Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/30

 20 NOTES AND QUERIES. ti2s.ix.juLY2.io2i. care for the history of the Middle Ages in the West they afford material for most illuminating contrasts and comparisons between Islam and the 'Catholic Church. The three great Sufis who form the subject of these pages are contemporaries of the Medieval Church Abu Sa'id, at the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century ; Ibnu '1- Farid in the days of Innocent III. ; Jili at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Abu Sa'id was a Persian, who, after his con- version to Sufism, spent years in the strictest and most ingenious asceticism. This training completed, his soul arrived at permanent com- munion with Allah, he lived and moved freely among his fellow-men, his ecstasies and miracles and his teaching attesting his divine inspiration. The biographical material for his life is abundant, and Dr. Nicholson has quoted from it freely, the curious riches of the story being conveyed in a very pleasant translation. Abu Sa'id's mystical outlook may, perhaps, be compared with that of those Christian mystics who have made much use of the Song of Solomon at least in so far as concerns its passionateness. His insistence on the selflessness of true love might be St. Bernard's ; and his attitude towards fortune and conduct has the lover's generosity and detachment : " To lay aside what thou hast in thy head, to give what thou hast in thy hand, and not to recoil from whatsoever befalls thee." Marcus Aurelius has several sayings not unlike this but it comes nearer to the " ne rien demand er et ne rien refuser " of St. Francis de Sales. Where Abu Sa'id differs from the Christian mystic is in his self-importance indication of some deep-going difference of theory, but not to be regretted by the humorous reader, since it is the source of many fine stories. Several of these are of interest from the point of view of the modern psychical research and kindred topics, and there is a passage of Abu Sa'id's wisdom which carries an idea akin to those of our busy friends the psycho-analysts. Somebody had objected to the young men's dancing and singing after they had entered on the Path. Said he: " The souls of young men are not yet purged of lust : indeed, it may be the prevailing element ; and lust takes possession of all the limbs. Now, if a young dervish claps his hands, the lust of his hands will be dissipated, and if he tosses his] feet, the lust of his feet will be lessened. When by this means the lust fails in their limbs, they can preserve themselves from great sins, but when all lusts are united (which God forfend !) they will sin mortally. It is better that the fire of their lust should be dissipated in the [dance] than in something else." Dr. Nicholson treats next al-Insdnu 'l-Kdmil (' The Perfect Man ') of Jili, the study which we are inclined to think the best of the three. Jili's system of mystical philosophy embraces a logos doctrine, and though, being a Musulman, he repudiates the possibility of an incarnation of God, the progress of God made manifest in matter descending into consciousness by the stages 'of Oneness, He-ness and I-ness, whereby at last, in the Perfect Man, God returns to God again, composes a system which has many obvious affinities with the Christian scheme. An im- portant difference would seem to be the more highly abstract and monistic nature of the Islamic conception which, however, in one place receives a curious contradiction as if some thwarted apprehension of another possible view asserted itself. Jili tells " as a fact known to few but revealed to him by mystical illumination, that everything exists in and for itself, and that its life is entirely free and self-determined. . . . On the Day of Resurrection each of a man's deeds will appear in visible shape and will address him and say, ' I am thy deed.' " In an Appendix to this chapter Dr. Nicholson gives some useful notes on the Fusus of Ibnu '1-Arabi. In the Odes of Ibnu '1-Farid the mysticism of Islam takes on another guise. Dr. Nicholson finds in the poet greater kinship to Dante than to Lucretius : we should be, rather tentatively, in- clined to compare them with another work which, though less philosophical and not in form poetical, is yet essentially poetry and resembles Ibnu '1- Farid in its USP of symbolism St. Francis de Sales' ' Traite de 1'Amour de Dieu.' Dr. Nichol- son not only gives a masterly account of the argument and spirit of the odes but furnishes translations of so large a part of them that it is quite possible for the reader who cannot tackle the original to gain from this study a real know- ledge of the author. We congratulate both Dr. Nicholson and the Cambridge Press on the production of a book which should long be of great value and im- portance for the study of Islam, and which will always be a source of enjoyment. to ALL communications intended for insertion in our columns should bear the name and address of the sender not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to " The Editor of ' Notes and Queries ' " Adver- tisements and Business Letters to " The Pub- lishers" at the Office, Printing House. Square, London, E.G. 4; corrected proofs to The Editor, ' N. & Q.,' Printing House Square, London, E.C.4. WHEN answering a query, or referring to an article which has already appeared, correspondents are requested to give within parentheses immediately after the exact heading the numbers of the series, volume, and page at which the con- tribution in question is to be found. 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