Studies in Islamic Mysticism. By R. A.. Nicholson. (Cam- bridge
University Press. 24s. net.)---Dr. Nicholson has described in this work the life and teaching of three famouaSufis or mystics, the Persians Alm Said (967-1049) and Al-Jill (1865-1406 or later) and the Cairene Arab Ibnu 1-Farid: (1182-1235). " Sufism is at once the religious philosophy and the popular religion of Islam. The great .Mohammedan mystics. are also saints." There is a marked contrast between such pious and ascetic men as these and the savage and unscrupulous Oriental despots who are too often regarded as typical of the Mohammedan religion ; St. Francis and Torquemada or Philip II. were no farther apart. To Christian readers the chapter on " The Perfect Man " will be especially interesting. Al-Jill developed a doctrine of Mohammed as the absolutely perfect man which is strangely akin to the doctrine of the Logos in the Gospel of St. John.
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