ABSTRACT
The parallel with the development of theology can be pur sued even further. As theology was stimulated by contact with Greek philosophy and rationalism, so Sufism was stimulated by contact with Christian mysticism and Gnosticism. Since the spirit and expression of Koranic piety had from the first been closely related to the mystical-ascetic attitudes of the Eastern Christian church, there were in this case even fewer barriers to intercom munication. But as it is demonstrably false to say that Islamic theology was simply Greek philosophy in an Islamic dress, so also it is false to assume that Sufism was simply Christian or Gnostic mysticism in an Islamic dress. Islamic theology utilized Greek philosophy and logic to elaborate its rational system on the basis of Koranic postulates; in the same way Sufism, basing itself firmly upon the intuitive insights of the Koran, admitted so much of Christian experience and Gnostic imagery into its forms of ex-
pression as could be accommodated to its fundamental religious attitudes.
