sentences:  ), and in early youth he read the commentary of Isfahānī with such critical acumen,* that the best students from among the natives of the country, who were reading that book in class with him, stood astonished at the perspicuous quickness of his apprehension and the clearness of his intellect, and his tutor said, “Friends, just as we, in our time, used to rejoice and contend for superiority in the sight of our respected master, so too will this lad, before long, attain to such a degree of respect that the people will look towards him with blessing and benediction, and from his noble and profitable words will gain advantage and excellence.” At last he became a living witness (of the truth of) and (one might say) the source of (the saying), “Blessed is he who hath seen me or hath seen one who hath seen me.”
  
  “My love, though he went not to school, nor wrote a line,
  “By means of one glance instructed a hundred teachers in(difficult) problems.”
  
  And, having attained the position of a most learned sage he was rejoiced with the good news of the sacred text, “O David, verily have we made thee a vicegerent.” And at the very time when he was employed in the exercise of harsh and severe austerities, having conceived, by means of the attractions of God,—“which are equal to the acts of both men and jinn,”— strong craving after God, his spiritual holiness Ghaus-a-Saqalain (Shaikh Abdul-Qadir Gilani) (may God be pleased with him!