GhazzaWs Alchemy of Happiness. 63 



the way to eternal truth. For if the pilgrim do not un- 

 derstand the grounds of the respect due to, and the law- 

 fulness" of his food and drink, his dwelling and his clothing, 

 if he do not understand the causes which impair or render 

 complete acts of purification and devotion, what has a 

 tendency to give strength to the blameable affections of the 

 soul, and what is their nature and their remedy, he can de- 

 rive no advantage from the sciences of spiritual exercise, 

 discovery and revelation. In short to an ignorant pilgrim, 

 the least doubt may operate as a hindrance in his course 

 for many years. If, however, he should fall into a spirit of 

 disputation, and should say, " knowledge implies nothing 

 else than to be able to study a book and to correct the 

 composition, the punctuation and the declensions," he will 

 certainly be frustrated from obtaining and discovering in- 

 ward knowledge, — that is, he will not attain to the 

 knowledge of God, which is the object of all knowledge, 

 which is the most sublime knowledge, and compared with 

 which all other knowledge is but husks. Therefore, when 

 we hear some good man, who has travelled far on the road of 

 spiritual discovery afiirm, that knowledge of the external 

 world, in the sense which we at first alluded to, is a 

 hindrance in the way of truth, we ought to be careful not 

 to deny the truth of what he says. 



There are, however, in our times certain weak persons 

 and indifferent to religious truth for the most part, who in 

 the guise of soofees, 1 after learning a few of their obscure 

 phrases and ornamenting themselves with their cap and 

 robes, treat knowledge and the doctors of the law 2 as in- 

 imical to themselves, and continually find fault with them. 

 They are devils and deserve judicial death. They are ene- 

 mies of God, and of the apostle of God. For God has 

 extolled knowledge and the doctors of the law ; and the 



1 Mystics. 3 Ulema, the clerical and theological class. 



