The Christian and Mahommetan mystics also mark the stages of spiritual development. Some Sufis describe the “seven valleys”[f161] to traverse in order to reach the court of Simburgh where the mystic “birds” find themselves gloriously effaced and yet fully reflected in the Awful Presence of themselves. The “seven valleys” are: 1. the Valley of Search; 2. the Valley of Love, which has no limits; 3. the Valley of Knowledge; 4. the Valley of Independence; 5. the Valley of Unity, pure and simple; 6. the Valley of Amazement, and 7. the Valley of Poverty and Annihilation, beyond which there is no advance. According to St. Teresa, there are four degrees of mystic life: Meditation, Quiet, a numberless intermediate degree, and the Orison of Unity; while Hugo of St. Victor has also his own four degrees: Meditation, Soliloquy, Consideration, and Rapture. There are other Christian mystics having their own three or four steps of “ardent love” or of “contemplation.”[f162] * * * * * Professor R. A. Nicholson gives in his _Studies in Islamic Mysticism_ a translation of Ibnu ’I-Fárid’s “The Poem of the Mystic’s Progress” (_Tá’iyya_), parts of which at least are such exact counterparts of Buddhist mysticism as to make us think that the Persian poet is simply echoing the Zen sentiment. Whenever we come across such a piece of mystic literature, we cannot help being struck with the inmost harmony of thought and feeling resonant in the depths of human soul, regardless of its outward accidental differences. The verses 326 and 327 of the _Tá’iyya_ read: “From ‘I am She’ I mounted to where is no ‘to’, and I perfumed [phenomenal] existence by my returning: “And [I returned] from ‘I am I’ for the sake of an esoteric wisdom and external laws which were instituted that I might call [the people to God].” The passage as it stands here is not very intelligible, but read the translator’s comments which throw so much light on the way the Persian thought flows: “Three stages of Oneness (_ittihád_) are distinguished here: 1. ‘I am She,’ _i.e._, union (_jam‘_) without real separation (_tafriqa_), although the appearance of separation is maintained. This was the stage in which al-Halláj said Ana ’I-Haqq ‘I am God.’ 2. ‘I am I,’ _i.e._, pure union without any trace of separation (individuality). This stage is technically known as the ‘intoxication of union’ (_sukru ’I-jam‘_). 3. The ‘sobriety of union’ (_saḥwu ’I-jam‘_), _i.e._, the stage in which the mystic returns from the pure oneness of the second stage to plurality in oneness and to separation in union and to the Law in the Truth, so that while continuing to be united with God he serves Him as a slave serves his lord and manifests the Divine Life in its perfection to mankind.