I don’t know why, but just to catch a glance—I dance!Proud of this love, and for the Friend—I dance!You touch the strings of the instrument, and each time—I dance!However You make me move, I accept it, O Friend—and thus I dance! Come, O Beloved, and witness this solemn sight:In an impudent crowd, amidst shame and spite,With a hundred chances to lose honour in the bazaar—I dance! Blessed is this state of holy intoxication—I trample a hundred pious laws without hesitation!How wondrous and strange is the state of restraint—Clad in a turban and cloak—I dance like a saint!I am Usman Haruni, companion of Shaykh Mansur—Though they mock me, though they scorn me, though I’m hung on the cross—I endure,And still—I dance!
Grandfather’s Oven
خام بدم پخته شدم سوختم I was raw, I was cooked, I was burned! I arrived rather late in a caravanserai in Konya. That’s why I saw Munir Shah the next morning. I noticed him reading a book and I wondered what book he was reading. A few hours I saw him again. He was sitting on a bench opposite the mosque with the maqam of Hazrat Shamsuddin Tabrizi. He was reading the same red coloured book. The third time happened to take place in the Meram gardens of Konya. I went there because I had read the description of these gardens by Evliya Çelebi. He writes that these gardens are situated on the eastern side of the Meram Mountain….
A dervish in Baghdad
There was a dervish in Baghdad who daily would serve 1,200 bowls of food and he would personally supervise their preparation and cooking. One day he called a meeting of his servants and asked: ‘Did you not overlook someone while you were serving food?’ ‘No, we remembered everyone,’ they rejoined, ‘we have forgotten no one. At the time of serving we provide it to everyone who comes to be fed’. But again the shaykh remarked: ‘Something has gone awry in this procedure’. ‘O shaykh,’ implored the servants, ‘what is the intent of your line of questioning?’ ‘For the past three days,’ explained the shaykh, ‘you have given me no food. Every time you have forgotten me’.”
The stone and the tree
There was once a dervish in Abadan, whose cell was always surrounded by disciples, people who had come from far and near to hear his wisdom and try to achieve knowledge and spiritual fulfilment. Sometimes he spoke to them, sometimes he did not. Sometimes he read from books, and sometimes he made them perform various tasks. The disciples tried, for decades, to understand the purport of his words, to fathom the depth of his signs and symbols, and in every way possible to get closer to his wisdom. Those who understood what he taught, were the ones who did not spend time trying to puzzle out things. They cultivated patience and attention, and refrained from looking for verbal associations from…
I am an Unbeliever of Love
‘Aql âmad dîn u dunyâ shud kharâb‘Ishq âmad har du ‘âlam kâm-yâbReason entered, and religion and planet were ruined.Love entered, and both these worlds were saved. Kâfir-i-‘ishq-am musalmânî marâ dar kâr nîstHar rag-i-man târ gashta hâjat-i-zunnâr nîstI am an unbeliever of love; I have no use for Islam.Every vein of me has become a thread: I don’t need a religious belt. Mâ gharîbân râ tamâshâ-i-chaman dar kâr nîstDâgh-hâ-yi-sîna-yi-mâ kamtar zi gulzâr nîstStrangers like us have no use for a walk in the garden.The scars on my heart are nothing less than a rose garden. Shâd bâsh ai dil ki fardâ bar sar-i-bâzâr-i-‘ishqWa’da-yi-qatl ast garchi wa’da-yi-dîdâr nîstRejoice, o heart! Tomorrow at the gate of love’s market,There’ll be the promise of death,…
The Months of the ‘Arefin (Gnostics)
1. Muharram: sanctification and coming-forward; station of beginning. 2. Safar: renunciation, aspiration and denudation; its earth relinquishes the plants of evil deeds 3. Rabi’ al-Awwal: customary practice; mutual social relations 4. Rabi’ ath-Thani: unveiling; mystical perceptions 5. Jumada al-Awwal: What do you think? 6. Jumada al-akhirah: ? 7. Rajab: the loftiest shrine 8. Sha’ban: the barrier 9. Ramadan: the everlasting 10. Shawwal: the source of quiddity+++- 11. Dhul-Qadah: the earthly expanse 12. Dhul-Hijjah: spiritual joy.
The Far and Near side to Madness
The work of the philosopher Wouter Kusters consists of making an attempt to understand the ins and outs of madness. Psychiatrists easily prescribe medication, but remain unaware of what this different state of consciousness really implies. Kusters intends to develop a kind of common ‘language’ regarding the alpha and omega of madness [Wouter Kusters: Filosofie van de waanzin; 2014:23]. J.W. Perry in his The Far Side of Madness [1974:8] writes: “What do we make of the fact that, when out of their senses, some people have experiences perhaps of beauty, perhaps of terror, but always with implications of awesome depth, and that when they re-emerge out of their craze and into their so-called normal ego, they may shut the trapdoor after them…
The four dervishes
Have you read the book attributed to Amir Khusraw called ‘The four dervishes’? It has been translated into English by Amina Shah, the sister of Idries Shah. It is a book of tales with a structure like the one of the Arabian nights (‘the structure is the message’ is a sentence calling for comments!). The peculiar thing that can be said about the original is that it is said to have a healing quality. I have stayed for some time in a sufi khaneqah in India and there I have seen it being read aloud near the bed of someone who was ill. I am wondering about this healing quality. Why is it that this book is used for such…
Sufism and Dreams
A gypsy came to a Sufi master as he often received a small amount in charity from him. One day the gypsy told him about his dream, about which the master was very astonished. At the same time the son of an important official came to visit the Sufi, because the parents of the boy wanted the Sufi to give the boy regularly some pocket-money. He asked the young man if he wanted to exchange his pocket-money for the dream of the gypsy. The boy accepted the offer but was not happy with it. A little later he found out what the gypsy had dreamed. The gypsy had dreamed that he would become the Grandvizier and as the boy had…
The Greatest Providence (Al-‘Enaayat Al-Kobraa)
Ibn al-‘Arabi writes: “Know, o true listener, that the people of God, when the Real One draws them towards Himself…, He places in their hearts something calling them to seek their happiness. So they seek after that and inquire about it until they find in their hearts a certain tenderness and humility and striving for peace and release from the state of ordinary people with their mutual envy, greed, hostility and opposition. Then when they have completed the perfection of their moral qualities or have nearly done so, they find in their nafs something calling them to solitary retreat and withdrawal from ordinary people. So some take to wandering and frequenting the mountains and plains, while others do their wandering…