THE BEGINNING OF THE SūFI TRADITION

The spiritual transformation of a people and their participation in the life of a new spiritual universe brought into being by a fresh revelation from heaven is too profound a reality to be reduced simply to socio-political or economic factors. It involves an aspect of the destiny of that people and is ingrained as an innate possibility within the religion that embraces that nation. The Islamization of Persia presents a perfect example of such a transformation. Beyond all external causes, there existed the possibility within Islam to embrace the Persians, a possibility that had to be and in fact came to be actualized fairly rapidly. And there existed in the destiny of the Persians the necessity for such a transformation, which took place in such depth that it not only altered profoundly the later phases of Persian history, but also made the religion, culture and history of the Persians inseparably intertwined with those of the rest of the Muslim world. This sharing of a common universe of discourse with other Muslims, and particularly the Arabs, is to be seen most of all in the field of Sūfism which deals by definition with Divine Unity and the universal order, with the realm where man stands before God not dressed in his particular ethnic or racial garb but shrouded with the light of the spirit which dwells in him and which represents his most universal aspect.