110 AN INTRODUCTION TO SUFI DOCTRINE

fundamental types. Also, virtues which are seemingly
in opposition may be based on one and the same attitude
of the soul. Thus patience (as-Sabr) and zeal (al-
ghayrah), the second of which shows itself in holy
wrath, both imply an unshakeable inner axis and this
immutability shows itself passively in patience and
actively in holy wrath.

In a sense all the virtues are contained in spiritual
poverty (al-fagr) and the term, al-fagr, is commonly
used to designate spirituality as a whole. This poverty
is nothing other than a vacare Deo, emptiness for
God ; it begins with the rejection of passions and its
crown is the effacement of the “1”’ before the Divinity.
The nature of this virtue clearly shows the inverse
analogy which links the human symbol with its divine
archetype : what is emptiness on the side of the
creature is plenitude on the side of the Creator.

Another virtue which can be taken as a synthesis of
all that is implied in the attitude of being “ poor”’ (fagir)
is sincerity (al-ikhlas) or veracity (as-sidg). This is the
absence of egocentric preoccupations in both intentions
and thoughts; ultimately it is the effacing of the mind
before the Divine Truth. Thus, like ““poverty”’, it is an
emptiness of the individual and correlatively a plenitude
of a higher order, though with this difference that,
whereas “ poverty,”” like humility, belongs only to the
servant, veracity belongs first of all to the Lord, though
it could none the less be said that the “poverty” or
“humility ”” of God is the simplicity of His Essence.
In any case spiritual sincerity implies cessation of that