Note 203 — Chapter XII

عبوديت means also “servitude, submission, pious fervour;” it is reckoned one of the most essential qualities of a saint in general. An عبد, âbid, is a person continually occupied with religious practices, and all sorts of supererogatory pious acts, with the view of obtaining future beatitude. It may be asked, how can devotion, as said above, be an attribute of God? The answer is that, according to Súfism, God is every thing which appears praise-worthy to man, who can never forsake his own nature. Thus says Sâdi in his fifth Sermon: “A hundred thousand souls, alas! are the devoted slaves of the shoe-dust of that Durvish (God).” He who prays from the inmost of his soul, grants his prayers to himself; he no more prays, but is the God who, at the same time, offers and accepts prayers.—(See Sufismus, by F. A. D. Tholuck, p. 155.)