n, it
consists in the use of unintelligible phrases which by their
outward apparent meaning and boldness attract attention, but
which on closer inspection prove to be devoid of any real sense.

These words of the greatest thinker among the Muhammadans at that time
afford us a deep insight into the remarkable character of the period.
From them we gather with certainty that the division of Sufism into two
classes, one orthodox and outwardly conforming to Islam, and the other
free-thinking and pantheistic, was already an accomplished fact before
Ghazzali's time. We recognise also that the latter kind of Sufism was
very popular among the lowest classes of the people and even among the
agricultural population. The fundamental characteristic of mysticism,
the striving after the knowledge of God by way of ecstatic intuition,
had already come into open conflict with the fundamental principles of
Islam. "Mystical love to God" was the catchword which brought people to
plunge into ecstatic reverie, and by complete immersion in contemplation
to lose their personality, and by this self-annihilation to be absorbed
in God. The simple ascetic character of the ancient Arabian Sufism was
continually counteracted by the element of passive contemplation which
was entirely foreign to the Arab mind. The terms "ascetic" and "Sufi,"
which were formerly almost synonymous, henceforward cease to be so, and
often conceal a fundamental variance with each other. We shall not go
very far wrong if we connect the crisis of this intellectual development
with the appearance of Hellaj, so that the close of the third and
commencement of the fourth century after Muhammad marks the point of
time when this philosophico-religious schism was completed. In Persia
the theosophy of Hellaj and his supporters found a receptive soil and
flourished vigorously; on that soil were reared the finest flowers of
Persian poetry. From the Persians this tendency passed over to the
Turks, and the poetry of both nations contains strongly-marked
theosophical elements.

III.--THE LOVE OF GOD AND ECSTASY

Already in the second century of Islam great stress was laid upon the
cultivation of love to God, an outstanding example of which is the
female Sufi Rabia. With it was connected a gradually elaborated doctrine
of ecstatic states and visions which were believed to lead by the way of
intuition and divine illumination to the spiritual contemplation of God.
We have alrea