In Arabic to say, for example, "Wisdom is precious," you could repeat the feminine pronoun: al-hikmah hiya tham?nah, literally "Wisdom, she is precious." It is stated by some S?f? Sheikhs (Masters) that S?f?sm originally was named Sophia, which connects S?f?sm with the Christian Gnostic tradition, in which Wisdom is personified as a woman, the divine Sophia. The physical mother of Jesus was an external image of manifestation of the Virgin Sophia, the word 'Sophia' stemming from Sophos (wisdom). The Gnostics, whose language was Greek, identified the Holy Spirit with Sophia, Wisdom; and Wisdom was considered female.