Poets From Iran

"‘’Each time he finished reading the Quran, a voice came from the unseen world saying, O Muinuddin ! your recitation has been accepted.” ‘’Although it has been stated that Muinuddin could produce any amount of gold through his miracles, it is certain that he had no dearth of money. It is related that in the kitchen of Muinuddin so many meals were cooked every day that all the impoverished people of the whole city could eat their fill. The servant in charge of this used to go every day before the saint for the expenses. He used to stand with his hands joined in respect. Muinuddin used to take a corner of his prayer rug aside and reveal sufficent treaure. He used to tell the servant to take enough gold from this treasure to cover the kitchen expenses for that day.” ..."

"To continue, when the Khwaja had taken up residence at the Ana Sagar, a man said to him, ‘Sir, this is the very place where Mir Saiyid Husain Khing-Sawar'*—God’s mercy upon him— at the time when he had come and conquered the country and was living in it, chose to dwell.’ The Khwaja said: ‘Praise be to God, may He be exalted, for I have gained possession of the property of my brother."

"Although, at that time there were many temples of idols around the lake, when the Khwaja saw them, he said : ‘’If God and His Prophet so will, it will not be long before I raze to the ground these idol- temples.’’ It is said that among those temples there was one temple to reverence which the Raja and all the infidels used to come, and lands had been assigned to provide for its expenditure. When the Khwaja settled there, every day his servants bought a cow, brought it there and slaughtered it and ate it, until the infidels got news of this, and curled up upon themselves, and were consumed with rage, and said: ‘Now it is not good to remain idle. Let us come upon these Musalmans all together, and let us neglect nothing to achieve our aim, and drive them from this city and kingdom.’"

"“So when the infidels grew weak and saw that they had no power to resist such a perfect companion of God, they… went into their idol temples which were their places of worship. In them there was a dev, in front of whom they cried out and asked for help…“… The dev who was their leader, when he saw the perfect beauty of the Khwaja, trembled from head to foot like a willow tree. However much he tried to say ‘Ram, Ram’, it was ‘Rahim, Rahim’ that came from his tongue… The Khwaja… with his own hand gave a cup of water to a servant to take to the dev… He had no sooner drunk it than his heart was purified of darkness of unbelief, he ran forward and fell at the Heaven-treading feet of the Khwaja, and professed his belief…“The Khwaja said: ‘I also bestow on you the name of Shadi Dev [Joyful Deval]’… “…Then Shadi Dev… suggested to the Khwaja, that he should now set up a place in the city, where the populace might benefit from his holy arrival. The Khwaja accepted this suggestion, and ordered one of his special servants called Muhammad Yadgir to go into the city and set in good order a place for faqirs. Muhammad Yadgir carried out his orders, and when he had gone into the city, he liked well the place where the radiant tomb of the Khwaja now is, and which originally belonged to Shadi Dev, and he suggested that the Khwaja should favour it with his residence…“ …Mu‘in al-din had a second wife for the following reason: one night he saw the Holy Prophet in the flesh. The prophet said: ‘You are not truly of my religion if you depart in any way from my sunnat.’ It happened that the ruler of the Patli fort, Malik Khitab, attacked the unbelievers that night and captured the daughter of the Raja of that land. He presented her to Mu‘in al-din who accepted her and named her Bibi Umiya.”"

"So his mother brought the Qur’an that was in the house to him, but he said, “Mother, keep the Qur’an with you, for I will recite it from memory.” His mother did as he asked, and then he immediately proceeded to recite the entire Glorious Qur’an from beginning to end. His mother, astonished, gave thanks to God."

"It is related that when Sultan Mahmud Sabuktigin [of Ghazna] went to raid Somnath, he saw [Abu Muhammad] in the battle, as he also was coming to [the sultan’s] aid. Thus, at the age of seventy, he went thither with a company of dervishes. When they arrived, the shaykh selflessly waged jihad against the idolaters. One day, the idolaters gained the upper hand, so the army of Islam sought refuge in the woods. Now, [Abu Muhammad] had a senior murid back in Chisht by the name of Muhammad Kaku. [Abu Muhammad] cried out, “O Kaku, [come to our aid]!” Forthwith, Kaku appeared and furiously fought [the unbelievers] until the army of Islam achieved victory. At the same time, the folk of Chisht beheld Kaku take up the mill hopper and begin beating the walls and doors of the mill therewith. When the townsfolk asked him the meaning of [his astonishing deed with the mill hopper], he related this story to them.34 After the conquest of Somnath, Sultan Mahmud, having seen with his own eyes that Abu Muhammad had rendered him aid both inwardly and outwardly, believed more than ever [in the shaykh’s power] and prostrated himself before the shaykh as soon as he arrived."

