Mystical thought

Sufism (or Islamic mysticism) is one way of understanding and approaching God in Islam. It is related to asceticism, rooted in divine revelation and comprehended through Shari‘a. It is an approach to God that makes use of intuitive and emotional spiritual faculties, considered by Sufis to be dormant unless discovered through guided training. One definition of Sufism, therefore, is that which ‘embraces those tendencies in Islam which aim at direct communion between God and man’. 1 Training in Sufism is known as ‘travelling the path’ and aims at ‘dispersing the veils which hide the self from the Real 2 and thereby become transformed or absorbed into undifferentiated Unity’. 3 This mystical training reacts against the rationalization of Islam in law and theology, and focuses instead on spiritual freedom that allows our intrinsic intuitive spiritual senses their full scope. 4