Abstract

Mysticism: Jewish and Islamic

The article presents information on two books. "Jewish Mysticism," by J. Abelson and "The Mystics of Islam," by Reynolds A. Nicholson. "Jewish Mysticism" describes mystical tendencies in Judaism from the age of the Essenes in ancient Palestine to the epoch of Neo-Hassidism in Poland in the eighteenth century. The important controversial aspect of the book is contained in the author's maintenance of the position that the tendency which threw up the mediaeval Kabbalah was not a sudden foreign influence, but a steady and consistent growth. "The Mystics of Islam" says that if Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have no little in common in spite of their deep dogmatic differences, the spiritual content of that common element can best be appreciated in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Mysticism, which bears equal testimony to that ever-deepening experience of the soul.