In Hujwiri's account of Abu Ahmad al-Muzaffar ibn Ahmad ibn Hamdan, two opposite directions of the mystical path are contrasted. The common route is the path of servanthood (بندگی): through sustained spiritual struggle (مجاهدت) the seeker gradually attains contemplative witnessing (مشاهدت). Abu Sa'id characterizes Muzaffar as following instead the God-given path of lordship (خداوندی) — he begins from witnessing and only then descends into struggle. Muzaffar voices this reversal by saying that what other masters gained only by traversing valleys and deserts, he found while seated in comfort and in the seat of honor. The concept distinguishes the ascending path earned by effort from the descending path received as an unmerited divine grace (کرامت), and it notes that the vain (اصحاب رعونت) misread such a saying as mere boasting only through a defect of their own discernment.