ABSTRACT
Y O U Abraham of the present age, with a mind as luminous as the sun, slay those four birds, the highwaymen of the Path, for each one of them is plucking crow-like the eye from the reason of reasoning men. The four attributes of the flesh are as the four birds of Abraham: slaughtering them clears the way for the soul. Inasmuch as the body is the abode of these four habi tudes, they are rightly named the four mischief-seeking birds. If you desire that the people should have everlasting life, chop off the heads of these four ill-favoured, evil birds, then restore them to life again in another kind, so that thereafter no mischief may arise from them.
