Muhammad.com collection in 109 languages

knowledge of it. The sober man, on the other hand, knows the definition of
drunkenness and its basis, yet he is not drunk in the very least. Again the
doctor, when he is himself ill, knows the definition and causes of health and
the remedies which restore it, and yet is lacking in health. Similarly there is a
difference between knowing the true nature and causes and conditions of the


abstinent life and actually leading such a life and forsaking the world.

I apprehended clearly that the mystics were men who had real experiences,
not men of words, and that I had already progressed as far as was possible
by way of intellectual apprehension. What remained for me was not to be
attained by oral instruction and study but only by immediate experience and
by walking in the mystic way.

Now from the sciences I had labored at and the paths I had traversed in my
investigation of the revelation and rational sciences, there had come to me a
sure faith in Allah most high, in prophethood, and in the Last Day. These three
creedal principles were firmly rooted in my being, not through any carefully