In the case of these and all the others already spoken of there was nothing but a very simple and natural development such as could easily be paralleled in Europe. The earliest Muslims were burdened, as we have seen, with the fear of the terrors of an avenging God. The world was evil and fleeting; the only abiding good was in the other world; so their religion became an ascetic other-worldliness. They fled into the wilderness from the wrath to come. Wandering, either solitary or in companies, was the special sign of the true Sufi. The young men gave themselves over to the guidance of the older men; little circles of disciples gathered round a venerated Shaykh; fraternities began to form. So we find it in the case of al-Junayd, so in that of Sari as-Saqati. Next would come a monastery, rather a rest-house; for only in the winter and for rest did they remain fixed in a place for any time. Of such a monastery there is a trace at Damascus in 150 and in Khurasan about 200. Then, just as in Europe, begging friars organized themselves. In faith they were rather conservative than anything else; touched with a religious passivism which easily developed into quietism. Their ecstasies went little beyond those, for instance, of Thomas à Kempis, though struck with a warmer oriental fervor. The points on which the doctors of Islam took exception to these earlier Sufis are strikingly different from what we would expect. They concern the practical life far more than theological speculation. As was natural in the case of professional devotees, a constantly prayerful attitude began to assume importance beside and in contrast to the formal use of the five daily prayers, the _salawat_. This development was in all probability aided by the existence in Syria of the Christian sect of the Euchites, who exalted the duty of prayer above all other religious obligations. These, also, abandoned property and obligations and wandered as poor brethren over the country. They were a branch of Hesychasts, the quietistic Greek monks who eventually led to the controversy concerning the uncreated light manifested at the transfiguration on Mount Tabor and added a doctrine to the Eastern Church. Considering these points, it can hardly be doubted that there was some historical connection and relation here, not only with earlier but also with later Sufiism. There is a striking resemblance between the Sufis seeking by patient introspection to see the actual light of God’s presence in their hearts, and the Greek monks in Athos, sitting solitarily in their cells and seeking the divine light of Mount Tabor in contemplation of their navels.