In brief,áluddínRúmí then, Neo-Platonism was the doctrine of Ecstasy. A quotation from the letter of Plotinus to Flaccus on Ecstasy will still further show the similarities between this Greek and Persian teaching:
"The wise man recognises the idea of the Good within him. This he develops by withdrawal into the Holy Place of his own soul. He who does not understand how the soul contains the Beautiful within itself, seeks to realise beauty without, by laborious production. His aim should rather be to concentrate and simplify, and so to expand his being; instead of going out into the Manifold, to forsake it for the One, and so to float upwards towards the Divine Fount of Being whose stream flows within him."
This is Súfíism in prose. The Súfí turned the same conception into _poetry_.
Abú Hashím (ob. 150 A.H.) was the first to bear the name of Súfí, while Dhu'l-Nún-al-Misri (245 A.H.) may be said to have given Súfíism its permanent shape. Rābi'a, of Basra, was the first woman to join the sect, and her saintliness and wise sayings have been preserved by Farídu'd-Dín 'Attár. One day a great sickness fell upon Rabi'a, and on being asked the reason for it she replied: "I dwelt upon the joys of Paradise and therefore my Beloved has chastened me."
Rābi'a did not believe in earthly marriage. Her remark on the subject is given as follows: "The bonds of wedlock have descended upon me. I am not my own, but my Lord's, and must not be unfaithful to Him." 'Attár also informs us that when Rābi'a was asked if she hated the devil, she replied: "My love to God leaves me no time to hate him." Rābi'a was a woman of much independence of thought, ethical rather than metaphysical in her remarks, and strongly opposed to outward ceremonials. She is said to have died at Jerusalem, 753 A.D. It was at Ramla, in Palestine, that a Christian nobleman built a convent (_Khāngāh_) for the Súfís. Thus in the early days the sect defied their Prophet's condemnation of monkery by building an abode for members of the order. The Súfís were strongly opposed to the idea of free-will or distinct and self-existent personality apart from the Beloved. The orthodox Muslim's idea was precisely the reverse. The Súfís have always made the Koran their text-book. With infinite licence they ingeniously quote therefrom, and still more ingeniously add their own explanations when necessary. No doubt there were political reasons for adopting this method of concealing heterodox ideas under the cloak of orthodoxy. We shall see, however, as the sect grew and still further broadened its views, that these clever compromises did not prevent the appearance of martyrs among their number in the future.