"“In Indian sufism anti-Hindu polemics began with Muin al-din Chishti. Early Sufis in the Punjab and early Chishtis devoted themselves to the task of conversion on a large scale. Missionary activity slowed down under Nizam al-din Auliya, not because of any new concept of eclecticism, but because he held that the Hindus were generally excluded from grace and could not be easily converted to Islam unless they had the opportunity to be in the company of the Muslim saints for considerable time.”"

"It cannot be maintained that Islam did not provide an ample opportunity to Hindu saints, philosophers and princes to understand its true character and role. Before the armies of Islam invaded India, the sufis had settled down in many parts of India, built mosque and khanqahs and started their work of conversion. They were the sappers and miners of Islamic invasions which followed in due course. Muinuddin Chishti was not the first 'saint' of Islam to send out an invitation to an Islamic invader to come and kill the kafirs, desecrate their shrines, and plunder their wealth."

"The Chishtiyya school was foisted on India by Muin-ud-din who had settled down in Ajmer before the Second Battle of Tarain. According to the sufi lore, he had made a few converts from among the local Hindus and started issuing orders to Prithivi Raj Chauhan, the Hindu king, for the benefit of these converts. When the king ignored him, he invited Muhammad Ghuri to invade the Chauhan Kingdom."

"It is said that saint-worship among Muslims is a practice unique to India. Dargahs of Sufis, real or figurative, are found all over the country and Muslims flock to them in. large numbers. It is a legacy of medieval times. One reason for this can be that most Indian Muslims are converted Hindus, who, when their places of worship were converted into (khanqahs and later) dargahs, did not give up visiting them. For instance, at the most holy dargah of Shaikh Muinuddin Chishti, the Sandal Khana mosque is believed to have been built on the site of a Dev temple."

"Chishti was a great mystic, one of the greatest ever born, and he was a musician. To be a musician is to be against Islam because music is prohibited. He played on the sitar and on other instruments. He was a great musician and he enjoyed it. Five times every day, when a Mohammedan is required to pray the five ritual prayers, he wouldn't pray, he would simply play on his instrument. That was his prayer. This was absolutely anti-religious but nobody could say anything to Chishti. ... When Chishti heard that Jilani was coming he felt, "To pay respect to Jilani it will not be good to play my instrument now. Because he is such an orthodox Mohammedan, it will not be a good welcome. He may feel hurt." ... [but] Jilani laughed and said, "Rules are not for you, you need not hide them. Rules are for ordinary people, rules are not for you -- you should not hide them. How can you hide your soul? Your hands may not play, you may not sing from your throat, but your whole being is musical."

"The story of Islam is no different. Prophetic Islam is inimical to mystic ideas. In the beginning, some Sufis courted martyrdom, but eventually they bought peace and safety by surrendering to Prophetic Islam. There have been some outstanding Sufis, but by arid large the Sufi movement has been part of a larger aggressive apparatus, just like Christian Missions of Imperialism. Though Islam persecuted "infidels", destroyed their temples, enslaved and looted them, we find no Sufis protesting. In fact. they were often beneficiaries of this vandalism. "In many cases there is no doubt that the shrine of a ·Muslim saint marks the site of some local cult which was practised on the spot long before the introduction of Islam," says Thomas Arnold making it look quite normal and harmless. Mu'in aI-Din Chishtl's dargah at Ajmer is one such shrine built on the ruins of an old Hindu temple. The saint had also got the present of a Hindu princess, part of the booty captured by a Muslim General, Malik Khitab, when he attacked the neighbouring pagan land."

"Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti (1141–1230), probably the second-greatest Sufi saint of India after Nizamuddin Auliya, demonstrated a deep-seated hatred toward Hindu religion and its practices. On his arrival near the Anasagar Lake at Ajmer, he saw many idol-temples and promised to raze them to the ground with the help of Allah and His Prophet. After settling down there, Khwaja’s followers used to bring every day a cow (sacred to Hindus) near a famous temple, where the king and Hindus prayed, slaughter it and cook kebab from its meat—clearly to show his contempt toward Hinduism. ‘In order to prove the majesty of Islam, he is said to have dried the two holy lakes of Anasagar and Pansela (holy to Hindus) by the heat of his spiritual power.’ Chisti also came to India with his disciples to fight Jihad against the infidels and participated in the treacherous holy war of Sultan Muhammad Ghauri in which the kind and chivalrous Hindu King Prithviraj Chauhan was defeated in Ajmer. In his Jihadi zeal, Chisti ascribed the credit for the victory to himself, saying: ‘We have seized Pithaura (Prithviraj) alive and handed him over to the army of Islam.’’"

