My Shaykh, who followed the doctrine of Junayd, used to say that intoxication is the playground of children, but sobriety is the death-field of men. I say, in agreement with my Shaykh, that the perfection of the state of the intoxicated man is sobriety. The lowest stage in sobriety consists in regarding the powerlessness of humanity: therefore, a sobriety that appears to be evil is better than an intoxication that is really evil. It is related that Abú `Uthmán Maghribí, in the earlier part of his life, passed twenty years in retirement, living in deserts where he never heard the sound of a human voice, until his frame was wasted and his eyes became as small as the eye of a sack-needle. After twenty years he was commanded to associate with mankind. He resolved to begin with the people of God who dwelt beside His Temple, since by doing so he would gain a greater blessing. The Shaykhs of Mecca were aware of his coming and went forth to meet him. Finding him so changed that he hardly seemed to be a human creature, they said to him: “O Abú `Uthmán, tell us why you went and what you saw and what you gained and wherefore you have come back.” He replied: “I went because of intoxication, and I saw the evil of intoxication, and I gained despair, and I have come back on account of weakness.” All the Shaykhs said: “O Abú `Uthmán, it is not lawful for anyone after you to explain the meaning of sobriety and intoxication, for you have done justice to the whole matter and have shown forth the evil of intoxication.” Intoxication, then, is to fancy one’s self annihilated while the attributes really subsist; and this is a veil. Sobriety, on the other hand, is the vision of subsistence while the attributes are annihilated; and this is actual revelation. It is absurd for anyone to suppose that intoxication is nearer to annihilation than sobriety is, for intoxication is a quality that exceeds sobriety, and so long as a man’s attributes tend to increase he is without knowledge; but when he begins to diminish them, seekers (of God) have some hope of him. It is related that Yaḥyá b. Mu`ádh wrote to Abú Yazíd: “What do you say of one who drinks a single drop of the ocean of love and becomes intoxicated?” Báyazíd wrote in reply: “What do you say of one who, if all the oceans in the world were filled with the wine of love, would drink them all and still cry for more to slake his thirst?” People imagine that Yahyá was speaking of intoxication, and Báyazíd of sobriety, but the opposite is the case. The man of sobriety is he who is unable to drink even one drop, and the man of intoxication is he who drinks all and still desires more. Wine being the instrument of intoxication, but the enemy of sobriety, intoxication demands what is homogeneous with itself, whereas sobriety takes no pleasure in drinking.