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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A History of Muslim Philosophy Volume 1, Book 3 Chapter 16: Early Sufis Doctrine Chapter 16: Early Sufis [^1] Doctrine (by M. Hamiduddin) A Sufism like many other institutions became, early in its history, a fertile ground for imitators, impostors, and charlatans.

The corrupting influence of these charlatans was regarded as a source of great confusion to all those who either wanted to follow the Path of Sufism; or wanted honestly to understand it, one reason why this was so was that Sufism by its very nature was a discipline meant not for the average but for those who always felt ambitious for something above the average.

Besides these charlatans and impostors who put on the garb of Sufism and exploited the credulous and the unwary, there was another group of men who unwillingly became the source of corruption and confusion.

Since a Sufi more often than not was a man significantly different from the average, it was but natural that some among the Sufis went so far away from the norms of their societies and communities that they created doubts in the minds of their followers regarding the legitimacy of the commonly accepted norms.

Such doubts, if not properly tackled, could lead to the corruption of vast segments of the communities concerned, an inevitable result of which would have been either a widespread scepticism regarding the erstwhile universally accepted norms, or a universal condemnation of that which such exceptions among the Sufis stood for.

Neither of these two courses was considered to be healthy, for, whereas the first would have resulted in the complete demorali­zation of all Muslim communities, the latter could have resulted in the con­demnation not only of the exceptional Sufis, but of all Sufis without exception, as deviants from the accepted norms.

Most of the early treatises on Sufism, like the one that will be referred to in this chapter, were written with two main aims in view: (1) to point out to all those who cared to read these works what Sufism really meant; and (2) to raise as strong a note of protest as possible against the current malpractices of the charlatans and impostors so that even those who may not have the time and the will to follow the path of true Sufism may at least escape the clutches of these charlatans.

The extent to which this two-fold desire of the early writers shaped their works is worth noting, because it is a measure of the dependability of these works.