Mullah Shah was born A.D. 1584, in the village of Erkesa in Badakshan, a mountainous and inaccessible country to the north of the Indian Caucasus. His family, which was of Mongol origin, held a certain position, and his grandfather had been judge of the village. At the age of twenty-one the young man quitted his relatives and his country, and went back to Balkh, then a centre of learning in Central Asia. He made great progress there, especially in the knowledge of Arabic. After some time he left Balkh, and turning his steps southward, arrived at Kashmir, where he continued his studies, but an irresistible thirst after truth made him feel the necessity of seeking a spiritual guide, and he resolved to go to Lahore, where there lived a celebrated saint, Sheikh Mian Mir. The reception he met with was not favourable. Mian Mir at first repulsed him, but allowed himself at last to be overcome by the perseverance of the young man, and taught him Sufi exercises according to the rule of the Qadiri order of dervishes.[61] The stifling heat of Lahore did not suit the health of Mullah Shah, who accordingly resolved to spend the summers in Kashmir, returning to Lahore for the winter. He led this life for several years, till he had passed through all the stages of asceticism, but his spiritual guide would not lead him to the supreme goal of mystical science, which is termed "Union with God," or "knowledge of oneself."[62] Mian Mir only spoke to him of it in an enigmatic way and said, "Do not cease to study thyself and thine own heart, for thy goal is in thyself." In the year 1636 A.D. he returned again, as usual, from Lahore to Kashmir, and practised his austerities without relaxation, when one day, by the special favour of the Divinity, and without the assistance of any spiritual preceptor, "the desired image" revealed itself to him. By this expression is understood, in mystic phraseology, union with God, and the conception of Absolute Being, which is equivalent to the knowledge of one's self. When Mullah Shah thus attained the goal of his mystical aspirations he was in his forty-seventh year, and had been engaged twenty-seven years in the spiritual exercises of the Sufis. When he returned to Lahore, he informed his spiritual guide that he had attained union with God. The latter advised him not to divulge the fact, and not to give up his ascetic practices. In Kashmir Mullah Shah had collected round him a little circle of devoted disciples. The strong emotional condition into which Mullah Shah's new spiritual experience had brought him did not prevent him from doing his best not to offend against the religious law, and he was in the habit of saying to his friends, "Whoso does not respect the precepts of the religious law is not one of us."