Sufism is Universalist and humanist Islam striving for spiritual purity. Its foundations are love and peace, sulh-i-kul, peace with all. The Prophet’s life provides inspiration to the Sufis his clothes of wool, surf, them their name.
The gentleness, contemplative solitude, and universal tolerance of the Prophet are reflected in Sufi behaviour. Sufism is the endearing and enduring side of Islam. In death the Sufi found life.
The first four Caliphs, who were elected as the heads of the Islamic state after the passing away of the Prophet, were pious and God-fearing men. They were completely devoted to the service of Islam and the welfare and happiness of the people.
But with the rise of the Umayyads to power, luxury and corruption crept into the court circles. Most of the Umayyad rulers led their lives and managed the affairs of the state in a manner which was far from Islamic.
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Disgusted with the materialism and corruption of the men in power, a large number of God-fearing and righteous men withdrew from public life and devoted themselves to self-perfection and cultivation of inner purity and sincerity. These people have been described as Sufis.
The Sufis, however, declare that Sufism is as old as Islam and that the Prophet himself was the first Sufi.
They speak of themselves as travellers or wayfarers, faring upon a way (tariqa), which leads the traveller away from self to begin with, from the carnal, self-indulgertt self, and then more and more from any assertion of self or conscious regard of self.
The goal is union with God or vision of him in his unveiled beauty and glory. In order to reach the goal, the Sufis believe, one has 10 go through several stages (maquamat) namely, conversion or repentance, renunciation, voluntary poverty, patience, abnegation of the personal will in the will of God, trust in him, and contentment or the state of one who pleases God and is always pleased with Him and His ways.
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The gist of the matter seems to be deliverance from self by the alchemy of divine love that takes man out of himself and prompts him to consider himself as the servant of all.