he was a very corpulent man it appeared plausible. But many years afterwards his body servant told M. Jal, the historiographer of the French navy, that he had been killed in a duel by the prince de Mirepoix. The cause of the encounter, according to the servant, was that Suffren had refused in very strong language to use his influence to secure the restoration to the navy of two of the prince's relations who had been dismissed for misconduct.
Suffren was crippled to a large extent by the want of loyal and capable co-operation on the part of his captains, and the vehemence of his own temperament sometimes led him to disregard prudence, yet he had an indefatigable energy, a wealth of resource, and a thorough understanding of the fact—so habitually disregarded by French naval officers—that success at sea is won by defeating an enemy and not by merely outmanœuvring him; and this made him a most formidable enemy. The portraits of Suffren usually reproduced are worthless, but there is a good engraving by Mme de Cernel after an original by Gérard.
The standard authority for the life of Suffren is the Histoire du Bailli de Suffren by Ch. Cunat (1852). The Journal de Bord du Bailli de Suffren dans l'Inde, edited by M. Mores, was published in 1888. There is an appreciative study in Captain Mahan's Sea Power in History.
- (D. H.)
ṢŪFĪISM (taṣaẉwuf), a term used by Moslems to denote any variety of mysticism, is formed from the Arabic word Ṣūfī, which was applied, in the 2nd century of Islam, to men or women who adopted an ascetic or quietistic way of life. There can be no doubt that Ṣūfī is derived from, ṣūf (wool) in reference to the woollen garments often, though not invariably, worn by such persons: the phrase labisa's-ṣūf (“he clad himself in wool”) is commonly used in this sense, and the Persian word pashmīnapūsh, which means literally “clothed in a woollen garment,” is synonymous with Ṣūfī. Other etymologies, such as Ṣafā (purity)—a derivation widely accepted in the East—and σοφός, are open to objection on linguistic grounds.
In order to trace the origin and history of mysticism in Islam we must go back to Mahomet. On one side of his nature the Prophet was an ascetic and in some degree a mystic. Notwithstanding his condemnation of Christian monkery (rahbānīya), i.e. of celibacy and the solitary life, the example of the Ḥanīfs, with some of whom he was acquainted, and the Christian hermits made a deep impression on his mind and led him to preach the efficacy of ascetic exercises, such as prayer, vigils and fasting. Again, while Allah is described in the Koran as the One God working his arbitrary will in unapproachable supremacy, other passages lay stress on his all-pervading presence and intimate relation to his creatures, e.g. “Wherever ye turn, there is the face of Allah” (ii. 109), “We (God) are nearer to him (Man) than his neck-vein” (l. 15). The germs of mysticism latent in Islam from the first were rapidly developed by the political, social and intellectual conditions which prevailed in the two centuries following the Prophet's death. Devastating civil wars, a ruthless military despotism caring only for the things of this world, Messianic hopes and presages, the luxury of the upper classes, the hard mechanical piety of the orthodox creed, the spread of rationalism and free thought, all this induced a revolt towards asceticism, quietism, spiritual feeling and emotional faith. Thousands, wearied and disgusted with worldly vanities, devoted themselves to God. The terrors of hell, so vividly depicted in the Koran, awakened in them an intense consciousness of sin, which drove them to seek salvation in ascetic practices. Ṣūfīism was originally a practical religion, not a speculative system; it arose, as Junayd of Bagdad says, “from hunger and taking leave of the world and breaking familiar ties and renouncing what men deem good, not from disputation.” The early Ṣūfīs were closely attached to the Mahommedan church. It is said that Abū Hāshim of Kūfa (d. before A.D. 800) founded a monastery for Ṣūfīs at Ramleh in Palestine, but such fraternities seem to have been exceptional. Many ascetics of this period used to wander from place to place, either alone or in small parties, sometimes living by alms and sometimes by their own labour. They took up and emphasized