Lack of positive religion and of morality arises from heedlessness (ghaflat). Well said that great master, Yaḥyá b. Mu`ádh al-Rází: “Avoid the society of three classes of men—heedless savants, hypocritical Koran-readers, and ignorant pretenders to Ṣúfiism.” The heedless savants are they who have set their hearts on worldly gain and paid court to governors and tyrants, and have been seduced by their own cleverness to spend their time in subtle disputations, and have attacked the leading authorities on religion. The hypocritical Koran-readers are they who praise whatever is done in accordance with their desire, even if it is bad, and blame whatever they dislike, even if it is good: they seek to ingratiate themselves with the people by acting hypocritically. The ignorant pretenders to Ṣúfiism are they who have never associated with a spiritual director (pír), nor learned discipline from a shaykh, but without any experience have thrown themselves among the people, and have donned a blue mantle (kabúdí), and have trodden the path of unrestraint.
Abú Yazíd Bisṭámí says: “I strove in the spiritual combat for thirty years, and I found nothing harder to me than knowledge and its pursuit.” It is more easy for human nature to walk on fire than to follow the road of knowledge, and an ignorant heart will more readily cross the Bridge (Ṣiráṭ) a thousand times than learn a single piece of knowledge; and the wicked man would rather pitch his tent in Hell than put one item of knowledge into practice. Accordingly you must learn knowledge and seek perfection therein. The perfection of human knowledge is ignorance of Divine knowledge. You must know enough to know that you do not know. That is to say, human knowledge is alone possible to Man, and humanity is the greatest barrier that separates him from Divinity. As the poet says:—
Al-`ajzu `an daraki ´l-idráki idráku
Wa ´l-waqfu fí ṭuruqi ´l-akhyári ishráku.
“True perception is to despair of attaining perception,
But not to advance on the paths of the virtuous is polytheism.”
He who will not learn and perseveres in his ignorance is a polytheist, but to the learner, when his knowledge becomes perfect, the reality is revealed, and he perceives that his knowledge is no more than inability to know what his end shall be, since realities are not affected by the names bestowed upon them.
[21]. The period within which a woman, who has been divorced or whose husband has died, may not marry again.
[22]. The point to which a Moslem turns his face when worshipping, viz. the Ka`ba.