Sikandra* is a town in the Doāb. The Shaikh was one who was mysteriously drawn to God and was subject to fits of religious ecstasy. For fifty years after leaving the public service he lived as a recluse, withdrawn from all people, ever and persist- ^65. ently seated in devotional seclusion, and visited nobody. When I waited on him in the year 974 (A.D. 1566-67) he asked me the meaning of this couplet of Khṿāja Ḥāfi:—

“God's forgiveness is greater than our sin.
Why utterest thou obscure sayings? Hold thy peace.”

I asked him where the difficulty was and he said, “As it was he himself that uttered the obscure saying why did he command silence?” I asked him to explain the couplet and he said, “It occurs to me that the obscure saying may be this, that even our sins are part of His creation, and to say this is to transgress.” I remained silent, and he then in like manner commented on the following verse:—

“And serve thy Lord till the certainty overtake thee.”*

He said, “The word (‘till’) signifies the extreme limit, but there can be no question of an extreme limit here, but apparently this limit might have reference to the second person singular, to which it would be possible to apply it.” God knows what his meaning was; and that was the last conversation that we had together.