This is how the author of Kitab al-Luma' ...

This is how the author of Kitab al-Luma' , one of the earliest, if not the earliest, Sufi texts now available, Sarraj (d.

456/1063), felt: “It is necessary for the intelligent among us that they understand something of the principles, aims, and ways of those who are the people of rectitude and eminence among this group (Sufis) so that we can distinguish them (genuine Sufis) from those who just imitate them, put on their garb, and advertise themselves as Sufis.“[^2] “There are to be found (in our days),” he adds, “many of those who just parade as Sufis, point to themselves as genuine Sufis, and set themselves to the job of answering all sorts of questions and queries regarding Sufism.

Everyone of these impostors claims to have written a book or two on Sufism which in reality he has filled with nothing but utter trash and absurdly non­sensical material in answer to equally meaningless and silly questions. Such impostors do not realize that it is not only not good but is a positive evil to do all this.... The early masters discussed the Sufistic problems honestly and earnestly only to point out through their wise word the true answers to them.

They turned to handle them only when they had severed their connection with the materialistic world, had chastened themselves through long and austere prayers, practices, and discipline, and had arrived at the clearest knowledge of reality, which knowledge found its full and necessary expression in their honest, sincere, and truthful actions.

Such early masters used to be models of men who having burnt their boats of worldly affairs lived in constant contact with the Almighty.”[^3] In his Kitab al-Ta`arruf , another very early work, Kalabadhi (d. 378/988) wrote: “Finally the meaning departed and the name remained, the substance vanished and the shadow took its place: realization became an ornament, and verification a decoration.

He who knew not (the truth) pretended to possess it, he who had never so much as described it, adorned himself with it; he who had it much upon his tongue, denied it by his acts, and he who displayed it in his exposition, concealed it by his actual conduct.”[^4] In his Risalah , al-Qushairi (d.465/1072) too talks in the same vein: `There set in decadence in this Path (Sufism) to such an extent that both reality and the path were lost to men.