In honor of Ramadan, 2010
In the name of Allah, most beneficent, most merciful.
“The foremost in religion is the acknowledgement of Him,
the perfection of acknowledging Him is to testify Him,
the perfection of testifying Him is to believe in His Oneness,
the perfection of believing in His Oneness is to regard Him Pure,
and the perfection of His purity is to deny Him attributes,
because every attribute is a proof that it is different from that to which it is attributed and everything to which something is attributed is different from the attribute.
Thus whoever attaches attributes to [God] recognizes His like,
and who recognizes His like regards Him two;
and who regards Him two recognizes parts for Him;
and who recognizes parts for Him mistook Him;
and who mistook Him pointed at Him;
and who pointed at Him admitted limitations for Him;
and who admitted limitations for Him numbered Him.
Whoever said in what is He, held that He is contained;
and whoever said on what is He held He is not on something else.
He is a Being, but not through phenomenon of coming into being.
He exists, but not from non-existence.
He is with everything but not in physical nearness.
He is different from everything but not in physical separation.
He acts but without connotation of movements and instruments.
He sees even when there is none to be looked at from among His creation.
He is only One, such that there is none with whom He may keep company or whom He may miss in his absence.”
- The Oneness of God, according to ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (of the House of the Prophet, peace be upon his soul.)
“I testify that there is no Deity [Lord] except the sole and matchless Allah [God]. And the testification of the singleness of Allah is a word that Allah has declared sincerity (as) its reality, and made the hearts the centre of its contact and union. And has made the specifications and research of the oneness of Allah’s station obvious and evident in the light of meditation. The Allah Who can not be seen by the eyes and tongues are unable and baffled to describe His virtues and attributes. And the intelligence and apprehension of man is helpless and destitute from the imagination of his how ness.”
- Fatima bint Muhammad (Peace be upon her soul.)
“In this journey the seeker reacheth a stage wherein he seeth all created things wandering distracted in search of the Friend. How many a Jacob will he see, hunting after his Joseph; he will behold many a lover, hasting to seek the Beloved, he will witness a world of desiring ones searching after the One Desired. At every moment he findeth a weighty matter, in every hour he becometh aware of a mystery; for he hath taken his heart away from both worlds, and set out for the Ka’bih of the Beloved. At every step, aid from the Invisible Realm will attend him and the heat of his search will grow.
One must judge of search by the standard of the Majnun of Love.* It is related that one day they came upon Majnun sifting the dust, and his tears flowing down. They said, “What doest thou?” He said, “I seek for Layli.” They cried, “Alas for thee! Layli is of pure spirit, and thou seekest her in the dust!” He said, “I seek her everywhere; haply somewhere I shall find her.”
Yea, although to the wise it be shameful to seek the Lord of Lords in the dust, yet this betokeneth intense ardor in searching. “Whoso seeketh out a thing with zeal shall find it.”
(Editor’s note: Literally, Majnun means insane. This is the title of the most celebrated lover of ancient Persian and Arabian lore, whose name was Qays ibn al-Mulawwah. The beloved of Qays was Layli, daughter of an Arabian prince. When Qays was denied Layli’s hand in marriage, he was driven mad by his devotion. Symbolizing true human love bordering on the divine, the story of Layli (or Layla) and Majnun has been made the theme of many a Persian romantic poem, particularly that of Nizami, written in 1188-1189 A.D.)
- Excerpted from The Seven Valleys, by Baha’u'llah.
“O My Brother! A pure heart is as a mirror; cleanse it with the burnish of love and severance from all save God, that the true sun may shine within it and the eternal morning dawn. Then wilt thou clearly see the meaning of “Neither doth My earth nor My heaven contain Me, but the heart of My faithful servant containeth Me.” And thou wilt take up thy life in thine hand, and with infinite longing cast it before the new Beloved One.”
- Excerpted from The Seven Valleys, by Baha’u'llah.
“My heart has become capable of every form; it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks, and a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Ka’ba, and the tablets of the Torah and the book of the Koran. I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take, that is my religion and my faith.”
- Ibn al-Arabi
Love is a veil betwixt the lover and the loved one;
More than this I am not permitted to tell.
- Jalal-ud-Din Rumi