“There was a certain dervish, a negro called Zangī Bashgirdī, who had attained to such a high degree of spirituality that the mystic dance could not be started until he came out and joined in it. One day, in the course of the _samāʿ_, he was seized with ecstasy, and rising into the air seated himself on a lofty arch which overlooked the dancers. In descending he leaped on to Majduddīn of Baghdād, and encircled with his legs the neck of the Sheykh, who nevertheless continued to spin round in the dance, though he was a very frail and slender man, whereas the negro was tall and heavy. When the dance was finished, Majduddīn said, ‘I did not know whether it was a negro or a sparrow on my neck.’ On getting off the Sheykh’s shoulders, the negro bit his cheek so severely that the scar remained visible ever after. Majduddīn often used to say that on the Day of Judgment he would not boast of anything except that he bore the mark of this negro’s teeth on his face.” Grotesque and ignoble features--not to speak of grosser deformities--must appear in any faithful delineation of the ecstatic life of Islam. Nothing is gained by concealing their existence or by minimising their importance. If, as Jalāluddīn Rūmī says: “Men incur the reproach of wine and drugs That they may escape for a while from self-consciousness, Since all know this life to be a snare, Volitional memory and thought to be a hell,” let us acknowledge that the transports of spiritual intoxication are not always sublime, and that human nature has a trick of avenging itself on those who would cast it off. CHAPTER III THE GNOSIS