In Attar's Manteq al-Tayr (The Conference of the Birds), the tale of a king who places an apple on his favored slave's head to use as an archery target serves as a spiritual allegory. Despite the king's profound love and the slave's high status, the slave is subjected to extreme, life-threatening terror. Within Sufi mysticism, this narrative illustrates that proximity to the Divine is fraught with awe and peril. It demonstrates that being favored by the Divine often involves agonizing trials and the complete dissolution of worldly security, rather than mere comfort or safety.