Crossfire in front of God

Logos had its limitations too. It could no assuage human pain or sorrow. Rational arguments could make no sense of tragedy. Logos could not answer questions about the ultimate value of human life. A scientist could make things work more efficiently and discover wonderful new facts about the physical universe, but he could not explain the meaning of life. That was the preserver of myth and cult.

The mystical school of Isfahan, spearheaded by Mir Dimad and Mulla Sadra, insisted that truth was not simply that which was logically, publicly, and legally perceived, but had an interior dimension that could not be apprehended by our normal waking consciousness.

Conservative religion had not usually been hysterical in this way. Its rituals and cult had been designed to attune people to reality. Bacchanalian cults and frenzied ecstasy had certainly occurred but had involved the few rather than the majority. Mysticism was not for the masses. At its best, it was a one-to-one process, in which the adept was carefully supervised to make sure that he or she did not fall into unhealthy physical states. The descendent into the unconscious was an enterprise demanding great skill, intelligence, and discipline. When expert guidance was not available, the result could be deplorable. The crazed and neurotic behaviour of some of the medieval Christian saints, which was often due the inadequate spiritual direction, showed the dangers of the an undisciplined cultivation of alternate state of mind. The reforms of Teresa de Avila and John of the Cross had been designed precisely to correct such abuses. When mystical journeys were undertaken en masse, they could degenerate into crowd hysteria, the nihilism of the Sabbatarians, or the mental imbalance of some of the Puritans.

"Jahiliyyah is not a period of time", he explained in Milestones, his most controversial book. "It is a condition that is repeated every time society veers from the Islamic way, whether in the past, the present, or the future.

The Battle For God, Karen Armstrong, Ed. Harper Perennial, 2004.