Absorption in God, therefore, or union with Him is the goal of all the Sufi teachings and practices. The entire negation of self clears the way for the apprehension of the Truth. This journey towards God has its stages which are generally given as eight in number: service, love, abstraction, knowledge, ecstasy, truth, union, extinction. Some of the Sufis went so far as to set aside external religion, and showed an utter indifference to the ritual as well as to the moral law. Al-Ghazali was not of their number. He teaches, however, that the ordinary theologian cannot enter on the mystic path, for he is still in bondage to dogma and wanders about in darkness. Prayer, fasting, pilgrimage in all their requirements and the details of their observations have, therefore, a twofold significance; the outward and formal one which is understood by the common people, and the spiritual, real, esoteric significance which is only grasped by those who give themselves entirely to God. Al-Ghazali was thoroughly aware of the dangers of Sufism both in its creed by way of becoming pantheistic, and in its antinomian practices. He saw that divorce between religion and morals would be disastrous and must therefore have been shocked by such verses as those of Omar Khayyam: “Khayyam! why weep you that your life is bad; What boots it thus to mourn? Rather be glad. He that sins not can make no claim to mercy; Mercy was made for sinners—be not sad.” His teaching regarding sin and repentance was, as we shall see later, altogether more fundamental. From the earliest times pantheistic Sufism found a home in Khorasan among the Moslems. The old idea of incarnation emerged when the Shiah sect separated itself and paid such high veneration to Ali. The sect of the Khattahiyah worshipped the Imam Jafar Sadik as God. Others believed that the divine spirit had descended upon Abdallah Ibn Amr. In Khorasan the opinion was widely spread that Abu Muslim, the great general who overturned the dynasty of the Ommeyads and set up that of the Abbassides, was an incarnation of the spirit of God. In the same province under Al Mansur, the second Abbasside Caliph, a religious leader named Ostasys professed to be an emanation of the Godhead. He collected thousands of followers, and the movement was not suppressed without much fighting. Under the Caliph Mahdi a self-styled Avatar named Ata arose, who on account of a golden mask which he continually wore was called Mokanna, or “the veiled prophet.” He also had a numerous following, and held the Caliph’s armies in check for several years, till in A. D. 779, being closely invested in his castle, he, with his whole harem and servants, put an end to themselves.