Drawing upon a wide range of ancient sources as well as contemporary scholarly research this ground-breaking book reveals the astonishing continuity and the historical transformation of spiritual patterns from the Assyrian and Babylonian to the Islamic civilization. It argues that in Sufism the main metaphysical content of ancient wisdom can be shown to have been preserved and reinterpreted in accordance with Quranic revelation, following the pattern of prevailing monotheistic Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mythologies. Such motifs include the Divine covenant and human kingship, Lordship and servant hood, holy war and the return to primordial integrity. Recurring myths and rituals of cosmogony and eschatology, of ontological irradiation and spiritual deconstruction, constitute a dialectical play which re-appear in the context of Sufism, that is, in the context of traditional Islamic piety and sacred rites.