261, from _Akhlag-i-Jalali_) of the Sufi Abu Sa`id b. Abi l-Khayr (d. 441 A.H. = 1049 A.D.), who is said to have met and conversed with Ibn Sina; when they parted Abu Sa`id said of Ibn Sina, “What I see, he knows,” whilst Ibn Sina said, “What I know, he sees.” But there were other influences of a secondary character at work in `Iraq and Persia which become important when we remember that it was the subject population of those parts which had, to a large extent, replaced the Arabs as the leaders of Islam during the `Abbasid period. In connection with the Sufis probably we cannot refer any influence to the Zoroastrian religion proper, which had a non-ascetic and national character; but the Manichæan and Masdekite religions, the two “free churches” of Persia, show a definitely ascetic tone, and when we find, as is the case, that many of the early Sufis were converts from Zoroastrianism, or the sons of such converts, we are inclined to suspect that, though professing that recognised religion, they were in all probability actually _Zindiqs_, that is to say secretly heretics and initiates of the Manichæan or Masdekite sect making external profession of the more recognised cult, as was the common practice of these _Zindiqs_. Note must also be made of the Gnostic influences transmitted through the Saniya of the fen country between Wasit and Basra, the Mandæans, as they are called to distinguish them from the so-called Sabians of Harran. The Sufi Ma´ruf of Karkh was himself the son of Sabian parents. And again we must not ignore the probability of Buddhist influences, for Buddhist propaganda had been active in pre-Islamic times in Eastern Persia and Transoxiana. Buddhist monasteries existed in Balkh, and it is noteworthy that the ascete Ibrahim b. Adham (d. 162--cf. supra) is traditionally described as a prince of Balkh who left his throne to become a darwish. On closer examination, however, it does not appear that Buddhist influence can have been very strong, as there are essential differences between Sufi and Buddhist theories. A superficial resemblance exists between the Buddhist _nirvana_ and the _fana_ or reabsorption of the soul in the Divine Spirit of Sufism. But the Buddhist doctrine represents the soul as losing its individuality in the passionless placidity of absolute quiescence, whilst the Sufi doctrine, though also teaching a loss of individuality, regards everlasting life as consisting in the ecstatic contemplation of the Divine Beauty. There is an Indian parallel to _fana_, but it is not in Buddhism, but in the Vedantic pantheism.