Moolla Shah then said: 'The spiritual world has been shown to thee in all its beauty.' I then rendered perfect obedience to the Sheikh. The following day I saw the Prophet, the chief Companions, and legions of saints and angels. After three months, I entered the cheerless region in which the figures appeared no more. During the whole of this time, the Sheikh continued to explain to me the mystery of the doctrine of the Unity and of the knowledge of God; but as yet he did not show me the absolute reality. It was not until a year had passed that I arrived at the true conception of unity. Then in words such as these I told the Sheikh of my inspiration. 'I look upon the body as only dust and water, I regard neither my heart nor my soul, alas! that in separation from Thee (God) so much of my life has passed. Thou wert I and I knew it not.' The Sheikh was delighted, and said that the truth of the union with God was now clearly revealed to me. Then addressing those who were present, he said: 'Tawakkul Beg learnt from me the doctrine of the Unity, his inward eye has been opened, the spheres of colours and of images have been shown to him. At length, he entered the colourless region. He has now attained to the Unity, doubt and scepticism henceforth have no power over him. No one sees the Unity with the outward eye, till the inward eye gains strength and power.'" I cannot pass from this branch of the subject without making a few remarks on Omar Khayyam, the great Astronomer-Poet of Persia. He is sometimes confounded with the Sufis, for there is much in his poetry which is similar {99} in tone to that of the Sufi writers. But his true position was that of a sceptic. He wrote little, but what he has written will live. As an astronomer he was a man of note. He died in the year 517 A.H. There are two things which may have caused his scepticism. To a man of his intelligence the hard and fast system of Islam was an intolerable burden. Then, his scientific spirit had little sympathy with mysticism, the earnest enthusiasts of which were too often followed by hollow impostors. It is true, that there was much in the spirit of some of the better Sufis that seemed to show a yearning for something higher than mere earthly good; above all, there was the recognition of a Higher Power. But with all this came spiritual pride, the world and its duties became a thing of evil, and the religious and the secular life were completely divorced, to the ruin of both. The Pantheism which soon pervaded the system left no room for man's will to act, for his conscience to guide. So the moral law become a dead letter. Irreligious men, to free themselves from the bondage and restraints of law, assumed the religious life. "Thus a movement, animated at first by a high and lofty purpose, has degenerated into a fruitful source of ill. The stream which ought to have expanded into a fertilising river has become a vast swamp, exhaling vapours charged with disease and death."