Truth

“Oppressing women and using the Shari’ah to justify it…is more offensive to our Prophet than a cheap film.”

– al-Habib Ali al-Jifri

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Humanity

“Spirituality and humanity are inextricably bound together – one of the struggles that we face, in the generation that we’re in, is to become human once again.”

– Shaykh Ibrahim Osi-Efa

It’s All Good!

“When all evil is attributed to His Good

The realities of good come swiftly to you

His beauty completes the deficiency of evil

Neither deficiency nor evil, in reality hold true.”

-Shaykh Abdal-Qadir al-Jaylani

Love!

وَ هلْ غيرُ الحبِّ علّمَ الإنسانَ كيفَ ينادي روحَهُ وَ نفسَهُ في غيرِه ؟

لا يصحٍّ الحبّ بين اثنين إلّا إِذا أمكن لأَحدهما أن يقول للآخر يا أنا

Is it not through love that the human being knows how to call upon his self and soul in another? Love is not complete between two people until one is able to say the other: O my-self!

– al-Rafi`ee

Romantic Play On Words By `Ali b. Abi Talib

via Arabic Tidbits\ Fajr Blog

قد فُزتَ يا عودَ الأَراكِ بثغْرِها
ما خِفتَ يا عودَ الأراكِ أراكا
ولو كُنْتَ مِنْ أَهْلِ القتالِ قتلتُكَ
ما فازَ منِّي يا سواكُ سواك

“You have seized her mouth, O ‘uud of al-Araak
Were you not afraid, O ‘uud of al-Araak, that I would see you?
Had you been from those who I could fight, I would have killed you
No one has been able to defeat me, O siwaak, except you.”

… There is excellent word play in the Arabic where ‘Ali (ra) uses words that sound the same but are of completely separate meanings.

E.g.
– ‘Araak’ as a noun for the brush, and ‘araak’ as the constructed verb/particle meaning ‘to see you’.

– Also ‘siwaak’ as noun meaning the brush, and ‘siwaak’ as constructed of 2 particles meaning ‘except you’.

– And of course, the whole scene he is laying out is one of ‘Jihad’ and being in a battle; victory (for the brush) and defeat (for him).

I have come

I have come to drag
you out of yourself
and take you in my heart.

I have come to bring
out the beauty in you

and lift you like a
prayer to the sky.

– Rumi

Beautiful Patience

“I shall remain patient until patience itself cannot bear my patience anymore. I shall remain patient until Allah grants permission to my affair. And I shall remain patient until patience knows that I kept patient on a matter which required patience.”

– Imam ash-Shafi`i