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Moreover, the vast majority of believers are not capable of reaching the inner meaning that lies

within the re- vealed forms, and so they must attain salvation by conforming to the exoteric
dimension of the revelation.
If elaborated and systematized forms of Sufi doctrine were not present in early Islamic history, it is
because such formulation was not necessary for the spiritual life. The syn- thetic and symbolic
presentation of metaphysical truths found in the Quran and the hadith (the sayings of the
Prophet) was perfectly adequate to guide those practicing the disciplines of the Tarlqah. 18

In Sufism.- doctrine-ha no right to exist "for its own sj,ke," for it is essentially a guidejan_the-
~Eath. It is a sym- bolic prefiguration of the knowledge to be attained through spiritual travail, and
since this knowledge is not of a purely rational order but is concerned ultimately with the vision of
the Truth, which is Absolute and Infinite and in its essence beyond forms, it cannot be rigidly
systematized. P.19

Doctrine is a key to open the door of gnosis and aguide lo lead the traveler on the Path. Thus, for
diff^erent people, dif- ferent formulations may be used. Once the goal of the Path has been
reached, doctrine is "discarded, for the Sufi in ques- tion is the doctrine in his inmost reality and he
himself speaks with "the voice of the Truth."
Since God is the only real being. He is absolutely other than all created existence, which, if
considered only in itself, is unreal. P 28
that one Sufi contra- dicts another because the first asserts the transcendence of God while the
second asserts His immanence. P 28

It may be useful to repeat here that the prime rea- son certain scholars have misunderstood Sufi
doctrine is that they do not see or cannot accept that its opera- tive, or spiritually efficacious,
elements are conceived of by the Sufis themselves as its only justification for existence. Such
scholars are thus led to deal with Su- fism as if it were another philosophical system capable of
purely logical analysis, and in their attempts to de- lineate this "system" invariably misrepresent
the doc- trine. P.29
According to Rumi, the real nature of the relationship between God and the world is accessible
only to gnosis. It cannot be known through rational processes and discursive thought.

Obviously, God knev\^ Himself "before"^'' the creation of the v\^orld, so what this hadith
expresses is that God wanted to be known by "others," even though, as we have seen, "other than
God" has only an illusory and relative existence. God wanted to be known in the distinctive and
relative mode of knowledge proper to created beings."
The possibihty that God should determine Himself, or should make Himself known in a
differentiated and distinc- NK','.. tive mode, is necessitated by the Divine Infinity:
a Reality, has no opposite, only qua form" {Discourses, p. 92). The world is "opposite" because it
limits God by its form, yet it is neverthe- less His Reality, the only Reality there is. P.33

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