Yet, for Sufis this is not a problem. As Ibn Arabi stated, My heart has become capable of every form: it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christians, and a temple for idols and the pilgrims Kaba and the tables of the Torah, and the book of the Koran. I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Loves camels take, that is my religion and faith..54Another Sufi saint, Mahmud Shabistari, in his work Gulshan-i Raz (The Mystic Rose Garden) concurs, declaring, ..what is mosque, what is synagogue, what is fire temple? ... I and You are the Hades veil between them.. When this veil is lifted up from before you, there remains not the bond of sects and creeds.55 Thus, not only has Sufism been influenced by other religions, but its mystic quest for spirituality has led it to embrace all sorts of religion, as abundantly shown in the writings of the great Sufi saints. To try to deny this as a scholar is incomprehensible. Yet, those scholars who are sympathetic towards Islam, as previously shown, have a marked tendency to minimize or altogether ignore these facts. How then, in conclusion, does the evidence presented, reflect not only on the nature of Sufism, but on the very nature of Islam itself? Sufism is clearly a reaction or response to what was lacking in early Islam. The argument for Muslim materialism lends support to the concept of a spiritual void in Islam - keenly felt by many Muslims as their civilization began to expand and come into contact with other religions. There was a hunger for more spirituality, along with the realization that despite all of the sharia Islam did not effectively deal with the problems of materialism.The very strength of Islam, in its reliance on a simple creed and the five pillars of practice, proved to be the very weakness of Islam. While the Islamic system had allowed for rapid expansion, and the five practices were a uniting force, it soon became evident that one could accept this framework and step ri...
