He resided at Bisṭám. He was learned in various branches of science, and is the author of polished discourses and fine symbolical indications. He found an excellent successor in Shaykh Sahlagí, who was the Imám of those parts. I have heard from Sahlagí some of his spiritual utterances (_anfás_), which are very sublime and admirable. He says, for example: “Unification, coming from thee, is existent (_mawjúd_), but thou in unification art non-existent (_mafqúd_),” i.e. unification, when it proceeds from thee, is faultless (_durust_), but thou art faulty in unification, because thou dost not fulfil its requirements. The lowest degree in unification is the negation of thy personal control over anything that thou hast, and the affirmation of thy absolute submission to God in all thy affairs. Shaykh Sahlagí relates as follows: “Once the locusts came to Bisṭám in such numbers that every tree and field was black with them. The people cried aloud for help. The Shaykh asked me: ‘What is all this pother?’ I told him that the locusts had come and that the people were distressed in consequence. He rose and went up to the roof and looked towards heaven. The locusts immediately began to fly away. By the hour of the afternoon prayer not one was left, and nobody lost even a blade of grass.” 5. ABÚ SA`ÍD FAḌLALLÁH B. MUḤAMMAD AL-MAYHANÍ. He was the sultan of his age and the ornament of the Mystic Path. All his contemporaries were subject to him, some through their sound perception, and some through their excellent belief, and some through the strong influence of their spiritual feelings. He was versed in the different branches of science. He had a wonderful religious experience and an extraordinary power of reading men’s secret thoughts. Besides this he had many remarkable powers and evidences, of which the effects are manifest at the present day. In early life he left Mihna (Mayhana) and came to Sarakhs in order to study. He attached himself to Abú `Alí Záhir, from whom he learned in one day as much as is contained in three lectures, and he used to spend in devotion the three days that he had saved in this manner. The saint of Sarakhs at that time was Abu ´l-Faḍl Ḥasan. One day, when Abú Sa`íd was walking by the river of Sarakhs, Abu ´l-Faḍl met him and said: “Your way is not that which you are taking: take your own way.” The Shaykh did not attach himself to him, but returned to his native town and engaged in asceticism and austerities until God opened to him the door of guidance and raised him to the highest rank. I heard the following story from Shaykh Abú Muslim Fárisí: “I had always,” he said, “been on unfriendly terms with the Shaykh. Once I set out to pay him a visit. My patched frock was so dirty that it had become like leather. When I entered his presence, I found him sitting on a couch, dressed in a robe of Egyptian linen. I said to myself: ‘This man claims to be a dervish (_faqír_) with all these worldly encumbrances