“In expounding the tradition of the Seventy Thousand Veils with which Allah had veiled Himself from the vision of man, Ghazali finds opportunity to graduate various religions and sects according as they are more, or less, thickly veiled from the light; _i. e._, according as they more or less nearly approximate to Absolute Truth (al-Haqq—the Real—Allah). The veils which veil the various religions and sects from the Divine Light are conceived of as twofold in character, light veils and dark veils, and the principle of graduation is according as the followers of these religions and sects are veiled (_a_) by dark veils, (_b_) by dark and light mixed, or (_c_) by light veils only. The recital closes with a short passage which tells us that the Attainers (_al-wasilun_) have had the Sufi doctrine of _kashf_ in its most explicit and striking form. “(_a_) Those veiled by pure darkness, called here the _mulhida_, are those who deny the existence of Allah and of a Last Day. They have two main divisions, those who have inquired for a cause to account for the world and have made Nature that cause; and those who have made no such inquiry. The former are clearly the Naturists or _dahriya_ who were the very abomination of desolation to Ghazali. It is curious that nothing further is said of their evil conduct, and it is entirely characteristic of mediæval thought that the deepest damnation is thus reserved for false opinion, rather than for evil life. Evil doers form the second division (which, however, is not definitely said to be higher than the first), composed of those who are too greedy and selfish so much as to look for a cause, or in fact to think of anything except their vile selves. These we might style the Egotists; they are ranged in ascending order into (1) seekers of sensual pleasure, (2) seekers of dominion, (3) money-grubbers, (4) lovers of vain-glory. In the first he has the ordinary sensual herd in view, as well as the philosophers of sensualism; their veils are the veils of the bestial attributes, while those of the second are the ferocious ones (sabaʾiya). The denotation of the latter class is quaintly given as Arabs, some Kurds and very numerous Fools. The third and fourth subdivisions do not call for comment.