Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/219

 the reverence paid to the tombs of saints and of the invocation of saints, the Prophet himself included. In this he was the precursor of the Wahibi reformation of the 18th cent. A.D. MSS. exist in which the works of Ibn Taymiya are copied out by the hand of 'Abdu l-Wahhab, who was evidently a close student of that reformer, all of whose theories he reproduces.

Ash-Sha'rani of Cairo (d. 973) is typical of the later orthodox Sufi. He was a follower of Ibn 'Arabi on general lines but without his pantheism. His writings are a strange mixture of lofty speculation and lowly superstition, his life was full of intercourse with jinns and other supernatural beings. The truth, he states, is not to be reached by the aid of reason, but only by ecstatic vision. The wali is the man who possesses the gift of illumination (ilham), or direct apprehension of the spiritual, but that grace differs from the inspiration (wahy) bestowed upon the prophets, and the wali must submit to the guidance of prophetic revelations. All walis are essentially under the qutb, but the qutb is inferior to the companions of Muhammad. Whatever rule (tariqa) a darwish follows he is guided by God, but ash-Sha'rani himself preferred the rule of al-Junayd. The varying opinions of the canonists are adapted to the different needs of men. Ash-Sha'rani was the founder of a darwish order which forms a sub-division of the Badawiya (cf. above). His writings have considerable influence in modern Islam, and form the programme of those who advocate a neo-Sufi reformation.