Bû Ali Tuci, who was one of the great pirs of his century, walked in the valley of diligence and attentiveness. I know of no one who ever received so many graces and attained so high a degree of spiritual honour. Now he said: “In the other world, the wretched damned will clearly distinguish the inhabitants of paradise, who will be able to tell them positively what the joys of paradise and the taste of unification truly are. Then the blessed will confess this: ‘Vulgar joys do not exist in heaven, because, in this perfect abode, the sun of divine beauty has appeared to us. When this beauty was revealed to us, the eight paradises were plunged into darkness in their confusion. Before the splendour of this beauty, which dilates the soul, neither name nor trace remained of blessed eternity.’”
When the inhabitants of Paradise shall thus express their position, the people of Hell shall answer them: “O ye for whom Heaven and Paradise are no longer anything! We feel that what ye say is true; for us, who dwell in a horrible place, where we are plunged in fire from head to foot, when we have plainly learned that displeasure and vexation were directed against us by the friend; when we have learned that we have incurred the wrath of God, and that thus we have been banished from His face, our discontented heart has made the fire of Hell vanish from our memory in the fire of regret. Wherever that fire exerts its power, it burns the soul and heart of lovers. Can he whom affliction assails upon his path manifest his zeal? Thou must endure pain, affliction, and wounds. Thou must find therein delight and repose. If thou arrivest wounded in this place, thou shalt be the mahram of the soul’s bower. If thou art wounded, tell no one; add wound upon wound, and make no complaint of it.”