- Karen Armstrong
lectual or mystically inclined needed to interpret the religion
differently. During the Abbasid period, four more complex
forms of Islamic philosophy and spirituality emerged that ap-
pealed to an elite. These ideas were kept secret from the
masses, because the adepts believed that they could easily be
misunderstood by those of meaner intelligence, and that they
made sense only in a context of prayer and contemplation.
The secrecy was also a self-protective device. Jafar as-Sadiq,
the Sixth Imam of the Shiah, told his disciples to practise
taqiyyah (dissimulation) for their own safety. These were per-
ilous times for Shiis, who were in danger from the political es-
tablishment. The ulama, the religious scholars, also doubted
the orthodoxy of these esoteric groups. Taqiyyah kept conflict
to a minimum. In Christendom, people who held beliefs that
were different from the establishment were often persecuted
as heretics. In Islam, these potential dissidents kept quiet
about their ideas, and usually died in their beds. But the pol-
icy of secrecy also had a deeper significance. The myths and
theological insights of the esoterics were part of a total way of
life. Mystical doctrines in particular could be experienced as
imaginatively and intuitively valid, but were not necessarily
comprehensible to the ordinary rational understanding of an
outsider. They were like a poem or a piece of music, whose
effect cannot be explained rationally, and which often re-
quires a degree of aesthetic training and expertise if it is to be
appreciated fully.
The esoterics did not think that their ideas were heretical.
They believed that they could see a more profound meaning
in the revelation than the ordinary ulama. It must also be re-
called that beliefs and doctrines are not as important in Islam
as they are in Christianity. Like Judaism, Islam is a religion
that requires people to live in a certain way, rather than to ac-
cept certain credal propositions. It stresses orthopraxy rather
than orthodoxy. All the Muslims who were attracted to the