[FN#471] These devotees address Allah as a lover would his beloved. The curious reader will consult for instances the Dabistan on Tasawwuf (ii. 221; i.,iii. end, and passim).
[FN#472] Arab. "Ma'rifat," Pers. Dαnish; the knowledge of the Truth. The seven steps are (1) Sharν'at, external law like night; (2) Tarνkat, religious rule like the stars; (3) Hakνkat, reality, truth like the moon; (4) Ma'arifat like the sun; (5) Kurbat, proximity to Allah; (6) Wasνlat, union with Allah, and (7) Suknat, dwelling in Allah. (Dabistan iii.29.)
[FN#473] Name of a fountain of Paradise: See Night xlix., vol. ii., p.100.
[FN#474] Arab. "Atbαk"; these trays are made of rushes, and the fans of palm-leaves or tail-feathers.
[FN#475] Except on the two great Festivals when fasting is forbidden. The only religion which has shown common sense in this matter is that of the Guebres or Parsis: they consider fasting neither meritorious nor lawful; and they honour Hormuzd by good living "because it keeps the soul stronger." Yet even they have their food superstitions, e.g. in Gate No. xxiv.: "Beware of sin specially on the day thou eatest flesh, for flesh is the diet of Ahriman." And in India the Guebres have copied the Hindus in not slaughtering horned cattle for the table.
[FN#476] Arab. "Jallαbiyah," a large-sleeved robe of coarse stuff worn by the poor.
[FN#477] His fear was that his body might be mutilated by the fall.
[FN#478] The phrase means "offering up many and many a prayer."
[FN#479] A saying of Mohammed is recorded "Al-fakru fakhrν" (poverty is my pride!), intelligible in a man who never wanted for anything. Here he is diametrically opposed to Ali who honestly abused poverty; and the Prophet seems to have borrowed from Christendom, whose "Lazarus and Dives" shows a man sent to Hell because he enjoyed a very modified Heaven in this life and which suggested that one of the man's greatest miseries is an ecclesiastical virtue—"Holy Poverty"—represented in the Church as a bride young and lovely. If a "rich man can hardly enter the kingdom" what must it be with a poor man whose conditions are far more unfavourable? Going to the other extreme we may say that Poverty is the root of all evil and the more so as it curtails man's power of benefiting others. Practically I observe that those who preach and praise it the most, practise it the least willingly: the ecclesiastic has always some special reasons, a church or a school is wanted; but not the less he wishes for more money. In Syria this Holy Poverty leads to strange abuses. At Bayrut I recognised in most impudent beggers well-to-do peasants from the Kasrawαn district, and presently found out that whilst their fields were under snow they came down to the coast, enjoyed a genial climate and lived on alms. When I asked them if they were not ashamed to beg, they asked me if I was ashamed of following in the footsteps of the Saviour and Apostles. How much wiser was Zoroaster who found in the Supreme Paradise (Minuwαn-minu) "many persons, rich in gold and silver who had worshipped the Lord and had been grateful to Him." (Dabistan i. 265.)
[FN#480] Koran vii. 52.