Their journey begins with learning to read the "signs on the horizon" — developing an awareness of the effects of God's actions in the world. "O God," wrote the ninth-century Egyptian mystic Dhu 'l-Nun "I never hearken to the voices of the beasts or the rustle of the trees, the splashing of waters or the songs of birds, the whistling of the wind or the rumble of thunder, but I sense in them a testimony to Thy unity . . . O God I acknowledge thee in the proof of thy handiwork and the evidence of thy acts."

Dhu 'l-Nun , On Pilgrimage by Jennifer Westwood