ms, can arguably be seen as a reliance on eisegesis rather than exegesis.14 Many of the traditions about the life of Muhammad which are often referred to by Sufis are not found in the major hadith collections (Bukhari, Muslim, Kulayni, Ibn Babuya), having been rejected by the collectors as unsound.15 However, within Sufi spheres the traditions are maintained - and viewed by Sufis as giving full legitimacy to the Sufi way of Islam. Yet, as Andrew Rippin suggests, [this] simply indicates that they [Sufis] have, like all other Muslims, always gone back to the prime sources of Islam for inspiration as well as justification of their position.16 The ulama regarding the sharia as the organizing principle in the life of the Islamic community, as the revealed way - guaranteed by Allah; have and continue to largely oppose Sufism.17 As one scholar has stated, [opponents] have never been wanting; [Sufis] beliefs have been refuted, their practices condemned, their dervishes ridiculed and occasionally executed, and their shaikhs castigated.18 Thus the question remains whether the Quran and sunna were used for justification or inspiration, an area requiring extensive research which does not yet seem to have been undertaken. As there is clearly no consensus on Sufi legitimacy as derived from the Quran and hadith, and as an adequate answer will require much more detailed study, it is presently impossible for modern historians to take objective facts from this type of material.19 By the same token, Muslims cannot objectively argue Sufi origins from the Quran and hadith. Thus we are brought to the question of whether Sufism has borrowed from the outside - from other religions. Titus Burckhardt, an Islamic scholar highly commended by Seyyed Hossein Nasr for his truly authentic expositions of Sufism emanating from genuine teachings,20 objects, arguing in line with Sufi doctrine that there is no adequate reason for doubting the historical authenticity of the...
