The Way of Mysticism in Islam

The rise of Islam is perhaps the most amazing event in human history.  Springing from a land and a people alike, previously negligible, Islam spread within a century over half of the earth, sheltering great empires, overthrowing long established religions, remolding the souls of races, building up a whole new world-the world of Islam. Mystical philosophy has an intimate connection with the mainstream of Islamic philosophy. It consists of several main strands, ranging from Isma ‘ili thought to the metaphysics of al-Ghazali and Ibn al-Arabi, and with a continuing powerful presence in the contemporary Islamic world. Although mystical thinkers were aware that they were advocating an approach to thinking and knowledge which differed from much of the Peripatetic tradition, they constructed a systematic approach which was often continuous with that tradition. On the whole they emphasized the role of intellectual intuition in our approach to understanding reality, and sought to show how such an understanding might be put on a solid conceptual basis. The ideas that they created were designed to throw light on the nature of the inner sense of Islam.