Islam. 73ing philosophy as higher than revealed religion, which be-
came, in his view, a mere expedient and a natural social ne-
cessity. Where al-Farabi differed from both the Greek
rationalists and from Christian philosophers, however, was in
the importance he gave to politics. He seems to have believed
that the triumph of Islam had at last made it possible to build
the rational society that Plato and Aristotle had only been
able to dream about. Islam was a more reasonable religion
than its predecessors. It had no illogical doctrines, such as the
Trinity, and stressed the importance of law. Al-Farabi be-
lieved that Shii Islam, with its cult of the imam as the guide of
the community, could prepare ordinary Muslims to live in a
society ruled by a philosopher-king on rational principles.
Plato had argued that a well-ordered society needed doc-
trines which the masses believed to be divinely inspired.
Muhammad had brought a law, backed by such divine sanc-
tions as hell, which would persuade the ignorant in a way that
more logical arguments could not. Religion was thus a branch
of political science, and should be studied and observed by a
good Faylasuf, even though he would see further to the kernel
of the faith than the average Muslim.
It is significant, however, that al-Farabi was a practising
Sufi. The different esoteric groups tended to overlap and to
have more in common with one another than with the more
conservative ulama. Mystically inclined Shiis and Faylasufs
tended to gravitate together, as did Shiis and Sufis, who may
have had different political views but shared a similar spiri-
tual outlook. Sufism, the mysticism of Sunni Islam, is differ-
ent from the other schools that we have considered, since it
did not develop an overtly political philosophy. Instead, it
seemed to have turned its back on history, and Sufis sought
God in the depths of their being rather than in current events.
But nearly all religious movements in Islam take off, at least,
from a political perspective, and Sufism was no exception. It