The traveller passes swiftly from this stage into the region of absolute poverty and nothingness, which is the true forgetfulness of self in the love of the Beloved. He is now as a pearl in the sea of the infinite splendour: poor in the things created, but rich beyond counting in the things that are spiritual and pure. And thus, casting aside the burden of consciousness for ever, he becomes one with the Beloved and enters the Kingdom of Immortality. The renunciation of self, therefore, is the Alpha and Omega of the Súfí doctrine: the lover, in other words, must turn the Beloved, otherwise he can never hope to gain admittance into the Chamber of Love. “One came to the Beloved’s door and knocked. And a voice from within whispered, ‘Who is there?’ And the lover answered, saying, ‘It is I.’ Then the voice said, ‘There is not room in this house for thee and me,’ and the door was not opened unto him. So the lover went back into the desert and fasted and prayed. And at the end of a year he returned once more to the Beloved’s door and knocked. And the voice from within said again, ‘Who is there?’ And this time the lover, having learned the lesson of self-renunciation, answered, ‘It is thyself,’ and the door was opened unto him.” (_b_) _The Shiah Faith in its Relation to the Persian Passion Play._ The Shiah faith is as old as ’Alí; for, on the feast of Ghadir, he is said to have been selected by Muhammad as his successor. In the ages immediately succeeding the Prophet, it spread itself East and West. The Muslim colonies, in various parts of the Empire, embraced its political teaching. It took root even in Mecca and Medina; but it was in Persia alone that it grew, in the Ninth Century, to be the State religion, waning and waxing in its hold on the people during the dynastic changes to which the country subsequently submitted itself; until, in the declining years of the Fifteenth Century, under the Safaví Kings, it re-established its grip, this time for good, on the national conscience. The mourning celebration of the month of Muharram, in which the whole country, with the exception of the Sunnis, takes part to this day, was founded in the Tenth Century by Ahmad Muizz-u’d-Dawlat. In order to appreciate the depth of feeling underlying this yearly commemoration, the reigns of the early Caliphs must be reviewed. For, in the story of the family of the Tent, lies the _raison d’être_ of the Muharram celebration.