Adams’s Sufis are the numerous mystical philosophers of Persia, the Islamic channel through which the archive carries the ascent and the illuminationist thread.
In Hannah Adams
In Adams’s own words, from the 1817 Dictionary. Each passage is quoted verbatim under its own entry.
SUFIS, or Sourress, a sect of modern philosophers in Persia, wh? are so called, either from the Greek word fora sage, or from the woollen mantle which they used té, wear in some provinces of Persia. Their fundamental tenets are: That nothing exists absolutely but God; that the human soul is an emanation from: his essence; and though divided for a time from its heavenly source, will be finally re-united with it; that the highest possible happiness will arise from its re-union; and that the chief good of mankind consists in as perfect a union with the eternal spirit, as the incumbrances of a mortal frame will allow: that, for this purpose, they should break off all connexion with extrinsic objects, and pass through life without attachments, as a ol i, p. 35, new edition: &e.
Don Ignatius, vol. i. ps 31. swimmer in the ocean strikes freely without the impediments of clothes: that, if mere earthly charms have power to influence the soul, the idea of celestial beauty must ovorwhelm it in ecstatic light. They maintain also that, for want of apt words to express the divine perfections and the ardour of devotion, we must borrow such expressions, as approach the nearest to our ideas, and speak of beauty and love in a transcendent and mystical sense; that, like a reed torn from its native bank, like wax separated from its delicious honey, the soul of man bewails its disunion with melancholy music, and sbedS burning tears, like the lighted taper, waiting passionately for the moment of its extinction; as a disengagement from earthly trammels, and the means of returning to its only beloved. This theology prevails also among the learned Mussulmans, who avow it without reserve.
Hannah Adams, A Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations, 4th ed. (Boston: Cummings and Hilliard, 1817), entry “Sufis” (pp. 281–282).