thésaurized and remains. He gathered wealth and spent it on what did not benefit him and left it to those not worthy of it. When he was commanded to march, he left his city and homeland without provisions, without a mount, and without equipment. He stumbled on his path, not knowing where to tread, bewildered in his affair, regretful of his negligence where regret does not benefit him. He wept for himself and chose destruction where the waves played with him, bewildered about the path of salvation. Is this parable from the way of the rational or the way of the ignorant?"

The youth said: "I have recognized that. My heart has yearned for your parables and reports. The darkness of bewilderment and the canopies of desire have cleared from me toward the clear path, and you have guided me to the gnosis of Allah — Exalted Glory —; may Allah magnify for you the reward and the prize."

The Nature of the Work of the Five Senses

The Noble One said: "Indeed Allah — Exalted Glory — composed in man five senses, and placed for each of these senses a type of science. That type reaches the heart through what it attains from those sciences. The heart conveys what it attains to the intellect from the sciences according to the strength of the heart, the purity of the mind, and the essentiality of the intellect, without anything of forms or bodies. By His power, what the sight sees of the type sent between the heart and the sight reaches [the heart], so he attains it with his heart. The heart conveys it to the intellect by its subtlety, its essentiality, and its management according to its purity and strength. At that moment, he distinguishes by his physical eye and the eye of his insight through which the power of the creature is realized from the power of the Creator. Thus, he does not fall into an error of his sight nor a mistake of his insight, and he is then upright of vision. Among that is that he hears sounds with his ear, and the heart conveys what it hears to the intellect; thus the intellect distinguishes the correct speech from the impossible