If an unlimited bounty should offer kingdoms,
If a buried treasure should grant me gems . . .
I would bow my soul low, lay my face in the dust
And plead: ‘Grant me instead, the Love of God!’
~Rumi
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Those devoted to the path of the ‘knowledge of God’s realisation’ (Irfaan ) have nothing to speak of except God.
~Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti
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“Don’t be arrogant with knowledge. A little bit of learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, because shallow drinks intoxicate the brain.”
Imam Ghazali
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“Man is either your brother in faith or your equal in humanity.” – Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib
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In a Hasan/good Hadith, related by Imam Bukhari in his book on manners = al-Adab al-Mufrad. There is from Iyad ibn Khalifa that he heard ‘Ali, Karam’Allahu Wajhahu, say at Siffin,
“The intellect is located in the heart. Mercy is located in the liver, Compassion is located in the spleen. The self (nafs) is located in the lungs.”
حَدَّثَنَا سَعِيدُ بْنُ أَبِي مَرْيَمَ، قَالَ: أَخْبَرَنَا مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ مُسْلِمٍ قَالَ: أَخْبَرَنِي عَمْرُو بْنُ دِينَارٍ، عَنِ ابْنِ شِهَابٍ، عَنْ عِيَاضِ بْنِ خَلِيفَةَ، عَنْ عَلِيٍّ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ، أَنَّهُ سَمِعَهُ بِصِفِّينَ يَقُولُ: إِنَّ الْعَقْلَ فِي الْقَلْبِ، وَالرَّحْمَةَ فِي الْكَبِدِ، وَالرَّأْفَةَ فِي الطِّحَالِ، وَالنَّفَسَ فِي الرِّئَةِ.
{Section ~ Illness and Visiting Those Who are Ill ~ 250 #547 ~ The intellect is located in the heart}
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Actions are lifeless forms, but the presence of an inner reality of sincerity within them is what endows them with life-giving Spirit.
Ibn Ata’illah
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“Don’t be dead or asleep or awake.
Don’t be anything.
What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you’ll be that.”
―Attar
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The home we seek is in eternity;
The Truth we seek is like a shoreless sea,
Of which your paradise is but a drop.
This ocean can be yours; why should you stop
Beguiled by dreams of evanescent dew?
The secrets of the sun are yours, but you
Content yourself with motes trapped in its beams.
Turn to what truly lives, reject what seems —
Which matters more, the body or the soul?
Be whole: desire and journey to the Whole.
Shaykh Farid ud-Din Attar
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“Love Is The Cure,
for your pain will keep giving birth to more pain
until your eyes constantly exhale love as effortlessly as your body yields its scent.”
~Rumi
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”The knower of secrets, the key to Sainthood, the helper of the needy, the King of the friends of Allah, the one who uttered ”My foot is on the neck of every Wali (Saint).”
Sultan al-Awliyah Shaykh Abdul Qadir al-Jilani
Time to wake up! 