Legends of the Sufis

Preface to James Redhouse's Legends of the Sufis 
by Idries Shah (1976)


There is no controversy about Maulana (Arabic for Our Master) Jalaluddin Rumi being one of the very greatest saints and mystics of all peoples, as well as a Master of the Way to the Sufis. This book is a selection of anecdotes about his forebears and origins, his teachings and his associates, as well as his successors in what came, after him, to be called the Mevlevi school. This text is regarded as one of the five source-books for material on this tradition: the others being the Mathnavi, The Divan of Shamsi-i-Tabriz, the Letters of Rumi and Fihi Ma Fihi ("In it what is in it").


As with many other medieval works, there is no authoritative version of the original book, and many compilations, or recensions, of its contents exist. When it is read by a contemporary Western student, it is worth bearing certain points in mind. 


The book's original title, Manaqib al-Arifin, literally means "qualities" or "eulogies" of the "Mystic-Wise Ones". It is therefore almost exactly, within its own context, what Western people call a hagiography. To get the best from it one has to bear in mind the premises which underlie the operation of a Sufi school. Not the least of these is the well-established technique of proffering stories, legends and so on not necessarily for teaching purposes, but also often to test the mentality and reactions of the hearer. This kind of story, sometimes erroneously taken as really intended by its author, certainly does appear in this selection. This is not to say that even the most improbable tales are such artifacts. It is true in some cases that these have been included because they represent what was thought and reported about Rumi and others after his death, irrespective of the character and degree of spiritual attainment of the reporters. 


These selections were translated by James Redhouse and published in 1881. When the Coombe Springs Press in 1965 asked me to concur in their reissuing it, I gladly did so; subject to the inclusion of a note such as the present one, to make the book more useful to serious students and to help prevent misunderstandings. The latter range from the wholesale adaptation of this text as a sort of "gospel" to the burning of its contents as chaotic and naive. 


Due, no doubt, to the exigencies of production, only a highly summarized form of this disclaimer appeared, and that on the front flap of the 1965 reprint. With the vastly increased interest in Sufi thought and action now evident throughout the world, one feels that the observing of suitable attitudes towards the work is no less important. 


Rumi's work is generally recognized as being a timely adaptation and restatement of Sufism for the purpose of applying it to the people of his time and laying a foundation for the succeeding phases: a tradition of working which has always characterized Sufi undertakings, sometimes called the doctrine of relevance and supercession. 


Seen in this light, it is useful to note the continuing disparity between those students of Sufism who are slavish imitators (so detested by Rumi) and those who are able to render the materials and the experiences in present-day terms. In this respect Sufism can be seen in its overt projections as following a course similar to that of all human systems. There are the traditionalists, for whom form is sacrosanct, the innovators, who try to adapt materials without insight, the rejectors of part or whole, and the real successors to the tradition, who work through insight as well as externals. 


For those who are interested in the relevance of materials such as some of those contained in the Manaqib to today's concerns, there is a value in emphasizing certain basics which are often ignored. 


Following Rumi's dictum in Persian Qalib az ma hast, na ma az u-- "Form is from us, not we from it"-- and his many other statements to this effect, it should be observed that this Sufi persuasion insists that matter comes from mind, mind does not come from matter. Miraculous interventions involving matter or immaterial things, therefore, as we find them here, are to be seen as the working of the mind, not the operation of matter. This operation, too, is sometimes to a purpose and sometimes deceptive, mere trickery, intended or otherwise. So miracles, whatever their effect or intention, may arise from the working of mental or spiritual forces. This explanation makes it possible for the reader to understand, for instance, how Rumi's miracles or wonders can be regarded as significant while those produced by people trying to oppose him are discounted. The difference lies in the quality and purpose of the wonders. 


This operation of apparently supernatural events for definite purposes and not merely to impress people in an emotional manner, not only sets this very much apart from miracle-centered systems but also helps to explain how Rumi, like many other Moslem teachers, could have so many non-Moslem disciples, Christians and Jews among them. It is true that he constantly reproaches scholastic theologians and scholars as such for being unable to understand that Sufi experience neither conflicts with religions nor undermines them. But he stays within his Islamic tradition and emphasizes that Sufi understanding has operated within all faiths.  In the following pages there is a striking account of telepathic rapport between a Christian saint and Rumi, whom the saint regarded as his mentor through spiritual communication. 


The diversity of forms under which Sufi schools have operated, and the multiplicity of their exercises and even the alleged dissonance of their teachings one to the other, has always worried externalist scholars: whom the Mevlevis call "men of appearances". In this book, as also elsewhere, we find a very frank statement that the so-called Dervish Dancing and other exercises are very limited activities, designed only as aids for those people who have certain local or temperamental pecularities. It is worth noting that although this information has been publicly available for at least seven hundred years, people of all kinds prefer to believe that by imitating the physical and mental actions of some people in thirteenth-century Konya they will derive spiritual benefits. This is, to a Sufi, rather like believing that if you behave like a Pharaoh you will be able to build the pyramids, without taking enough notice of what the originators of the enterprise actually said, or even were reported to have said, about it: including the purpose. 


Legends of the Sufis, then, can well be described in the words of the title of Rumi's book of table-talks: "(There is) In it what is in it (for you)." May its undoubted value find its full expression in this incarnation.




-- from Legends of the Sufis: Selections from Menaqibu 'L'Arifin by Shemsuddin Ahmed, El Eflaki, Translated by James W. Redhouse, Preface by Idries Shah, Theosophical Publishing House Limited, 1976.

also see THE HUNDRED TALES OF WISDOM