MA BUD. ARAB. The adored one, a title applied by orthodox Muliammadans to God alone. In the Bagh and Bahar the darveshes who narrate the stories which make up the work, commence their discourses with the ejaculation, Ya ma'bud Allah ! (0 adored God!) as a sort of apology for with drawing their attention one moment from con templation of him, and as a suggestion that though addressing their fellow- creatures they have God only in view. This is A mere common place with the Sufistie 'darvesbes, and is as natural to them as Amen is to a Church of England parish clerk. The assumption of such a title is by no means rare among the self-styled saints of the Shiah rite. Their doctrine starts with the assertion that God is the only real exist ence, and that everything else is but hypothetical, or at best a reflection of his ; and that man, the most perfect expression as well as the ultimate object of creation, is but an emanation from him, and has no higher aim than to return to the divine source whence he sprang. The nearer,
therefore, the fanatic 'feels that contemplation brings him to bewilderment, the nearer he thinks he has drawn to God, and when the slight barrier between religious exaltation and madness is over leapt, the enthusiastic mystic may and does believe his union with the Deity to be complete, and he proclaims himself one with him, as did the Ma'bud Syud Ma'sum Ali Shah, and as did Mansur of Hellaj, who constantly exclaimed, Ana 'I Hakk, I am the Truth ! and was hanged for his temerity in the year 309 A.R. This is the reason why Sufi poets are always talking about their giddiness, their ecstasy, and their fainting with passion. It is the explanation, too, of half the vagaries of the darveshes. See Sufi.