times. Every night a servant brought a loaf of bread to his room. When he departed, on the day of the Feast, the servant found all the thirty loaves untouched. `Alí b. Bakkár relates that Ḥafṣ Miṣṣísí ate nothing in Ramaḍán except on the fifteenth day of that month. We are told that Ibráhím Adham fasted from the beginning to the end of Ramaḍán, and, although it was the month of Tammúz (July), worked every day as a harvester and gave his wages to the dervishes, and prayed from nightfall to daybreak; they watched him closely and saw that he neither ate nor slept. It is said that Shaykh Abú `Abdalláh Khafíf during his life kept forty uninterrupted fasts of forty days, and I have met with an old man who used annually to keep two fasts of forty days in the desert. I was present at the death-bed of Dánishmand Abú Muḥammad Bángharí; he had tasted no food for eighty days and had not missed a single occasion of public worship. At Merv there were two spiritual directors; one was called Mas`úd and the other was Shaykh Abú `Alí Siyáh. Mas`úd sent a message to Abú `Alí, saying: “How long shall we make empty pretensions? Come, let us sit fasting for forty days.” Abú `Alí replied: “No; let us eat three times a day and nevertheless require only one purification during these forty days.” The difficulties of this question are not yet removed. Ignorant persons conclude that continuance in fasting is possible, while physicians allege that such a theory is entirely baseless. I will now explain the matter in full. To fast continuously, without infringing the Divine command, is a miracle (_karámat_). Miracles have a special, not a general, application: if they were vouchsafed to all, faith would be an act of necessity (_jabr_) and gnostics would not be recompensed on account of gnosis. The Apostle wrought evidentiary miracles (_mu`jizát_) and therefore divulged his continuance in fasting; but he forbade the saints (_ahl-i karámat_) to divulge it, because a _karámat_ involves concealment, whereas a _mu`jizat_ involves revelation. This is a clear distinction between the miracles performed by Apostles and those performed by saints, and will be sufficient for anyone who is divinely guided. The forty days’ fasts (_chilla_) of the saints are derived from the fast of Moses (Kor. vii, 138). When the saints desire to hear the word of God spiritually, they remain fasting for forty days. After thirty days have passed they rub their teeth; then they fast ten days more, and God speaks to their hearts, because whatever the prophets enjoy openly the saints may enjoy secretly. Now, hearing the word of God is not compatible with the subsistence of the natural temperament: therefore the four humours must be deprived of food and drink for forty days in order that they may be utterly subdued, and that the purity of love and the subtlety of the spirit may hold absolute sway. Footnote 160: _Nafaḥát_, No. 353. Footnote 161: “Brilliancies.” _Naf._ entitles it لمعه.