This book forms an introduction to the study of the doctrines of Sufism. It is, however, necessary first of all to define the point of view from which the subject is approached. The point of view is not that of pure scholarship, whatever may happen to be the scientific interest of the doctrinal summaries which figure in this book; the chief purpose is to contribute to the efforts of those who in the world of today seek to understand the permanent and universal truths of which every sacred doctrine is an expression.
Let it be said at the outset that academic knowledge is only a quite secondary and very indirect aid in assimilating the intellectual con tent of oriental doctrines—indeed the scientific method which of necessity approaches things from the outside, and thus from their purely historical and contingent aspects, does not set out to promote such an assimilation. There are doctrines which can be understood only from the “inside” through a work of assimilation or penetration that is essentially intellectual1 and, for that very reason, goes beyond the limitations of discursive thought.
Download
