ABSTRACT
sufism traces its origins back to the Quranic revelation and the Sunnah (norm) of the Prophet. If we examine a typical silsilah, or chain of transmission of a Sufi order, we note that the Divine Name Allāh comes first, followed by the name of the archangel Gabriel (or Jibraʾīl, in Arabic), after which comes that of Muḥammad, and then the name of one or another of his companions, and so on through a series of different names until we reach the latest teacher of Sufism in our days. The silsilah really indicates that the ultimate origin and root of the path (ṭarīqah) is to be found in the Divinity, who revealed it to the Messenger through the archangel of Revelation, Gabriel, the personification of the revelatory function of the Spirit. Because the path traced out by the Prophet has a transcendent spiritual inception, it cannot but manifest itself in the Quran and in the Sunnah, the two foundations of the Islamic religion. These two are also the foundations for the Law (Sharīʿah) of Islam, which has to do with the domain of action, whereas the path is concerned with the life of contemplation. That both the Law and the path should repose on the same Quran and Sunnah simply shows that we can look at the Islamic message from two different but complementary perspectives, the exoteric and the esoteric. The latter is the spiritual or mystical content of the doctrine of Divine Unity (tawḥīd), and the former is the literal or even the purely dogmatic affirmation that God is One. Both dimensions are to be found in the Quran and in the Sunnah. In other words, there is an esoteric spiritual interpretation of the revealed Book and of the Sunnah of the Prophet that is addressed to a small mystical minority of contemplatives. And there is an exoteric interpretation that reaches out to the vast majority of believers, who are not preoccupied with contemplation for many reasons, but who are attentive to the commandments and prohibitions contained in the Law of Islam. 1
