Abu Said al Kharraz was an early Sufi of whom very little is known. He was from Baghdad, a cobbler by trade, who went to reside near the Kaaba, and some of his writings have been preserved. He probably passed away in the last decade of the ninth century CE. The following verses, describing the distress of being lost in the spiritual wasteland, and the need to abandon not only the world but also attachment to spiritual states – ‘worlds, the throne and the footstool’ – are quoted by Abd el Karim Qushayri.

I was once lost in the wasteland, and said:

I wander lost and from the desert
     I know not who I am
beyond what people say about me
     and about my kind.

I wander lost among the jinn
     of the land, and the people.
If I find no one,
     With myself alone I wander lost.

…I heard a voice call me, saying:

O you who view causes
     as your highest part of existence
and rejoice in the loss of the world
     and its company

Were you really
     one of the people of true existing
You would be absent from the worlds,
     from the throne, and from the footstool.

You would be without state
     with Allah, standing
Protected from calling to mind
     jinn and human company.

Translation Michael A. Sellis