The following verse of the Quran is quoted by Sufis in support of their favourite dogma--the attaining to the knowledge of God: "When God said to the angels, 'I am about to place a viceregent on the earth,' they said: 'Wilt Thou place therein one who shall commit abomination and shed blood? Nay; we celebrate Thy praise and holiness.' God answered them, 'Verily I know that ye wot not of.'" (Sura ii. 28.) It is said that this verse proves that, though the great mass of mankind would commit abomination, some would receive the divine light and attain to a knowledge of God. A Tradition states that David said: "'Oh Lord! why hast Thou created mankind?' God replied, 'I am a hidden treasure, and I would fain become known.'" The business of the mystic is to find this treasure, to attain to the Divine light and the true knowledge of God. The earlier Muhammadan mystics sought to impart life to a rigid and formal ritual, and though the seeds of Pantheism were planted in their system from the first, they maintained that they were orthodox. "Our system of doctrine," says Al-Junaid, "is firmly bound up with the dogmas of the faith, the Quran and the Traditions." There was a moral earnestness about many of these men which frequently restrained the arm of unrighteous power, and their sayings, often full of beauty, show that they had the power of appreciating the spiritual side of life. Some of these sentences are worthy of any age. "As neither meat nor drink," says one, "profit the diseased body, so no warning avails {90} to touch the heart full of the love of this world." "The work of a holy man doth not consist in this, that he eats grain, and clothes himself in wool, but in the knowledge of God and submission to His will." "Thou deservest not the name of a learned man till thy heart is emptied of the love of this world." "Hide thy good deeds as closely as thou wouldst hide thy sins." A famous mystic was brought into the presence of the Khalif Harun-ur-Rashid who said to him: "How great is thy abnegation?" He replied, "Thine is greater." "How so?" said the Khalif. "Because I make abnegation of this world, and thou makest abnegation of the next." The same man also said: "The display of devotional works to please men is hypocrisy, and acts of devotion done to please men are acts of polytheism." But towards the close of the second century of the Hijra, this earlier mysticism developed into Sufiism. Then Al-Hallaj taught in Baghdad thus: "I am the Truth. There is nought in Paradise but God. I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I; we are two souls dwelling in one body. When thou seest me, thou seest Him; and when thou seest Him thou seest me." This roused the opposition of the orthodox divines by whom Al-Hallaj was condemned to be worthy of death. He was then by order of the Khalif flogged, tortured and finally beheaded. Thus died one of the early martyrs of Sufiism, but it grew in spite of bitter persecution.