In Book 3 of Jalaluddin Rumi's Masnavi, after the sorcerers confirm Moses's divine authenticity and submit to God, Pharaoh threatens them with severe torture, vowing to amputate their hands and feet crosswise. Pharaoh assumes the sorcerers are still bound by worldly fears and illusions. However, Rumi reveals that their spiritual awakening has made them completely immune to physical intimidation. To explain their fearlessness, Rumi invokes the metaphor of the material world as a mere dream, reflecting the prophetic tradition that worldly life is the sleep of the soul. Just as losing a limb or being severed in half during a dream causes no real injury to the waking person, physical mutilation in the material realm holds no terror for an awakened spirit. Having witnessed the eternal 'root' of existence, the sorcerers no longer fear the transient 'branches of illusion.' To them, the physical body is merely a temporary form; for the enlightened soul, physical destruction is as inconsequential as a potter breaking and remaking a clay pot.