six after it; (2) performing a prayer of thirteen _rakaʾs_, the last of which is the _witr_ prayer. In this about three hundred verses of the Koran are to be recited. (3) The _witr_ prayer before going to sleep, unless one is accustomed to rise in the night, when it may be performed later on, which is more meritorious. Third night _wird_: this consists of sleep, and sleep may well be considered a devotional act, if enjoyed in the proper way. Fourth night _wird_: this is from the time when the first half of the night is spent to when only one-sixth of it still remains. At this time the believer ought to rise from sleep and perform the prayer of _tahajjud_. This prayer is also called the _hujud_. Mohammed mostly made it a prayer of thirteen _rakaʾs_. Fifth night _wird_: this begins with the last sixth of the night, called the _Sahar_, the early morning before dawn to the appearing of dawn.” To these devotional exercises, described in the _Ihya_, it was considered meritorious to add four additional good actions: fasting, almsgiving, visiting the sick, attending funerals; and finally all this punctilious remembrance of God through prayer was supplemented by what is called _dhikr_—the special method of worship used by the Sufi saints. Al-Ghazali describes the method and effects of this practice in a passage which Macdonald has summarized as follows: “Let the worshipper reduce his heart to a state in which the existence of anything and its non-existence are the same to him. Then let him sit alone in some corner, limiting his religious duties to what is absolutely necessary, and not occupying himself either with reciting the Koran or considering its meaning or with books of religious traditions or with anything of the sort. And let him see to it that nothing save God most High enters his mind. Then, as he sits in solitude, let him not cease saying continuously with his tongue, ‘Allah, Allah,’ keeping his thought on it. At last he will reach a state when the motion of his tongue will cease, and it will seem as though the word flowed from it. Let him persevere in this until all trace of motion is removed from his tongue, and he finds his heart persevering in the thought. Let him still persevere until the form of the word, its letters and shape, is removed from his heart, and there remains the idea alone, as though clinging to his heart, inseparable from it. So far, all is dependent on his will and choice; but to bring the mercy of God does not stand in his will or choice. He has now laid himself bare to the breathings of that mercy, and nothing remains but to wait what God will open to him, as God has done after this manner to prophets and saints. If he follows the above course, he may be sure that the light of the Real will shine out in his heart. At first unstable, like a flash of lightning, it turns and returns; though sometimes it hangs back. And if it returns, sometimes it abides and sometimes it is momentary. And if it