The reader will perceive that Sūfism is a word uniting many divergent meanings, and that in sketching its main features one is obliged to make a sort of composite portrait, which does not represent any particular type exclusively. The Sūfīs are not a sect, they have no dogmatic system, the _tarīqas_ or paths by which they seek God “are in number as the souls of men” and vary infinitely, though a family likeness may be traced in them all. Descriptions of such a Protean phenomenon must differ widely from one another, and the impression produced in each case will depend on the choice of materials and the prominence given to this or that aspect of the many-sided whole. Now, the essence of Sūfism is best displayed in its extreme type, which is pantheistic and speculative rather than ascetic or devotional. This type, therefore, I have purposely placed in the foreground. The advantage of limiting the field is obvious enough, but entails some loss of proportion. In order to form a fair judgment of Mohammedan mysticism, the following chapters should be supplemented by a companion picture drawn especially from those moderate types which, for want of space, I have unduly neglected. CHAPTER I THE PATH Mystics of every race and creed have described the progress of the spiritual life as a journey or a pilgrimage. Other symbols have been used for the same purpose, but this one appears to be almost universal in its range. The Sūfī who sets out to seek God calls himself a ‘traveller’ (_sālik_); he advances by slow ‘stages’ (_maqāmāt_) along a ‘path’ (_tarīqat_) to the goal of union with Reality (_fanā fi ’l-Haqq_). Should he venture to make a map of this interior ascent, it will not correspond exactly with any of those made by previous explorers. Such maps or scales of perfection were elaborated by Sūfī teachers at an early period, and the unlucky Moslem habit of systematising has produced an enormous aftercrop. The ‘path’ expounded by the author of the _Kitāb al-Lumaʿ_, perhaps the oldest comprehensive treatise on Sūfism that we now possess, consists of the following seven ‘stages,’ each of which (except the first member of the series) is the result of the ‘stages’ immediately preceding it--(1) Repentance, (2) abstinence, (3) renunciation, (4) poverty, (5) patience, (6) trust in God, (7) satisfaction. The ‘stages’ constitute the _ascetic and ethical_ discipline of the Sūfī, and must be carefully distinguished from the so-called ‘states’ (_ahwāl_, plural of _hāl_), which form a similar _psychological_ chain. The writer whom I have just quoted enumerates ten ‘states’--Meditation, nearness to God, love, fear, hope, longing, intimacy, tranquillity, contemplation, and certainty. While the ‘stages’ can be acquired and mastered by one’s own efforts, the ‘states’ are spiritual feelings and dispositions over which a man has no control: