deep contemplation at the sight of a flower, or of a green field in spring,

or on hearing a musical air or a verse of song — as happened to Abu Hamza, who fainted away on hearing a beautiful singing. And many times the ecstasy (extase) began for al-Nuri and Abu Hamza, and they uttered the pilgrims' cry, "Labbayk — here I am, Thine!" — because they had seen a dog howling or a bird warbling.

This is a love of the stuff of legend, but it is not the only one of its kind. The "Annals of the Capuchins" (Le Annals des Capucins) record the story of certain Franciscan brothers who would exult in the Lord at any sign of nature whatever. Brother Arsene of Milan contemplated God and His beauty in all creatures, and for this reason he would move the earthworms out of the way of walkers and carts, for fear those little images of the Creator should be trodden under-foot. As for Brother Vito of the city of Ragusa (Raquse), he would exult in his Lord, and sometimes enter into a rapture (extase) of the spirit, through his deep contem-plation of burning branches; and sometimes he would hold the live coals without feeling his fingers burn, in his delight at that beauty which God has bestowed even upon the least of things, and which He allowed him, poor servant that he was, to behold!

This is a fearsome degree of love; if every person could reach it, the whole inhabited world would be a house of madmen. But the perfection of Sufism is the love that wipes out social boundaries, the love which is the renewal of life and its true meaning — that love which God created for beauty, and for woman, because she is the most beautiful of His gracious images; because love for woman is a kind of thanksgiving to the Creator for the delicacy and softness, the beauty and sweetness, He has placed in our hands; and because God prefers love to prayer and to holy wars — for He is merciful and does not desire the shedding of blood, and because a moment of love is worth years of worship.

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