I, `Alí b. `Uthmán al-Jullábí, say that the difference between the two parties in this controversy lies in expression (_`ibárat_). One says, “He who seeks shall find,” and the other says, “He who finds shall seek.” Seeking is the cause of finding, but it is no less true that finding is the cause of seeking. The one party practises mortification for the purpose of attaining contemplation, and the other party practises contemplation for the purpose of attaining mortification. The fact is that mortification stands in the same relation to contemplation as Divine blessing (_tawfíq_), which is a gift from God, to obedience (_ṭá`at_): as it is absurd to seek obedience without Divine blessing, so it is absurd to seek Divine blessing without obedience, and as there can be no mortification without contemplation, so there can be no contemplation without mortification. Man is guided to mortification by a flash of the Divine Beauty, and inasmuch as that flash is the cause of the existence of mortification, Divine guidance (_hidáyat_) precedes mortification. Now, as regards the argument of Sahl and his followers that failure to affirm mortification involves the denial of all the religious ordinances which have come down in the books revealed to the Prophets, this statement requires correction. Religious obligations (_taklíf_) depend on Divine guidance (_hidáyat_), and acts of mortification only serve to affirm the proofs of God, not to effect real union with Him. God has said: “_And though We had sent down the angels unto them and the dead had spoken unto them and We had gathered before them all things together, they would not have believed unless God had so willed_” (Kor. vi, 111), for the cause of belief is Our will, not evidences or mortification. Accordingly, the revelations of the Prophets and the ordinances of religion are a means (_asbáb_) of attaining to union, but are not the cause (_`illat_) of union. So far as religious obligations are concerned, Abú Bakr was in the same position as Abú Jahl, but Abú Bakr, having justice and grace, attained, whereas Abú Jahl, having justice without grace, failed. Therefore the cause of attainment is attainment itself, not the act of seeking attainment, for if the seeker were one with the object sought the seeker would be one, and in that case he would not be a seeker, because he who has attained is at rest, which the seeker cannot be. Again, in reference to their argument that the qualities of a horse are altered by mortification, you must know that mortification is only a means of bringing out qualities that are already latent in the horse but do not appear until he has been trained. Mortification will never turn a donkey into a horse or a horse into a donkey, because this involves a change of identity; and since mortification has not the power of transforming identity it cannot possibly be affirmed in the presence of God.