I will now mention a few of the innumerable indications which the Ṣúfí Shaykhs have given as to the true nature of love. Master Abu ´l-Qásim Qushayrí says: “Love is the effacement of the lover’s attributes and the establishment of the Beloved’s essence,” i.e. since the Beloved is subsistent (_báqí_) and the lover is annihilated (_fání_) the jealousy of love requires that the lover should make the subsistence of the Beloved absolute by negating himself, and he cannot negate his own attributes except by affirming the essence of the Beloved. No lover can stand by his own attributes, for in that case he would not need the Beloved’s beauty; but when he knows that his life depends on the Beloved’s beauty, he necessarily seeks to annihilate his own attributes, which veil him from his Beloved; and thus in love for his Friend he becomes an enemy to himself. It is well known that the last words of Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr (al-Ḥalláj) on the scaffold were _Ḥasb al-wájid ifrád al-wáḥid_, “It is enough for the lover that he should make the One single,” i.e. that his existence should be cleared away from the path of love and that the dominion of his lower soul should be utterly destroyed. Abú Yazíd Bisṭámí says: “Love consists in regarding your own much as little and your Beloved’s little as much.” This is how God Himself deals with His servants, for He calls “little” that which He has given to them in this world (Kor. iv, 79), but calls their praise of Him “much”—“_the men and women who praise God much_” (Kor. xxxiii, 35)—in order that all His creatures may know that He is the real Beloved, because nothing is little that God bestows on Man, and all is little that Man offers to God. Sahl b. `Abdalláh al-Tustarí says: “Love consists in embracing acts of obedience (_mu`ánaqat al-ṭá`át_) and in avoiding acts of disobedience,” because a man performs the command of his beloved more easily in proportion to the strength of love in his heart. This is a refutation of those heretics who declare that a man may attain to such a degree of love that obedience is no longer required of him, a doctrine which is sheer heresy. It is impossible that any person, while his understanding is sound, should be relieved of his religious obligations, because the law of Muḥammad will never be abrogated, and if one such person may be thus relieved why not all? The case of persons overcome with rapture (_maghlúb_) and idiots (_ma`túh_) is different. It is possible, however, that God in His love should bring a man to such a degree that it costs him no trouble to perform his religious duties, because the more one loves Him who gives the command the less trouble will he have in executing it. When the Apostle abandoned himself entirely to devotion both by day and night, so that his blessed feet became swollen, God said: “_We have not sent down the Koran to thee in order that thou shouldst be miserable_” (Kor. xx, 1). And it is also