I don't quite get the impression that it is only in Catholicism that mystics need not be intelectuals. For instance, I believe a number of Ibn Arabi's teachers in Andalusia were uneducated folk. Also the kind of mysticism that Ghazali promoted lent itself excellently a kind of practical mysticism for daily life. (His more mainstream brand of mysticism also certainly did not envision itself as above the law or somehow transcending scripture.) I do believe you have an interesting point regarding the accomodation of mysticism in Catholicism. Still though if I compare it to (sunni) Islam, mysticism was engrained in their thinking up until at least the nineteenth century. And one rather gets the feeling that when later rationalist and fundamentalist brands of Islam try and sideline this tradition they are simply rewriting history (which, given the lack of any official hierarchy, also mentioned by Peter, is easier for them to do than it would be in Catholicism).
mysticism & intellectuals
I don't quite get the impression that it is only in Catholicism that mystics need not be intelectuals. For instance, I believe a number of Ibn Arabi's teachers in Andalusia were uneducated folk. Also the kind of mysticism that Ghazali promoted lent itself excellently a kind of practical mysticism for daily life. (His more mainstream brand of mysticism also certainly did not envision itself as above the law or somehow transcending scripture.) I do believe you have an interesting point regarding the accomodation of mysticism in Catholicism. Still though if I compare it to (sunni) Islam, mysticism was engrained in their thinking up until at least the nineteenth century. And one rather gets the feeling that when later rationalist and fundamentalist brands of Islam try and sideline this tradition they are simply rewriting history (which, given the lack of any official hierarchy, also mentioned by Peter, is easier for them to do than it would be in Catholicism).