1916.] Quatrains of 



193 



whose prayers are imbued with religious fervour and sincerity. 

 It is impossible to believe that a poet whose whole doctrine 

 of faith rested on the desire to achieve union with the 

 Divine through love and self-scacrifice, could have seen any 

 efficacy in mere repetition, or have sympathised with a system 

 which displays nothing more than the vulgar wish to get from 

 the gods something for nothing. Nevertheless his quatrains 

 have acquired, after his death, a reputation for magical potency 



as 



enjoyed during his life as a worker of miracles. 



The introduction to the Hyderabad MS. describes the 

 verses as a "Philosopher's stone {gugird-i-ahmar) for the attain- 

 ment of desires, for procuring daily bread, for vanquishing hearts, 

 for driving away murrain, and for other purposes ' ' : and it goes 

 on to give general directions for their due and fitting recitaL 

 Each quatrain that follows is prefaced by a few words describ- 

 ing in detail its object, and the particular method by which 

 that object can be attained. To quote these instructions at 

 any length would be tedious, and is foreign to my present pur- 

 pose. One, however, is so curious that it may be given in full. 

 That is the preamble to the first quatrain in the Hyderabad MS. 

 (No. 17 in 'Abd-ul Wall's collection). It runs as follows: — 



" For the use of one whose sweetheart is refractory or who 

 is suffering from love, and burning in the fires of separation. 

 He should have recourse to this quatrain for two days, reciting 

 it seven times in one breath. He will attain his object in the 



folio 



wing way : 



He must search for the lady diligently, and if he happen 

 to see her passing by, must pick up some dust from the path 

 she will tread, and after quietly performing an ablution, recite 

 the quatrain seven times with one breath, and then fold the 

 dust in a piece of paper, and taking his stand by the road she 

 is passing, throw the paper at her back. Then he should enter 

 into conversation with her, and after a while part from her. 

 If she still persists in her coldness, he must repeat the proce- 

 dure with extreme care, when he will gain his desire." 



It is hardly necessary to say that such senseless rigmarole 

 as this could not have been written by Abu Sa'id. There can 



ions 



prayed for, and the directions for the proper recital of the quat- 

 rains, are the unauthorised work of later hands, and fairly 

 represent the cloud of myth and romance that so often in the 

 East trails after the name of any man distinguished in his life 

 for great piety and austerity. 



I feel I owe a word of explanation for the notes to the 

 Translation. They are the very ABCof Siiffism, and will be 

 perfectly familiar to every student of that phase of Islamic 

 thought. But there may be some who will chance to read these 

 pages to whom the terminology may be strange, and the mean- 



t 



