Know that, after the performance of religious duties, requirements, and the recitation of the Holy Qur’an, this weak woman who hopes for salvation regards no action as nobler than the remembrance of the spiritual states and stations of the revered saints (may God sanctify their spirits). Therefore, I have spent a portion of my time in reading books and treatises that contain the felicitous accounts of the great ones of religion and the mighty ones of certainty. This faqira had such perfect sincerity and devotion that I wrote a summary of the career of the revered master who took my hand in discipleship, as well as the chief successors of that revered one (may God inspire their spirits).

Praise and favor be to God, for by the assistance of God the Knower, the Powerful, and with the helping grace of the revered master who took my hand, I attained this desire of mine, and this treatise The Confidant of Spirits was edited and put on the robe of completion on the 27th of the blessed month of Ramadan, 1049 (January 21, 1640).

The lives of these great ones, who are the close ones of the court of Eternity, having been extracted with great care from well-known books and treatises, have been committed to writing. In the belief of this weak woman, whatever is affirmed in this text is completely correct. I hope that readers will have the full blessing and benefit of it …