ABSTRACT
Muslim arguments on the subject revolve around the citation of the Qurʾ ān and elements of the h. adīth and the Sīra , the life story of Muh. ammad, which indicate the possibility of, if not the positive encouragement and enactment of, the ascetic ideal. is approach fully answers the question from the internal Muslim perspective. e Qurʾ ān and Muh. ammad, as S. ūfīs have always said, support the mystical quest. Statements concerning God are popularly cited, for example Qurʾ ān 2/186, “Whenever My servants ask you about Me, I am near to answer the call of the caller,” and Qurʾ ān 50/16, “We [God] are closer to him [humanity] than his jugular vein!” Looking inward, therefore, becomes the goal and the quest, although Qurʾ ān 2/115, “wherever you may turn, there is the face of God,” adds another dimension to the quest. e wandering way of life of the early ascetic is supported in Qurʾ ān 29/20, “Travel in the land and see how He began creation.” Qurʾ ān 9/123 asserts, “God is with the godfearing,” whose way of life is echoed in the Quranic refrain to remember God always (for example Qurʾ ān 33/41, “You who believe, remember God often”). e “light verse,” Qurʾ ān 24/35, is the most famous of all verses for S. ūfī speculation and its very presence in the Qurʾ ān is often claimed to be proof of the need for the mystic way:
God is the light of the heavens and the earth. e likeness of His light is as a niche in which there is a lamp; the lamp is in a glass; the glass is just as if it were a glittering star
kindled from a blessed tree, an olive neither Eastern nor Western, whose oil will almost glow though the fi re has never touched it. Light upon light, God guides His light to anyone He wishes.
