Sacred Spaces

Attar's dergah, Nishapur



Sarajevo







Kerman



Karbala

As Ramazan Draws To A Close...

A reminder.

Listen, Dervish, For The Beloved's Call!

That high lonesome sound:

Hear it in the wind in the pines...



in the boiling tea kettle...



in the reed flute's breathy moan...

In The Shadow Of Egotism And Vulgarity

The heaven of modern humanity is indeed shattered in the Cyclopean struggle for wealth and power. The world is groping in the shadow of egotism and vulgarity. Knowledge is bought through a bad conscience, benevolence practiced for the sake of utility.

The East and West, like two dragons tossed in a sea of ferment, in vain strive to regain the jewel of life. We need a Niuka again to repair the grand devastation; we await the great Avatar. Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.

~ Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea, 16-17.

The Signs Of Love To God

The signs of love to God include little exterior devotion but continual reflection and the taste for solitude and silence. When others look at the lover, he does not see them; when he is called, he does not hear; when misfortune comes upon him, he is not grieved, and when success looks him in the face, he does not rejoice. He fears no one, puts hope in no man and makes no request of anyone (save God).

~ al-Antaki (9th century CE), tr. Margaret Smith.

The Gate Of Gnosis

Meditation is the gate of gnosis--though the servant were to serve God with outward acts of devotion for a thousand years and a thousand years again and then were not acquainted with the practice of meditation, all his service would but increase his distance from God and increase the hardness of his heart and diminish his faith. Meditation is the chief possession of the gnostic, that whereby the sincere and the God-fearing make progress on the journey to God; it brings comfort to the sorrowing and rest to those who have renounced all for his sake. It is a strength to the godly and a means of exaltation to the devout.

~ al-Muhasibi (9th century CE), tr. Margaret Smith.

The Tavern Is The Sanctuary

To become a haunter of taverns is to be set free from self: egotism is infidelity, even though one seems to be devout. The tavern belongs to the world beyond compare, the abode of lovers who fear nothing. The tavern is the place where the bird of the spirit makes its nest: the tavern is the sanctuary of God Himself.

~ Mahmud Shabistari, tr. Margaret Smith.

Mahmud Shabistari

Under the veil of each particle is concealed the soul-refreshing beauty of the Face of the Beloved. To that one whose spirit lives in contemplation of the Vision of God, the whole world is the book of God Most High.

~ Tr. Margaret Smith

Ibn Battuta

Although we have no idea what Ibn Battuta's early experience with Sufism may have been, his behavior during his travels is itself evidence that he grew up in a social climate rich in mystical beliefs and that these ideas were tightly interwoven with his formal, scriptural education.



By the time he left Tangier, he was so deeply influenced by Sufi ideas, especially belief in personal baraka and the value of ascetic devotionalism, that his traveling career turned out to be, in a sense, a grand world tour of the lodges and tombs of famous Sufi mystics and saints.



He was never, to be sure, a committed Sufi disciple. He remained throughout his life a "lay" Sufi, attending mystical gatherings, seeking the blessing and wisdom of spiritual luminaries, and retreating on occasion into brief periods of ascetic contemplation.



But he never gave up the worldly life. He was, rather, a living example of that moral reconciliation between popular Sufism and public orthodoxy that was working itself out in the Islamic world of his time.



Consequently, he embarked on his travels prepared to show as much equanimity in the company of holy hermits in mountain caves as in the presence of the august professors of urban colleges.

~ Ross E. Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, 24.

Persian NEY

Ramazan In Cairo

O Dervish!

You find your Beloved when you lose yourself.

~Attar, Sweet Sorrows # 251, tr. Abramian.

Ramazan

In the cave. In the quiet. In the silent waiting of the heart for the expansiveness of love. There one finds the hunger that is Ramazan.