The Persian Mystic Attar

What we call mysticism represents an attitude of mind which is intensely and continuously aware of the unity of all Reality, whether that Reality be called the Divine Essence, the Eternal Wisdom, Unclouded Light, Beauty Supreme, Perfect Love, or simply, God. The mystic holds that God contains everything and yet transcends all things. He is the One in whom all is lost and also the One in Whom all is found. Mysticism means, therefore, a constant awareness of the all pervading Presence of God, but it seeks to go farther still and to arrive at knowledge of the One Reality. To the mystic, no other relation matters compared with the relation of the soul to God and so mysticism aims at the attainment of an immediate, direct apprehension by the human of the Divine, in which the soul shall in truth become one with God. The mystic claims that this is possible because the soul is itself Divine in origin; only the real can know Reality and only the god-like can find God.

Margaret Smith (1884-1970) was a scholar writing on early Christian and Muslim mysticism presenting a view from an open-minded Christian perspective. Smith was the first westerner to chronicle the lives of the Sufi mystic Rabi’a of Basra, and compiled brief histories of other Sufi teachers and their doctrines, translating Arabic and Persian texts into English. Smith counted among her mentors Thomas Walker Arnold, Alfred Guillaume, R A Nicholson, and Louis Massignon.