All posts filed under: Excerpts

Masnavi of Rumi

Wealth has no permanence: it comes in the morning,and at night it is scattered to the winds.Physical beauty too has no importance,for a rosy face is made pale by the scratch of a single thorn.Noble birth also is of small account,for many become fools of money and horses. Reference: Mathnawi VI: 255-260 in Camille and Kabir Helminski“Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance”Threshold Books, 1996

The Conference of the Birds

“The ocean can be yours; why should you stopBeguiled by dreams of evanescent dew?The secrets of the sun are yours, but youContent yourself with motes trapped in beams.” Farīd al-Dīn ʻAṭṭār, The Conference of the Birds

A Speech To The Negus

O King, we were a people in a state of ignorance and immorality, worshipping idols and eating the flesh of dead animals, committing all sorts of abomination and shameful deeds, breaking the ties of kinship, treating guests badly, and the strong among us exploited the weak. We remained in this state until Allah sent us a Prophet, one of our own people, whose lineage, truthfulness, trustworthiness, and integrity were well-known to us. He called us to worship Allah alone, and to renounce the stones and the idols which we and our ancestors used to worship besides Allah. He commanded us to speak the truth, to honor our promises, to be kind to our relations, to be helpful to our neighbors, to cease all forbidden acts, to abstain from bloodshed, to avoid obscenities and false witness, and not to appropriate an orphan’s property nor slander chaste women. He ordered us to worship Allah alone and not to associate anything with him, to uphold Salat, to give Zakaah, and fast in the month of Ramadan. We believed …