are essentially men. On the other hand, contemplation is the first step of the apostle; and since the apostle’s starting-place is the saint’s goal, they cannot be judged by the same standard. Do not you perceive that, according to the unanimous opinion of all the saints who seek God, the station of union (_jam`_) belongs to the perfection of saintship? Now, in this station, a man attains such a degree of rapturous love that his intelligence is enraptured in gazing upon the act of God (_fi`l_), and in his longing for the Divine Agent (_fá`il_) he regards the whole universe as that and sees nothing but that. Thus Abú `Alí Rúdbárí says: “Were the vision of that which we serve to vanish from us, we should lose the name of servantship (_`ubúdiyyat_)” for we derive the glory of worship (_`ibádat_) solely from vision of Him. This is the beginning of the state of the prophets, inasmuch as separation (_tafriqa_) is inconceivable in relation to them. They are entirely in the essence of union, whether they affirm or deny, whether they approach or turn away, whether they are at the beginning or at the end. Abraham, in the beginning of his state, looked on the sun and said: “_This is my Lord_,” and he looked on the moon and stars and said: “_This is my Lord_” (Kor. vi, 76-8), because his heart was overwhelmed by the Truth and he was united in the essence of union. Therefore he saw naught else, or if he saw aught else he did not see it with the eye of “otherness” (_ghayr_), but with the eye of union (_jam`_), and in the reality of that vision he disavowed his own and said: “_I love not those that set_” (Kor. vi, 76). As he began with union, so he ended with union. Saintship has a beginning and an end, but prophecy has not. The prophets were prophets from the first, and shall be to the last, and before they existed they were prophets in the knowledge and will of God. Abú Yazíd was asked about the state of the prophets. He replied: “Far be it from me to say! We have no power to judge of them, and in our notions of them we are wholly ourselves. God has placed their denial and affirmation in such an exalted degree that human vision cannot reach unto it.” Accordingly, as the rank of the saints is hidden from the perception of mankind, so the rank of the prophets is hidden from the judgment of the saints. Abú Yazíd was the proof (_ḥujjat_) of his age, and he says: “I saw that my spirit (_sirr_) was borne to the heavens. It looked at nothing and gave no heed, though Paradise and Hell were displayed to it, for it was freed from phenomena and veils. Then I became a bird, whose body was of Oneness and whose wings were of Everlastingness, and I continued to fly in the air of the Absolute (_huwiyyat_), until I passed into the sphere of Purification (_tanzíh_), and gazed upon the field of Eternity (_azaliyyat_) and beheld there the tree of Oneness. When I looked I myself was all those. I cried: ‘O Lord, with my egoism (_maní-yi man_) I