▪ I. ‖ Sufi1
(ˈsuːfɪ)
Forms: 7 Suffi, 7, 9 Sofee, 8 Souffee, 8–9 Sofi, 9 Soof(f)ee, Soofi, Soophee, 9 Sufi.
[a. Ar. {cced}ūfī lit. ‘man of wool’, f. {cced}ūf wool (see Margoliouth Early Devel. Mohamm., 1914, 141). Cf. F. sofi, soufi. It has often been erron. associated with Sophy1, q.v.]
One of a sect of Muslim ascetic mystics who in later times embraced pantheistic views.
| 1653 Greaves Seraglio 178 Those Turks which..would be accounted Sofees [marg. Puritans] do commonly read, as they walk along the streets. 1796 Morse Amer. Geog. II. 571 Some of them called Souffees, who are a kind of quietists. 1815 Elphinstone Acc. Caubul (1842) I. Introd. 83 The mystical doctrines of the Sofees. 1872 Lowell Dante Prose Wks. 1890 IV. 149 A Soofi who has passed the fourth step of initiation. 1875 Encycl. Brit. II. 677/2 The Persian Sufis specially distinguished themselves by their practice of abstinence and solitary meditation. |
| attrib. 1815 Elphinstone Acc. Caubul (1842) I. 273 The beauty of the Soofee system. 1886 Conder Syrian Stone-Lore ix. (1896) 342 note, The ‘path’, the final ‘unity’ with God, the disbelief in all creeds, [etc.]..which form the great Sufi doctrines, are purely Buddhist. |
▪ II. Sufi2
erron. form of Sophy1.
| 1876 Encycl. Brit. IV. 707/1 The Sophi or Sufi of Persia. Ibid. V. 175/1 The palace of the Sufi princes. |