192 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal [N.S., XII, 



felt he had to satisfy his scruples on that score by the grotesque 

 feat of reading the Quran head-downwards, suspended from a 

 beam in the roof: a penance which, we are not surprised to 

 learn, nearly caused his death -by apoplexy. 



On the other hand he had a very healthy view of man's 

 duties and obligations in this world.' " No man is perfect,' ' he 

 said, ' « who does not mix with other men.' ' He was not above 

 helping the temple servants in their menial work, and did not 

 hesitate to prescribe that duty to others as a salutary lesson 

 in humility. If Abu Sa'id was inconsistent, we may be sure 

 the world was all the better for it. Whatever faults he had, 

 hypocrisy was not one of them. He preached sincerity towards 

 God and man, and he was himself sincere. No one, I think, 

 can read his verses without feeling that whatever he did, in 

 whatever mood he might be, he was genuinely in search of 

 knowledge of the Truth, and of spiritual perfection. Whether 

 in the market-place or in the pulpit, whether in the monastery 

 or in the desert, he was seeking that union with God which 

 was his goal. To a dervish who asked him once where he 

 could find God, he answered: "where have you sincerely 

 sought Him that you did not find Him ? " The certain convic- 

 tion that God was everywhere, and that everything was God, 

 is the key to his life and his philosophy. 



The quatrains which follow are naturally not all on the 

 same level of thought and expression. But 'there are some 

 beautiful and moving poems among them. He has the depth 

 of feeling of the Oriental, but at the same time is peculiarly 

 free from those artificialities of expression that seem so strange 

 to western ears ; and when we remember that almost all the 

 verses are purely " occasional," composed in response to a pass- 

 ing mood, or the need of a fugitive moment, it is remarkable 

 that they should have such a permanent value ; and that they 

 should reach, on the whole, such a high degree of literary 

 excellence. But perhaps the chief interest of this collection is 

 the variety of characters in which it reveals our Saint. He is 

 a, victim of toothache, and other human ills ; a sympathetic 

 friend; a contrite sinner, a moraliser on life and age. But 

 above all he is the mystic, eloquent of his devotion to the divine 



ju" AS WC read him we for g efc tnat he hved 900 years ago, 

 and that he is of alien race. Rather we realize that, like every 



~ e m / s1 ?i? ' he beI °ngs to no time and no place. As Baha- ' ud- 

 Dm-i-Amih says : — 



This land is not Egypt, nor 'Iraq, nor Syria ; 

 It is a City that hath no name. 



It is a curious irony that the name of Abu Sa'id should 

 have come to be associated with an art which is opposed to the 

 whole spirit of his beliefs and teaching. Magic had no place in 

 the creed of the Sufi-least of all in the Sufiism of Abu Sa'id, 



