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THE TARJUMAN AL-ASHWAQ (X IX ) 8 5

4. Following them wherever they journeyed and pitched
tents, and sometimes it was managing the beasts of
burden,
5. Untih when they alighted in a barren wilderness and
pitched tents and spread the carpets,
6. It brought them back to a meadow vei'dant and ripe
which erstwhile had been an arid desert.
7. They did not halt at any place but its meadow contained
forms beautiful as peacocks,
8. And they did not depait from any place but its earth
contained tombs of their lovers.

C o m m e n t a r y
1. ‘ Al-Uthayl,’ i.e. the natural constitution. Its remains
arc described] as ‘ mouldering ’ because they are changed by
the various spiritual emotions which pass over them.
‘ Friendly maidens,’ i.e. forms of Divine wisdom by which
the gnostic’s heart is gladdened.
2. ‘ Desolate and frowning,’ because he has returned to the
world of sense and consciousness.
3. ‘ And they knew not,’ etc.: as, Avhen a man leaves
a place, he remains there in imagination and keeps the
picture of it in his soul.
4. ‘ It was managing the beasts of burden,’ i.e. he was
influencing them by his thought, .so that their thoughts
turned to him. This was the result of his sincerity ; for
the inferior, if he turn sincerely to God, may influence the
spiritual directors. «
superior, as often happens with sincere novices and their

5. ‘ In a barren wilderness,’ i.e. the station of absolute and
abstract unification.
‘ And spread the carjaets,’ in reference to the Divine favours
which they received on reaching the abode of the Truth.'
6. In this verse he ppints out that no reality except the
Divine substance' can subsist together with abstract unification.
Hence, when they gained this station and realized it and
knew the meaning of God’s word, ‘ There is nothing like unto