan at an early age, had been educated by a Sufi friend, and, after becoming an Ash'arite and as such acting as president of the Nazimite academy at Baghdad, found himself in spiritual difficulties, and spent eleven years in retirement and in the practices of devotion, with the result that when he returned to work as a teacher in 449 his instruction was strongly leavened by mysticism, practically a return to the principles he had been taught in his early years. As al-Ghazali became in course of time the dominant influence in Muslim scholasticism, a modified and orthodox Sufism was