The following fragment is possessed of some beauty, but is imitated from one of Sa'dí's.*

<text in Arabic script omitted> <text in Arabic script omitted>

“Think O thou who dost inherit, yet didst labour ne'er,
Who was he whose wealth was thine, and who art thou, the heir?
He amassed but did not spend it, so 'twas left behind:
Use it well, that when thou flittest, others good may find.
Gold a goblin is, and woman for the neck a chain:
Chained and goblin-haunted's he who greatly loves the twain.
Over-anxious for thy offspring be not, for the Lord
Knoweth better than the servant how to guard his ward.
Dally not with lust and passion, which do curses bring,
Curses which thou shalt not 'scape with Flying Ja'far's * wing.
This thy lust and this thy craving are a sea of strife:

Canst thou swim not? Wherefore venture in the waves thy life?
Washing of the coat and turban naught can profit you:
Wash thy hands of worldly longings: this is washing true!
On the evil wrought by others never wilt thou dwell
If upon the deeds thou doest thou shouldst ponder well.
Truth there lacks not in the sayings Awḥadí doth say:
He who hearkens to his counsel wins to Fortune's way!”

The following ode is another favourable specimen of Awḥadí's work:

<text in Arabic script omitted>

“Many a Spring shall Autumn follow when thou'rt passed away;
Many an evening, many a morning, many a night and day.
To the World thy heart incline not, though it seemeth fair;
Deem it not a faithful friend who for its friends doth care.
Thou to-day who like a scorpion everyone dost sting,
Snakes shall be thy tomb's companions, shame to thee shall bring.
Comfort some afflicted spirit; that is worth thy while;
Else to vex thy fellows' spirits easy is and vile.
Look not on earth's humble dwellers with a glance so proud:
Knowing not what Knight is hidden midst the dusty cloud.”

The following fragment must conclude our citations from Awḥadí:

<text in Arabic script omitted> <text in Arabic script omitted>

“These suppliant suitors hold in slight esteem;
Hold thou their vows as frailer than a dream.
Honours which meanness winneth for thy name
Regard, if honour toucheth thee, as shame.
When Fortune's cup into your hands doth pass
Think of the headache as you raise the glass.
Like ill-bred camel seems thy restive soul;
Put on the leading-rein or lose control!”

The village of Shabistar (or Chabistar) near Tabríz, in Ádharbáyján, gave birth about the middle of the thirteenth Maḥmúd-i­Shabistarí century of the Christian era (seventh of the hijra) to another notable mystic, Sa'du'd-Dín Maḥmúd, generally called, after his native place, Shabistarí. Little is known of his life, which seems to have been passed quietly, and, so far as those stirring times allowed, uneventfully, at or near Tabríz, where he died about 720/1320. He was by no means a voluminous writer, but his Gulshan-i-Ráz, or “Rose-Garden of Mystery,” a mathnawí containing about one thousand couplets, is one of the best and most compendious manuals of the mystical doctrine of the Ṣúfís, and enjoys even at the present day a high reputation. It has been edited with a translation, Introduction, and valuable notes, by Mr E. Whinfield, * who gives in his Introduction the few particulars known about the author and the history of the poem. This attracted the attention of European travellers as early as A.D. 1700, reached certain Western libraries during the succeeding century, was utilized by Dr Tholuck in his Ssufismus in 1821 and was partly translated into German by the same writer in his Blüthensammlung aus der Morgenländischen Mystik in 1825, and was edited with a complete versified translation in German by Hammer-Purgstall in 1838. The poem was composed, as the poet himself informs us, in the month of Shawwál, 710 (Feb.-March, 1311) in reply to a series of fifteen questions on mystical doctrine propounded by an enquirer from Khurásán named Amír Ḥusayní. These questions, which are included in the poem, are briefly as follows:

The fifteen questions answered in the Gulshan-i-Ráz

(1)	As to the nature of thought.
(2)	Why is thought sometimes a sin, some­times a duty, and what sort of thought is incumbent on the mystic?
(3)	What am “I”? What is meant by “travelling into one's self”?
(4)	What is meant by “the Pilgrim,” and what by “the Perfect Man”?
(5)	Who is the Gnostic ('Árif) who attains to the Secret of Unity?
(6)	“If Knower and Known are one pure Essence,
	What are the inspirations in this handful of dust?”
(7)	“To what Point belongs the expression, ‘I am the Truth’?”
(8)	“Why call they a creature ‘united’?
	How can he achieve ‘travelling’ and ‘journey’?”
(9)	“What is the union of ‘Necessary’ and ‘Contingent’?
	What are ‘near’ and ‘far,’ ‘more’ and ‘less’?”
(10)	“What is that Sea whose shore is speech?
	What is that pearl which is found in its depths?”
(11)	“What is that Part which is greater than its Whole?
	What is the way to find that Part?”
(12)	“How are Eternal and Temporal separate?
	Is this one the World and the other God?”
(13)	“What means the mystic by those [allegorical] ex­pressions of his?
	What does he indicate by ‘eye’ and ‘lip’?
	What does he intend by ‘cheek,’ ‘curl,’ ‘down’ and ‘mole’?
	(He, to wit, who is in ‘Stations’ and ‘States.’)”
(14)	“What meaning attaches to ‘Wine,’ ‘Torch’ and ‘Beauty’?
	What is assumed in being a haunter of Taverns?”
(15)	“Idols, girdles and Christianity in this discourse
	Are all infidelity; if not, say what are they?”

The book contains not only the answers to these ques­tions, but a number of incidental illustrations, parables and digressions, and is on the whole one of the best manuals of Ṣúfí Theosophy which exist, especially when taken in con­junction with the excellent commentary of 'Abdu'r-Razzáq al-Láhijí.

Since the whole of this work is accessible to the English reader in Whinfield's excellent translation, the following short specimen may suffice here: