In Farid al-Din Attar's The Conference of the Birds, the tale of the venerable man who rejoiced in having the Lord illustrates the Sufi principle that fault-finding is a barrier to spiritual joy. The elder advises that obsessing over the flaws of creation (khalq) blinds the seeker to the perfection of the unseen Divine (ghayb). According to this narrative, true devotion and happiness require purifying one's vision—abandoning the search for worldly imperfections in order to fully perceive and delight in God's love.