“While _fana_,” says Nicholson, “in its pantheistic form is radically different from Nirvana, the terms coincide so closely in other ways that we cannot regard them as being altogether unconnected. _Fana_ has an ethical aspect: it involves the extinction of all passions and desires. The passing away of evil qualities and of the evil actions which they produce is said to be brought about by the continuance of the corresponding good qualities and actions.”[74] The cultivation of character by the contemplation of God in a mystical sense was the real goal. To know God was to be like Him and to be like Him ended in absorption or ecstasy.[75] One of their favourite sayings was that attributed to God by the Prophet, “I was a hidden treasure and I desired to be known, so I created the creation in order that I might be known.” Just as the universe is the mirror of God’s being, so the heart of man is to the Sufi the mirror of the universe. If he would know God or Truth he must look into his own heart. To quote Al-Ghazali himself: “The aim which the Sufis set before them is as follows: To free the soul from the tyrannical yoke of the passions, to deliver it from its wrong inclinations and evil instincts, in order that in the purified heart there should only remain room for God and for the invocation of His holy name. “As it was more easy to learn their doctrine than to practise it, I studied first of all those of their books which contain it: _The Nourishment of Hearts_, by Abu Talib of Mecca, the works of Hareth el Muhasibi, and the fragments which still remain, of Junaid, Shibli, Abu Yezid, Bustami and other leaders (whose souls may God sanctify). I acquired a thorough knowledge of their researches, and I learned all that was possible to learn of their methods by study and oral teaching. It became clear that the last stage could not be reached by mere instruction, but only by transport, ecstasy, and the transformation of the moral being” (p. 41, “Confessions”). “Among the teachings of the Sufis was that of the preëxistence of Mohammed the Prophet in the Essence of Light. According to the Traditions, ‘I was a prophet while Adam was yet between earth and clay,’ and ‘There is no prophet after me,’ Sufis hold that Mohammed was a prophet even before the creation and that he still holds office. This identification of Mohammed with the Primal Element explains the names sometimes given him, such as Universal Reason, the Great Spirit, the Truth of Humanity, the Possessor of the Ray of Light—the Nur-i-Muhammadi—from God’s own splendour.”[76]