What is more...

What is more, in Islām there has never existed a religious institution capable of deciding who is orthodox and who is not.[^8] Infatuated with every Western prejudice, Gibb seems to have translated the old axiom of divide et impera [divide and conquer] into the more modern: classify and discard! But to understand the history of Islām, however, requires more than merely counting or organizing dates.

The eye of the scholar must be capable of discerning the profound print of his subject, its depth, its substance and its essence. He must belong to a tradition and provide us with comprehensive and broad formulas called critical approaches and methodologies. Gibb easily forgets that in Islām, so long as a practice or a belief does not contravene the sharī‘ah [Islamic law] and can be traced back to the Qur’ān and the sunnah it is clearly orthodox and cannot be deemed heretical.

This principle also applies to the genuine spiritual paths of Islamic mysticism [ taṣawwuf ] in the Sunnī world whose devotional practices and metaphysical doctrines cannot be judged on the criteria of “orthodoxy” that govern the exoteric forms of the religion. This is particularly so since the esoteric can never face the exoteric on the same plane.

Both operate on different but not divergent orders of the same reality.[^9] In other words, they constitute the “core” [ al-lubb ] and the “skin” [ al-qishrah ] of the religion. In Nahj al-balāghah [ The Path of Eloquence ]--a collection of sermons, epistles, and aphorisms of ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib compiled by Sharīf al-Razī (406/1015)--the First Imām most brilliantly and masterfully settles the question of the diversity of schools and currents in Islamic thought.

He describes them as parts of the spiritual freedom given by God which are in accord with His Oneness:[^10] Praise be to Allāh who established Islām and made it easy for those who approach it and gave strength to its columns against any one who tries to overpower it … It is the most bright of all paths, the clearest of all passages. It has dignified minarets, bright highways, burning lamps, prestigious fields of activity, and high objective.