from Persia, some (which is my own case) from India and from Persia.


BAHA'ULLAH'S PRECURSORS, _e.g._ THE BAB, SUFISM, AND SHEYKH
AHMAD

So far as Persia is concerned, the reason is that its religious
experience has been no less varied than ancient. Zoroaster, Manes,
Christ, Muhammad, Dh'u-Nun (the introducer of Sufism), Sheykh
Ahmad (the forerunner of Babism), the Bab himself and Baha'ullah
(the two Manifestations), have all left an ineffaceable mark on the
national life. The Bab, it is true, again and again expresses his
repugnance to the 'lies' of the Sufis, and the Babis are not
behind him; but there are traces enough of the influence of Sufism
on the new Prophet and his followers. The passion for martyrdom seems
of itself to presuppose a tincture of Sufism, for it is the most
extreme form of the passion for God, and to love God fervently but
steadily in preference to all the pleasures of the phenomenal world,
is characteristically Sufite.

What is it, then, in Sufism that excites the Bab's indignation? It
is not the doctrine of the soul's oneness with God as the One Absolute
Being, and the reality of the soul's ecstatic communion with Him.
Several passages are quoted by Mons. Nicolas [Footnote: _Beyan
arabe_, pp. 3-18.] on the attitude of the Bab towards Sufism;
suffice it here to quote one of them.

'Others (i.e. those who claim, as being identified with God, to
possess absolute truth) are known by the name of Sufis, and believe
themselves to possess the internal sense of the Shari'at [Footnote: