students, who see beneath the hardship, striving and distress, the favours of Divine mercy, disillusionment is necessary to strengthen their efforts, their progress, and their seriousness. Forty years ago the politicians sent me to a lunatic asylum saying I was suffering from a temporary madness. I told them: I consider most of what you call sanity to be insanity; I resign from that sort of sanity. I observe in you the rule, “Everyone is mad, but their madness differs according to their caprices.” Now with the idea of saving myself and my brothers from serious charges, I repeat the same words to those who ascribe occasional ecstasy or a temporary insanity to me because of the confidential treatise, and I am grateful in two respects:

The First: In a sound Hadith, it says: “The ordinary people deeming, because they are beyond their understanding, the elevated states of one who has attained perfect belief to be madness, point to the perfection of his belief.”46

The Second Respect: I would agree with complete pride and joy, not only to be called mad, but to sacrifice my mind completely, and my life, for the well-being and salvation of my brothers in this prison and for them to be delivered from darkness. If you think it suitable, even, let someone write a letter of thanks to those three persons, and tell them that we are allowing them to share in our spiritual gains.

* * *

My Dear, Loyal Brothers, and Sincere Friends in the Service of the Qur’an and Belief, and My Inseparable Companions on the Way of Truth and Reality and the Intermediate Realm and the Hereafter!

With the time drawing close for us to part from one another, because of the faults and tensions arising from annoyances, the principles of the Treatise On Sincerity have not been preserved. It is therefore absolutely essential that you wholely forgive each other. You are brothers closer to each other than the most devoted blood brother, and a brother conceals his brother’s faults, and forgives and forgets. I do not attribute your uncustomary differences and egotism