The Apostle said: “Make your bellies hungry and your livers thirsty and leave the world alone, that perchance ye may see God with your hearts”; and he also said, “Worship God as though thou sawest Him, for if thou dost not see Him, yet He sees thee.” God said to David: “Dost thou know what is knowledge of Me? It is the life of the heart in contemplation of Me.” By “contemplation” the Ṣúfís mean spiritual vision of God in public and private, without asking how or in what manner. Abu ´l-`Abbás b. `Aṭá says in reference to the words of God: “_As to those who say, ‘Our Lord is God,’ and who become steadfast_” (Kor. xli, 30), i.e. “they say ‘Our Lord is God’ in self-mortification and they ‘become steadfast’ on the carpet of contemplation”. There are really two kinds of contemplation. The former is the result of perfect faith (_ṣihhat-i yaqín_), the latter of rapturous love, for in the rapture of love a man attains to such a degree that his whole being is absorbed in the thought of his Beloved and he sees nothing else. Muḥammad b. Wási` says: “I never saw anything without seeing God therein,” i.e. through perfect faith. This vision is from God to His creatures. Shiblí says: “I never saw anything except God,” i.e. in the rapture of love and the fervour of contemplation. One sees the act with his bodily eye and, as he looks, beholds the Agent with his spiritual eye; another is rapt by love of the Agent from all things else, so that he sees only the Agent. The one method is demonstrative (_istidlálí_), the other is ecstatic (_jadhbí_). In the former case, a manifest proof is derived from the evidences of God; in the latter case, the seer is enraptured and transported by desire: evidences and verities are a veil to him, because he who knows a thing does not reverence aught besides, and he who loves a thing does not regard aught besides, but renounces contention with God and interference with Him in His decrees and His acts. God hath said of the Apostle at the time of his Ascension: “_His eyes did not swerve or transgress_” (Kor. liii, 17), on account of the intensity of his longing for God. When the lover turns his eye away from created things, he will inevitably see the Creator with his heart. God hath said: “_Tell the believers to close their eyes_” (Kor. xxiv, 30), i.e. to close their bodily eyes to lusts and their spiritual eyes to created things. He who is most sincere in self-mortification is most firmly grounded in contemplation for inward contemplation is connected with outward mortification. Sahl b. `Abdalláh of Tustar says: “If anyone shuts his eye to God for a single moment, he will never be rightly guided all his life long,” because to regard other than God is to be handed over to other than God, and one who is left at the mercy of other than God is lost. Therefore the life of contemplatives is the time during which they enjoy contemplation (_musháhadat_): time spent in seeing ocularly (_mu`áyanat_) they do not reckon as life, for that to