GhazzaWs Alchemy of Happiness. 57 



interrogation, "Am I not your Lord?" As at that mo- 

 ment, it was seen with the eye of certainty, no person had 

 any doubt on the subject, as God says in his holy word: 

 " If you ask them, who created the heavens and the earth, 

 they will answer thee, the wise and holy God." 1 All the 

 prophets were apparently of the same nature as other men 

 without any difference, as we find in God's holy word : 

 "Say, I am a man like you: it was revealed tome." 2 

 Afterwards the heart descended from the world of divine 

 union to this house of separation, from that assembly of 

 love to this station of sorrow, and from the spiritual to the 

 material, and entering within the curtain of the senses, it 

 became occupied with the care of the body and was over- 

 come by the animal affections and material pleasures. The 

 heart of man, veiled with the garments of heedlessness, 

 forgot the assembly with which it had been familiar, and 

 imagining that this miserable place was to be its mansion 

 of rest, it chose to establish itself here in this world of 

 perdition, as if this was its home. Still the veil of heed- 

 lessness disappeared from the eyes of those to whom the 

 grace and guidance of the Eternal and unchangeable gave 

 aid and support, and the discovery of the invisible world 

 was not concealed from the view of some of those who 

 came into this material world, but was anew revealed to 

 them, after a measure of exertion of spiritual ardor. 



To whomsoever this revelation has been vouchsafed, if 

 it direct him to reform the world, to invite the nations to 

 turn to God, and to a peculiar way of life, that person is 

 called a prophet, and his way of life is called a law ; and 

 that influence which proceeds from him, which transcends 

 what is ordinary, is called a miracle. If he has not been 

 appointed to invite the nations, but worships in accordance 

 with the law of another, he is called a saint, and that which 



'S.^: 8. 

 Trans. viii.~] 



a S.. 18: 110. 

 8 