certain Koranic terms. Thus dhikr (praise of God) consisting of recitation of the Koran, repetition of the Divine names, &c., was regarded as superior to the five canonical prayers incumbent on every Moslem, and tawakkul (trust in God) was defined as renunciation of all personal initiative and volition, leaving one's self entirely in God's hands, so that some fanatics deemed it a breach of “trust” to seek any means of livelihood, engage in trade, or even take medicine. Quietism soon passed into mysticism. The attainment of salvation ceased to be the first object, and every aspiration was centred in the inward life of dying to self and living in God. “O God!” said Ibrāhīm ibn Adham, “Thou knowest that the eight Paradises are little beside the honour which Thou hast done unto me, and beside Thy love, and Thy giving me intimacy with the praise of Thy name, and beside the peace of mind which Thou hast given me when I meditate on Thy majesty.” Towards the end of the 2nd century we find the doctrine of mystical love set forth in the sayings of a female ascetic, Rābi‘a of Basra, the first of a long line of saintly women who have played an important rôle in the history of Ṣūfīism. Henceforward the use of symbolical expressions, borrowed from the vocabulary of love and wine, becomes increasingly frequent as a means of indicating holy mysteries which must not be divulged. This was not an unnecessary precaution, for in the course of the 3rd century, Ṣūfīism assumed a new character. Side by side with the quietistic and devotional mysticism of the early period there now sprang up a speculative and pantheistic movement which was essentially anti-Islamic and rapidly came into conflict with the orthodox ulemā. It is significant that the oldest representative of this tendency—Ma‘rūf of Bagdad—was the son of Christian parents and a Persian by race. He defined Ṣūfīism as a theosophy; his aim was “to apprehend the Divine realities.” A little later Abū Sulaimān al-Dārānī in Syria and Dhu’l-Nūn in Egypt developed the doctrine of gnosis (ma‘rifat) through illumination and ecstasy. The step to pantheism was first decisively taken by the great Persian Ṣūfī, Abū Yazīd (Bāyezīd) of Bisṭām (d. A.D. 874), who introduced the doctrine of annihilation (fanā), i.e. the passing away of individual consciousness in the will of God.
It is, no doubt, conceivable that the evolution of Ṣūfīism up to this point might not have been very different even although it had remained wholly unaffected by influences outside of Islam. But, as a matter of fact, such influences made themselves powerfully felt. Of these, Christianity, Buddhism and Neoplatonism are the chief. Christian influence had its source, not in the Church, but in the hermits and unorthodox sects, especially perhaps in the Syrian Euchites, who magnified the duty of constant prayer, abandoned their all and wandered as poor brethren. Ṣūfīism owed much to the ideal of unworldliness which they presented. Conversations between Moslem devotees and Christian ascetics are often related in the ancient Ṣūfī biographies, and many Biblical texts appear in the form of sayings attributed to eminent Ṣūfīs of early times, while sayings ascribed to Jesus as well as Christian and Jewish legends occur in abundance. More than one Ṣūfī doctrine—that of tawakkul may be mentioned in particular—show traces of Christian teaching. The monastic strain which insinuated itself into Ṣūfīism in spite of Mahomet's prohibition was derived, partially at any rate, from Christianity. Here, however, Buddhistic influence may also have been at work. Buddhism flourished in Balkh, Transoxiana and Turkestan before the Mahommedan conquest, and in later times Buddhist monks carried their religious practices and philosophy among the Moslems who had settled in these countries. It looks as though the legend of Ibrāhīm ibn Adham, a prince of Balkh who one day suddenly cast off his royal robes and becamea wandering Ṣūfī, were based on the story of Buddha. The use of rosaries, the doctrine of fanā, which is probably a form of Nirvana, and the system of “stations” (maqāmāt) on the road thereto, would seem to be Buddhistic in their origin. The third great foreign influence on Ṣūfīism is the Neoplatonic philosophy. Between A.D. 800 and 860 the tide of Greek learning, then at its height,
