There will be a small ripple where the rock breaks the surface and then a splash, drowned out by the rush of the surrounding river. They also had a twelve-year-old golden retriever, Spirit, who had been Ella's morning companion and her happiest companion since he was a puppy.
Ella
I just wanted to help," answered Ella calmly, and calmness is a state she has been finding increasingly difficult to achieve lately. I didn't mean that…” Ella said, immediately realizing that she had said the same phrase too many times this afternoon.
Sweet Blasphemy
Z. ZAHARA
Sufi mystics say that the secret of the Qur'an is in the verse Al-Fatiha, and the secret of Al-Fatiha is in Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. In the West, on their way to Jerusalem, the Crusaders occupied and plundered Constantinople, leading to the partition of the Byzantine Empire.
The Killer
However, I didn't need to look at them to realize how young they were and how unprepared for the step they were about to take. Each time, the clients tried to explain themselves before we made a deal, as if my approval somehow lessened the seriousness of what they were about to do.
Earth
Shams
Do you have money to pay for them?” asked the innkeeper with a flicker of condescension. Stay out of here, dervish, or I'll beat the hell out of you too!” shouted the innkeeper, but we both knew he wasn't going to do it.
The Master
Namely!" The judge smiled triumphantly—a smile that faded when he heard what the dervish said. Are you telling me that an ordinary Sufi has a deeper grasp of the Koran than a Sharia scholar?" asked the judge, tapping his fingers on the bowl.
The Novice
Less than an hour later, both her husband and children had left and Ella was alone in the kitchen. She watched the news and shook her head at the endless dangers looming in the world.
The Letter
By far the worst is working in the kitchen under the supervision of a cook. Or because you're looking for ways to avoid your kitchen chores.
Water
Rumi
I was trained as a minister and lawyer and initiated into the Science of Divine Intuition—the knowledge given in varying degrees to prophets, saints, and scholars. Before passing through the gates of a city I have never visited, I take a moment to salute the saints: the dead and the living, the known and the hidden. Set in my place by these words, I sprang to my feet and bowed to the farmer.
The farmer dropped his gaze back to his ox and muttered tonelessly, "Everyone says if you listen to Rumi preach, your sadness will be cured."
Hasan the Beggar
He exuded charisma and self-confidence and looked less like a scholar than a ruler: the sultan of wind, fire, water and earth. Rumi's two sons sat in the front row: the handsome Sultan Walad, who everyone said resembled his late mother, and young Aladdin, with a lively face but curiously secretive eyes. Oh, that” – the hermaphrodite shrugged contemptuously – “is the creation of one of my girls, Desert Rose.”
Trust me, you won't want to know,” the hermaphrodite said, shaking her finger to emphasize her point.
Desert Rose the Harlot
I had seen the look in the eyes of the poor when they came to the baker and begged for crumbs. I preferred sitting alone under these trees to the company of the women of the village, most of whom were the wives or daughters of the robbers. I caught sight of the dervish darting at the mob like a flaming arrow shot straight up into the sky.
A few of them are looking in the direction of the mosque as if they were considering returning.
Suleiman the Drunk
I thought about all the men I'd slept with—how they smelled, how they felt their calloused hands, how they cried when they came. "Are you kidding me, you dirty scum?" asked the guard with a scowl and before I knew what was happening he took out a whip and cracked it in the air. Maybe that will teach you some manners," replied the guard as he thought passing the whip from one hand to the other.
When a Sufi gazes at someone, he has both eyes closed and instead opens the third eye—the eye that sees the inner realm.”
Wind
The Zealot
There is a story that is indicative of the conspiracy between the philosophers and the Sufis. Hundreds of people listen to me every week, but I always speak to one person alone – the one who hears my words echo in his heart and who knows me like no one else. Did not the Prophet say, 'Forgive me, O God, I could not know you as I should have done', while Bistami stated, 'Glory be to me, I carry God within my cloak'.
I looked past the dervish at the pearly gray landscape typical of our city at this time of year.
Aladdin
Always the nice boy, he was the darling of the family and the neighborhood, my father's favorite son. If and when a person becomes aware of the ego's humiliated situation, by starting to work on himself, he can move to the next stage, which is in a way the opposite of the previous one. It is only at this level, and not at any time before, that one can experience the true meaning of the word "surrender" and wander in the Valley of Knowledge.
Nevertheless, many of the people who reach the third level feel an urge to live here, and lose the will or the courage to go further.
Kerra
Kimya
Somehow, things worked more smoothly and closer to her way than in the times when she tirelessly tried to help and restore. In the past, she brushed off ignorance so as not to rock the boat of her marriage. In the morning she looked long and hard in the mirror to see if there was any visible change in her face.
I never knew it was possible to live with someone under the same roof, sleep in the same bed, and still feel like he wasn't really there.
Shams of Tabriz
At first she had enjoyed the mystery of writing to a faceless man. In the photo, Aziz was surrounded by more than a dozen dark-haired native children of all ages. Inspecting the man in the picture and taking in every detail, Ella had a feeling she recognized him from somewhere.
She realized she desired the man in the picture and wondered what it would be like to kiss him.
Baybars the Warrior
Like a mirror that reflects what is absent instead of present, he shows you the void in your soul—the void you have resisted seeing. When the emperor heard that a Bedouin poet named Qays had fallen hopelessly in love with Layla and had lost his mind over her, and was therefore called Majnun - the Mad Man - the emperor became very curious about the woman who had caused such misery. Those who like to swim close to the surface are satisfied with the external meaning of the Qur'an.
Only after I went to my room, lay on my back on the sleeping mat and stared up at the ceiling, wondering what it would feel like to be kissed by Shams, did it dawn on me that I had forgotten to kiss him about the fourth to ask. undercurrent in the stream—the deeper reading of the Qur'an.
Sultan Walad
This stage of my life I call my encounter with the letter S in the word "Sufi.". This part of my life I call my encounter with the letter u in the word "Sufi". Late in the afternoon, when everyone was going to bed before the evening's bustle began, I snuck out of my room.
I call this new part of my life my encounter with the letter f in the word "Sufi".
Fire
If you didn't want to invite me to drink this wine, why did you send me to the inn in the first place?” Rumi asked, his tone not so much curious as sympathetic. In the light of the candle the waitress had just lit for them, David's face showed pure despair. And early in the morning Ella first wrote a letter to Aziz.
Someone suggested that Rumi should no longer be allowed to preach in the Grand Mosque.
Husam the Student
Finally, someone in the back said, "The second, third, and fourth merchant prayers were invalid. Forget about that harlot," said the patron, putting a locum into her mouth and sucking the syrup from her finger. Everything in this universe moves speak with a rhythm - the pumping of the heart, the wings of birds, the wind on a stormy night, a blacksmith working with iron, or the sounds an unborn baby is surrounded by inside the womb.
Now he has at least a little insight into something that average people experience all the time: the deep, massive gulf between the ruling elite and the masses.
The Void
We will continue with our lives as before,” she remarked, a glimmer of hope flickering in her eyes. My child, I wish things were so simple,” she remarked, tucking a lock of gray hair into her scarf. Is that Mary?” he asked and when I didn't answer he turned to me with a beaming face.
She crossed the lobby, scanning the paintings on the walls so she wouldn't look into the eyes of the people around her.
