240

mode of the prophet (blessing upon him!). Thus
is it commonly related that Jabriil brought to the
blessed prophet the happy news, that his poor fol-
lowers will enter heaven five hundred years sooner
than the rich. The prophet, full of joy, said: * * Can
" none of you recite a verse?" A person proffered
these distichs:

" The serpent of desire bit my heart:
" There is, to cure me, neither doctor nor magician,
" If not the friend whom I adore:
" He alone possesses the theriac and the amulet suitable to my cure."

Upon this the lord prophet, with his companions,
moved about in ecstacy, with such a violence that
the cloak fell from his shoulder.'

Further/ the sagacious say that the forms of the
sensible world are shades of seeming forms. The
Siifis also maintain that-a spirit cannot exist without
a body;2 when it breaks forth from a body, it ob-
tains, according to its deeds and actions, an appa-
rent body, which they call acquired.

1 Such a tradition existing, we cannot wonder that, from early time
to our days, among the religious practices of Durvishes,' Siifis, and mo-
nastic congregations, there are different kinds of dances, accompanied by
song, with or without instrumental music.

2 The celebrated Leibnitz entertained a similar opinion; in conse-
quence of his great principle of " the sufficient rea<son" he was persuaded
that all souls, after death, remain united to an organic whole: " Bc-
" cause," says he, in his Thtodice'e (§ 90), " there is no appearance, that
" there be, in the order of nature, souls entirely separate from any sort
" of body." — (See on'this subject La Palinydnesie philosophique, par
C. Bonnet, tome II. p. 24 el seq.}