asked why he took so much trouble in the high degree which he enjoyed, he answered: “Pain and pleasure indicate your feelings, but those whose attributes are annihilated feel no effect either of pleasure or of pain. Beware lest you call remissness maturity and desire of the world search for God.” A certain man relates: “I was praying behind Dhu ´l-Nún. When he began to pronounce the _takbír_, he cried ‘_Allah akbar_’ and fell in a swoon like a lifeless body.” Junayd, after he had grown old, did not omit any item of the litanies (_awrád_) of his youth. When he was urged to refrain from some of these supererogatory acts of devotion to which his strength was unequal, he replied that he could not abandon at the last those exercises which had been the means of his acquiring spiritual welfare at the first. It is well known that the angels are ceaselessly engaged in worship, because they are spiritual and have no lower soul (_nafs_). The lower soul deters men from obedience, and the more it is subdued the more easy does the performance of worship become; and when it is entirely annihilated, worship becomes the food and drink of Man, even as it is the food and drink of the angels. `Abdalláh b. Mubárak says: “In my boyhood I remember seeing a female ascetic who was bitten by a scorpion in forty places while she was praying, but no change of expression was visible in her countenance. When she had finished, I said: ‘O mother, why didst not thou fling the scorpion away from thee?’ She answered: ‘Ignorant boy! dost thou deem it right that while I am engaged in God’s business I should attend to my own?’” Abu ´l-Khayr Aqṭa`[153] had a gangrene in his foot. The physicians declared that his foot must be amputated, but he would not allow this to be done. His disciples said: “Cut it off while he is praying, for at that time he is unconscious.” The physicians acted on this advice. When Abu ´l-Khayr finished his prayers he found that his foot had been amputated.[154] Footnote 153: _Nafaḥát_, No. 259. Footnote 154: Here follows a story, already related in the notice of Abú Bakr (p. 70), concerning the different manner in which Abú Bakr and `Umar recited the Koran when they performed their prayers.