1. THE CALIPH ABÚ BAKR, THE VERACIOUS (_al-Ṣiddíq_). He is placed by the Ṣúfí Shaykhs at the head of those who have adopted the contemplative life (_musháhadat_), on account of the fewness of the stories and traditions which he related; while `Umar is placed at the head of those who have adopted the purgative life (_mujáhadat_), because of his rigour and assiduity in devotion. It is written among the genuine Traditions, and is well known to scholars, that when Abú Bakr prayed at night he used to recite the Koran in a low voice, whereas `Umar used to recite in a loud voice. The Apostle asked Abú Bakr why he did this. Abú Bakr replied: “He with whom I converse will hear.” `Umar, in his turn, replied: “I wake the drowsy and drive away the Devil.” The one gave a token of contemplation, the other of purgation. Now purgation, compared with contemplation, is like a drop of water in a sea, and for this reason the Apostle said that `Umar, the glory of Islam, was only (equivalent to) a single one of the good deeds of Abú Bakr (_hal anta illá ḥasanat^{un} min ḥasanáti Abí Bakr_). It is recorded that Abú Bakr said: “Our abode is transitory, our life therein is but a loan, our breaths are numbered, and our indolence is manifest.” By this he signified that the world is too worthless to engage our thoughts; for whenever you occupy yourself with what is perishable, you are made blind to that which is eternal: the friends of God turn their backs on the world and the flesh which veil them from Him, and they decline to act as if they were owners of a thing that is really the property of another. And he said: “O God, give me plenty of the world and make me desirous of renouncing it!” This saying has a hidden sense, viz.: “First bestow on me worldly goods that I may give thanks for them, and then help me to abstain from them for Thy sake, so that I may have the treble merit of thanksgiving and liberality and abstinence, and that my poverty may be voluntary, not compulsory.” These words refute the Director of mystical practice, who said: “He whose poverty is compulsory is more perfect than he whose poverty is voluntary; for if it be compulsory, he is the creature (_ṣan`at_) of poverty, and if it be voluntary, poverty is his creature; and it is better that his actions should be free from any attempt to gain poverty for himself than that he should seek to acquire it by his own effort.” I say in answer to this: The creature of poverty is most evidently that person who, while enjoying independence, is possessed by the desire for poverty, and labours to recover it from the clutches of the world; not that person who, in the state of poverty, is possessed by the desire for independence and has to go to the houses of evildoers and the courts of governors for the sake of earning money. The creature of poverty is he who falls from independence to poverty, not he who, being poor, seeks to become powerful. Abú Bakr is the foremost of