God, whatever their particular Rule (tariqa) may be, but the Rule of al-Junayd (p.176) is the best because it is in most essential agreement with the Law (shari'a) of Islam. Their karamat are true and are a consequence of their devout labors, for these are in agreement with the Qur'an and the Sunna. The order of nature will not be broken for anyone who has not achieved more than is usual in religious knowledge and exercises. All walis stand under a regular hierarchy headed by the Qutb; yet above him in holiness stand the Companions of the Prophet. This marks a very moderate position. Many Sufis had contended that the walis stood higher than even the prophets, not to speak of their Companions.

It will be seen that his position is essentially a mediating one. He wishes to show that the beliefs of the mystics and of the mutakallims are really one although they are reached by different paths. In fiqh he made a similar attempt. The Sufis had always looked down on those theologians who were canonists pure and simple. A study of canon law was a necessity, they thought; but as a propaedeutic only. The canonists who went no further never reached religion at all. Especially they held that no Sufi should join himself to any of the four contending schools. Their controversies were upon insignificant details which had nothing to do with the life in God. But could it not be shown that their differences were not actual—one view being true and the other false—but were capable of being reduced to a unity? This was the problem that ash-Sha'rani attacked. These differing opinions, he held, are

adapted to different classes of men. Some men of greater gifts and endurance can follow the hardest of these opinions, while the easier are to be recognized as concessions (rukhsa) from God to the weakness of others. Each man may follow freely the view which appeals to him; God has appointed it for him.

Ash-Sha'rani was one of the last original thinkers in Islam; for a thinker he was despite his dealings with the Jinn and al-Khadir. Egypt keeps his memory. A mosque in Cairo bears his name, as does also a division of the Badawite darwishes. In modern times his books have been frequently reprinted, and his influence is one of the ferments in the new Islam.

We must now pass over about two hundred years and come to the latter part of the twelfth century of the Hijra, a period nearly coinciding with the end of the eighteenth of our era. There these two movements come again to light. Wahhabism, the historical origin of which we have already seen (p. 60), is a branch of the school of Ibn Taymiya. Manuscripts of the works of Ibn Taymiya copied by the hand of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab exist in Europe. So the Wahhabites refused to accept its binding the decisions of the four orthodox sects of canon law. Agreement as a source they also reject. The whole People of Muhammad can err and has erred. Only the agreement of the Companions has binding force for them. It is, therefore, the duty and right of every man to draw his own doctrine from the Qur'an and the traditions; the systems of the schools should have no weight with him. Again, they take the