Over that spiritual director, namely, Sahl, there used to pass a mortification of which he was independent and which, while he was in the reality thereof, he was unable to express in words. He was not like some who have made it their religion to talk about mortification without practising it. How absurd that what ought to consist wholly in action should become nothing but words! In short, the Ṣúfís are unanimous in recognizing the existence of mortification and discipline, but hold that it is wrong to pay regard to them. Those who deny mortification do not mean to deny its reality, but only to deny that any regard should be paid to it or that anyone should be pleased with his own actions in the place of holiness, inasmuch as mortification is the act of Man, while contemplation is a state in which one is kept by God, and a man’s actions do not begin to have value until God keeps him thus. The mortification of those whom God loves is the work of God in them without choice on their part: it overwhelms and melts them away; but the mortification of ignorant men is the work of themselves in themselves by their own choice: it perturbs and distresses them, and distress is due to evil. Therefore, do not speak of thine own actions while thou canst avoid it, and never in any circumstances follow thy lower soul, for it is thy phenomenal being that veils thee from God. If thou wert veiled by one act alone, thou mightest be unveiled by another, but since thy whole being is a veil thou wilt not become worthy of subsistence (_baqá_) until thou art wholly annihilated. It is related in a well—known anecdote that Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr (al-Ḥalláj) came to Kúfa and lodged in the house of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-`Alawí. Ibráhím Khawwáṣ also came to Kúfa, and, having heard of al-Ḥalláj, went to see him. Al-Ḥalláj said: “O Ibráhím, during these forty years of your connexion with Ṣúfiism, what have you gained from it?” Ibráhím answered: “I have made the doctrine of trust in God (_tawakkul_) peculiarly my own.” Al-Ḥalláj said: “You have wasted your life in cultivating your spiritual nature: what has become of annihilation in Unification (_al-faná fi ´l-tawḥíd_)?” i.e. “trust in God is a term denoting your conduct towards God and your spiritual excellence in regard to relying on Him: if a man spends his whole life in remedying his spiritual nature, he will need another life for remedying his material nature, and his life will be lost before he has found a trace or vestige of God”. And a story is told of Shaykh Abú `Alí Siyáh of Merv, that he said: “I saw my lower soul in a form resembling my own, and some one had seized it by its hair and gave it into my hands. I bound it to a tree and was about to destroy it, when it cried out, ‘O Abú `Alí, do not trouble yourself. I am God’s army (_lashkar-i khudáyam_): you cannot reduce me to naught.’” And it is related concerning Muḥammad b. `Ulyán of Nasá, an eminent companion of