It is most important, however, that you should know with certainty in what state this miraculous grace is manifested to the saint: in sobriety or intoxication, in rapture (_ghalabat_) or composure (_tamkín_). I have fully explained the meaning of intoxication and sobriety in my account of the doctrine of Abú Yazíd. He and Dhu ´l-Nún the Egyptian and Muḥammad b. Khafíf and Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr (al-Ḥalláj) and Yaḥyá b. Mu`ádh Rází and others hold that miracles are not vouchsafed to a saint except when he is in the state of intoxication, whereas the miracles of the prophets are wrought in the state of sobriety. Hence, according to their doctrine, this is a clear distinction between _mu`jizát_ and _karámát_, for the saint, being enraptured, pays no heed to the people and does not call upon them to follow him, while the prophet, being sober, exerts himself to attain his object and challenges the people to rival what he has done. Moreover, the prophet may choose whether he will manifest or conceal his extraordinary powers, but the saints have no such choice; sometimes a miracle is not granted to them when they desire it, and sometimes it is bestowed when they do not desire it, for the saint has no propaganda, so that his attributes should be subsistent, but he is hidden and his proper state is to have his attributes annihilated. The prophet is a man of law (_ṣáḥib shar`_), and the saint is a man of inward feeling (_ṣáḥib sirr_). Accordingly, a miracle (_karámat_) will not be manifested to a saint unless he is in a state of absence from himself and bewilderment, and unless his faculties are entirely under the control of God. While saints are with themselves and maintain the state of humanity (_bashariyyat_), they are veiled; but when the veil is lifted they are bewildered and amazed through realizing the bounties of God. A miracle cannot be manifested except in the state of unveiledness (_kashf_), which is the rank of proximity (_qurb_); and whoever is in that state, to him worthless stones appear even as gold. This is the state of intoxication with which no human being, the prophets alone excepted, is permanently endowed. Thus, one day, Ḥáritha was transported from this world and had the next world revealed to him; he said: “I have cut myself loose from this world, so that its stones and its gold and its silver and its clay are all one to me.” Next day he was seen tending asses, and on being asked what he was doing, he said: “I am trying to get the food that I need.” Therefore, the saints, while they are sober, are as ordinary men, but while they are intoxicated their rank is the same as that of the prophets, and the whole universe becomes like gold unto them. Shiblí says— “_Gold wherever we go, and pearls Wherever we turn, and silver in the waste._”