Fakhruddin 'Iraqi

"Since we have quaffed the beaker of Thy love, we yield our hearts and make our Lives Thy ransom: since we come again into Thy street, we turn our backs on all that is, save Thee. Our souls are bound to serve Thee, though in grief, and we have died to selfhood! We are captives of Thy love and have not strength to flee. Thy beauty's fever has lit a flame: shall not our hearts be burned?"

"La ilaha illa'l-'ishq"

"Before this there was one heart but a thousand thoughts Now all is reduced to "There is no God but God.""

"The Morning of Manifestation sighed, the breeze of Grace breathed gently, ripples stirred upon the sea of Generosity. The clouds of Abundance poured down the rain upon the soil of preparedness; so much rain that the earth shone with Light."

"The magic spring that gives eternal Life, is in your own heart but you have blocked the flow."

"Beloved, I sought you here and there, asked for news of you from all I met; then saw you through myself and found we were identical. Now I blush to think I ever searched for signs of you."

"They look, they see, but do not comprehend. They take no pleasure in the View, For to enjoy it one must know through the Truth of Certainty What he is seeing, through Whom, and why."

"Know yourself: a cloud drifting before your sun. Cut yourself off from your senses and behold your sun of intimacy."

"By day I praised You but never knew it; by night slept with You without realising; fancying myself to be myself; but no, I was You and never knew it."

"The Beloved's Loveliness owns a hundred thousand faces; gaze upon a different fair one in every atom; for She needs must show to every separate thing a different aspect of Her beauty."

"Expressions are many but Thy loveliness is one; Each of us refers to that single Beauty."

"It speaks to me in the silence of this one then through the words of that one speaking; it whispers to me through an eyebrow raised and the message of an eye winking."

"I am Love: in heaven and earth I have no place; I am the Wondrous Phoenix whose spoor cannot be traced."

"Like the sun I brighten each atom's cheek; I cannot be pinpointed: I am too manifest. I speak with every tongue, listen with all ears, but marvel at this: My ears and tongue are erased. Since in all the world only I exist above and below, no likeness of me can be found."

"Love plays its lute behind the screen — where is a lover to listen to its tune?"

"The world has spilled Love's secret — when could music ever hold its tongue? Every atom babbles the mystery — Listen yourself, for I'm no tattletale!"

"Love the phoenix cannot be trapped nor in heaven or earth can it be named; no one has yet discovered its address: its desert holds not a single footprint."

"The world but seems to be yet is nothing more than a line drawn between light and shadow. Decipher the message of this dream-script and learn to distinguish time from Eternity."