In Book Four of the Masnavi, Rumi uses the story of Cain learning how to bury his brother Abel from a crow to illustrate the limitations of the particular human intellect (aql-i juz'i). Although Cain possessed human intellect, he was helpless in deciding how to conceal his brother's body until guided by the action of a simple crow. Rumi explains that the crow's knowledge did not come from human reason, calculation, or contrivance, but from divine inspiration (ilham). Through this narrative, Rumi emphasizes that the particular intellect, when divorced from divine guidance or the Universal Intellect (aql-i kull), is blind and easily surpassed by even the humblest of creatures acting under divine inspiration.