Muhammad al-Sūfī say that he heard ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Alī al-Tūsī say that he heard Yahyā ibn ‘Alī al-Ridā al-‘Alawī relate how Ibn Hulwān al-Dimashqī heard a street vendor calling, ‘Ho! Sa‘tar barrī (wild thyme)!’ and fell unconscious. When he regained consciousness, he was asked about this and replied, ‘I thought he was saying, “Is‘a tara birrī (Strive, and you will see My kindness).”’

‘Utba al-Ghulām heard a man saying:

… Glory be to the Lord of heaven!
Truly, the lover is in distress. …

‘Utba said, ‘You have spoken the truth.’ Another man heard the same words and said, ‘You have spoken falsely.’ Each hears according to his own state.”

This is especially so since most of these compositions were intended to express a love that Allah and His Messenger do not love, such as some of the kinds mentioned above. Someone who claims to love Allah and His Messenger merely derives his intended meaning from them through reflection and analogy. This is the allusion of which they speak. Hence his expression, “addresses and allusions”: addresses convey meaning as texts do, while allusions convey meaning as analogy does.

It must already be known that the understanding the listener derives from those addresses and allusions, and the response they stir within him, are loved by Allah and His Messenger. He must therefore have learned from other sources that the awareness and state they entail are pleasing to the Lord of Majesty, as indicated by the Book