scholarship. Despite the contributions of a range of academic authorities over
the past two centuries, stretching back to the publication of Lt. Graham’s 1819
essay, “A Treatise on Sufism, or Mahomedan Mysticism,” followed by the first
major European study of the subject two years later by the young Friedrich A.
Tholuck, Ssufismus, sive Theosophia Persarum Pantheistica (Sufism, or the
Pantheistic Theosophy of the Persians), there still remains a great deal of work
to be done in order to better understand the complex, embryonic stages of the
Islamic mystical tradition. In this light, The Comfort of the Mystics is a welcome
contribution to our growing but still inadequate knowledge of the first few centuries
of taṣawwuf.
American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences