According to the mystics. God is the living principle of the universe and has revealed Himself to man in human beauty. Hence, the mystic who sought union with God was taught to use human beauty as a stepping stone towards the perception of divine beauty. To this effect love was necessary; but as the love of women was likely to sidetrack the seeker after God into sensuality, the mystics preferred to see divine beauty in youths, in order to avoid sexual complications incident to the love of women. These young men who were deemed to incarnate divine beauty were called mazhars or manifestations of divine beauty.52 To conclude, the ghazal is the product of a culture in which men did not assume that it was pathological, effeminate or abnormal to fall in love with boys, appreciate their beauty or desire them sexually. Thus it was their beauty which was used as a symbol of Divine beauty by the mystics and as a metaphor of womens" beauty by others. In this the ghazal is the only form of literature which makes the love of boys something which can be mentioned in an erotic, aesthetic, romantic, and a spiritual context. In English literature where such a development did not take place this subject could not be mentioned without producing hysterical reactions. The ghazal did save the Indian Muslim culture from such reactions though now that the boy-love theme is being suppressed, such reactions are becoming common. As Indian Muslim culture was already intolerant of all forms of homosexuality except boy-love, and that too only for the lover and not the beloved, this has further increased prudery and intolerance. "Sadiq, p. 25. Annual of Urdu Studies, #7 ^0