1. All references are to the 1977 Edition of The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, published in Karachi.

2. ‘The true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake (of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the notion of beauty is.’ The Dialogues of Plato ‘The Symposium’, Translated by B. Jewett, Random House, New York, 1937, Vol. 1, p. 335.

3. Keats: ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’.

4. According to a critic, ‘The old cup-bearer’ refers ‘to Sheik Aminuddin Balyani, one of the great saintly figures of the eighth century, to whom many others owed allegiance. He died in 735.’ Syed Muhammad Ali Jamal-Zada: Andak Aashnai Ba Hafiz, published by Anjuman-i-Dostdaran-i-Adabiat-i- Iran, 1344 Hijri Shamsi, p.71. All translations in the Introduction are mine.

5. The original lines are:

Tu aiy moula-i-Yathrib aap mairi chara sazee kar
meri daanish hai afrangi mera i’maan hai zunnari

6. The original line is:

mujhko to sikhadi hai afrang ne zindikhi

7. All references to Asrar-i-Khui are to the First Edition, published in Lahore in 1915.

8. The original line is: Yazdan ba kamand awar ave himmat-e-mardand.

9. The original hHes are:

Ma uz Khuda-ai gom shuda aiym ou ba justajoost
choon nia niazmand wo giriftaar e aarzoosth

10. Mir Vali-uddin: Tarikh Falasi fath-ul-Islam Karachi, 1964, p. 270.