ABSTRACT

Theosophy had seemed a dangerous game to play in Islam since al-Hallāj paid for his indiscreet enthusiasms with his life. Since the preaching of Union with God was liable to misunderstanding and open to the charge of forbidden “incarnationism” (hulūl), it was necessary to discover some substitute doctrine which, while coming to much the same port, sailed nearer the wind of orthodoxy. We have seen how al-Hallāj surprisingly took Jesus as his example of a holy man in whom God was incarnate; Sufi theory had only to substitute Muhammad for Jesus, and to moderate the extravagance of al-Hallāaj’s language, to invent a system of speculative theosophy which would beguile all but the wariest critics. The task was made that much the easier by the existence of an old and honourable tradition of composing panegyrics to God’s Messenger in which Muhammad was spoken of in terms of veneration only just short of cult-worship.