So Thou be sweet, let life run bitterly;
So Thou be pleased, let men be wroth with me;
So all things flourish between me and Thee,
Let all between me and the world in ruins be.
All is easy if true is Thy love for me,
And all that’s above the dust is dust to me.
The path of salvation is duty; the path of sanctification is love.
I die when I remember You,
then I am revived;
how often I am revived for You,
for how many times I’ve died!
Ahmad al-Rifa‘i
“I’m counting on love”
— Shaykh Hamza Yusuf.
How long then will you seek for beauty here?
Seek the unseen, and beauty will appear.
When the last veil is lifted neither men
Nor all their glory will be seen again,
The universe will fade — this mighty show
In all its majesty and pomp will go,
And those who loved appearances will prove
Each other’s enemies and forfeit love,
While those who loved the absent, unseen Friend
Will enter that pure love which knows no end.
Farid ud-Din Attar
I pass by the house, the house of Layla,
and I kiss this wall and that wall.
It’s not love of the house that impassions my heart
but of she who dwells in the house.
Qays ibn al-Mulawwah
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
Jonathan Swift
O Death all-eloquent! you only prove
What dust we dote on, when ‘tis man we love.
Alexander Pope
O morning breeze, I’ll give my life to you If you can bring My Beloved’s fragrance to me.
Amir Khusrow
Is your face a beautiful blossom
or a sweet torture?
I have no complaints
but my heart is tempted
to let you
hear of its sorrows.
Rumi
Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire.
Francois de La Rouchefoucauld
