A critique on Zaehner's views in Hindu & Muslim Mysticism

Robert Charles Zener is one of the Orientalists who considered Sufism as a deviation from Islamic orthodoxy and derived from foreign ideas and schools. According to him, the main cause of deviation was Abu Yazid al-Bastami, who spread the monistic ideas in Islam. Zaehner,s work “ Hindu and Islamic mysticism” is an attempt to prove these claims. The separation of religions into monotheistic and mystical, to Consider the progress path of Islam from monotheism and lovely mysticism to the monism opposite to Islam, citation to similar words and interpretations in the school of Vedanta and ecstatic utterances of Bayazid are among his claims in support of his opinion.The present article critiques and examines Zaehner's theories by descriptive and analytical method with the aim of validating them. The results of the survey of his work suggests that he did not study comprehensively the main and authoritative sources in both traditions , contented with some specific sources in both traditions, lack of in-depth thinking and attention to the depth of concepts and practical terms and inference based on some formal similarities in sayings; Without the path of acquisition and adaptation being drawn accurately .