existence of God from out of his own non-existence and said, “I am not as one of you. Verily, I pass the night with my Lord, and he gives me food and drink”; and he also said, “I am with God in a state in which none of the cherubim nor any prophet is capable of being contained with me.” It is related that Sahl b. `Abdalláh said: “Unification is this, that you should recognize that the essence of God is endowed with knowledge, that it is not comprehensible nor visible to the eye in this world, but that it exists in the reality of faith, infinite, incomprehensible, non-incarnate; and that He will be seen in the next world, outwardly and inwardly in His kingdom and His power; and that mankind are veiled from knowledge of the ultimate nature of His essence; and that their hearts know Him, but their intellects cannot reach unto Him; and that believers shall behold Him with their (spiritual) eyes, without comprehending His infinity.” This saying includes all the principles of unification. And Junayd said: “The noblest saying concerning unification is that of Abú Bakr: ‘Glory to God, who has not vouchsafed to His creatures any means of attaining unto knowledge of Him except through impotence to attain unto knowledge of Him.’” Many have mistaken the meaning of these words of Abú Bakr and suppose that impotence to attain to gnosis is the same thing as agnosticism. This is absurd, because impotence refers only to an existing state, not to a state that is non-existent. For example, a dead man is not incapable of life, but he cannot be alive while he is dead; and a blind man is not incapable of seeing, but he cannot see while he is blind. Therefore, a gnostic is not incapable of gnosis so long as gnosis is existent, for in that case his gnosis resembles intuition. The saying of Abú Bakr may be brought into connexion with the doctrine of Abú Sahl Ṣu`lúkí and Master Abú `Alí Daqqáq, who assert that gnosis is acquired in the first instance, but finally becomes intuitive. The possessor of intuitive knowledge is compelled and incapable of putting it away or drawing it to himself. Hence, according to what Abú Bakr says, unification is the act of God in the heart of His creature. Shiblí says: “Unification veils the Unitarian from the beauty of Oneness,” because unification is said to be the act of Man, and an act of Man does not cause the revelation of God, and in the reality of revelation that which does not cause revelation is a veil. Man with all his attributes is other than God, for if his attributes are accounted Divine, then he himself must be accounted Divine, and then Unitarian, unification, and the One become, all three, causes of the existence of one another; and this is precisely the Christian Trinity. If any attribute prevents the seeker of God from annihilating himself in unification, he is still veiled by that attribute, and while he is veiled he is not a Unitarian, for all except God is vanity. This is the interpretation of “There is no god but