[203] عبوديت means also “servitude, submission, pious fervour;” it is reckoned one of the most essential qualities of a saint in general. An عبد, _âbid_, is a person continually occupied with religious practices, and all sorts of supererogatory pious acts, with the view of obtaining future beatitude. It may be asked, how can devotion, as said above, be an attribute of God? The answer is that, according to Súfism, God is every thing which appears praise-worthy to man, who can never forsake his own nature. Thus says Sâdi in his fifth Sermon: “A hundred thousand souls, alas! are the devoted slaves of the shoe-dust of that Durvish (God).” He who prays from the inmost of his soul, grants his prayers to himself; he no more prays, but is the God who, at the same time, offers and accepts prayers.――(See _Sufismus_, by F. A. D. Tholuck, p. 155.) [204] ربوبيت signifies a participation in the nature and excellence of God, attainable by a mortal. There is a school of Súfis, called الحوليت _Alhulíyat_, who think that deity may descend and penetrate into a mortal’s mind. Muhammed is supposed to have possessed this eminent quality of a Súfi. [205] Two technical words occur (among many others) of the Súfis حال _hal_, and مقام _makám_, which require a particular explanation. _Hál_ signifies a feeling of joy or of affliction――of compression or dilatation――or of any other condition, which takes hold of the heart without any effort being made to produce or to provoke it, and which ceases when the soul reverts to the consideration of its own qualities. It is so called whether the same state be repeated or not. I generally render it by “state,” above by “transitory state.” If it persists and is changed into an habitual faculty, it is then called _makám_; I render it by “station.” The _hals_ are pure gifts of God; the _makáms_ are fruits of labor. The first proceed from God’s pure bounty; the second are obtained by dint of efforts. Both words may sometimes be rendered by extasy, or extatic, supernatural condition, in which the soul loses sight of itself to see God only, and which ceases, as soon as its looks are directed towards itself.――(See _Ext. et Not. des MSS._, vol. XII. p. 317.) [206] If I understand at all this obscure passage, it means: “there is an immediate connection, without any intervention, between the Deity and man.” [207] _Suret_ signifies the sensible form of a thing; the figure with which it is invested.