"For more than seven centuries people of various creeds, classes and social backgrounds have expressed their devotion at the dargahs of the five great Chishti saints. Amongst these, the most revered shrine is that of Khwaja Muinuddin, popularly known as “Gharib Nawaz” (comforter of the poor). The earliest textual references to Khwaja Muinuddin’s dargah date to the fourteenth century. It was evidently popular because of the austerity and piety of its Shaikh, the greatness of his spiritual successors, and the patronage of royal visitors.”"

"We may likewise view the anecdotes regarding Abu Muhammad Chishti’s military and wondrous deeds during Sultan Mahmud’s raid on the temple of Somnath, in Gujarat, as symbolizing the role of Sufis in spreading Islam in the subcontinent while also serving to portray the Chishti Sufi order as a fundamental part of Indian Islam. Another example of hagiography symbolizing historical events or circumstances may be found in an anecdote concerning Mu’in al-Din Chishti, the aforementioned founder of the Chishti order. The anecdote relates that when Mu’in al-Din settled in Rana Sagar, there were still many Hindu temples (but khana) in the area, and when he saw them, he foretold that with the help of the Prophet they would soon be destroyed. After Mu’in al-Din took up residence there, every day his servants would slaughter a cow and eat the flesh thereof. When the unbelievers found out about this, they became wroth and, burning with anger, decided that this was as good a time as any to attack the Muslims and drive them out. With this in mind, they took up swords, cudgels, and slings and went to the place where Mu’in al-Din was. There they surrounded him with the intention of harming him. Now, Mu’in al-Din was praying and did not heed the unbelievers’ presence. His servants, however, became alarmed and informed the shaykh of the dire situation. Having completed his prayers, Mu’in al-Din rose, took a handful of earth in his hand, and, reciting the Verse of the Throne,23 cast it at the armed unbeliever mob. The body of anyone whom the dust touched immediately withered, and the remaining unbelievers were vanquished."

"The Sultanu’l-Masha’ikh (Shaikh Nizamu’d-Din Auliya’) believed that when Khwaja Mu‘inu’d-Din reached Ajmer, India was ruled by Pithaura Ra’i (Prithviraj) and his capital was Ajmer. Pithaura and his high officials resented the Shaikh’s presence in their city, but the latter's eminence and his apparent power to perform miracles, prompted them to refrain from taking action against him. A disciple of the Khwaja’s was jn the service of Pithaura Ra’i. After the disciple began to receive hostile treatment from the Ra’i, the Khwaja sent a message to Pithaura in favour of the Muslim. Pithaura refused to accept the recommendation, thus indicating his resentment of the Khwaja’s alleged claims to understand the secrets of the Unseen. When Khwaja Mu'inu’d-Din (the spiritual King of Islam) heard of this reply he prophesied: ‘We have seized Pithaura alive and handed him over to the army of Islam.’ About the same time. Sultan Mu‘izzu’d-Din Muhammad’s army arrived from Ghazna, attacked the forces of Pithaura and defeated them. Pithaura was taken alive, and thus the Khwaja’s prophesy was fulfilled.! The Akhbaru'l-Akhyar also contains the same account,! and a large number of medieval and modern scholars confirm the validity of the story and recount fantastic miracles performed by the Khwaja at Ajmer."

"Jamali relates that Shaikh ‘Usman so dearly loved Khwaja Mu‘inu’d-Din that he himself began a journey walking behind his disciple. After travelling some distance he reached a Zoroastrian fire temple. He sat under a tree and asked his servant to bring him some fire. The priests would not allow him to take it. The Shaikh went himself to the fire worshippers. Their leader was seated on a throne with his seven-year old son on his lap. Shaikh ‘Usman asked if their hands were put into the fire would they be burnt. At the feceipt of a negative reply the Shaikh snatched the boy and jumped into the fire with him. After some hours they both emerged unharmed. The head priest embraced Islam and the fire temple was demolished. Shaikh ‘Usman stayed there for about two and a half years. In the Khairu'l-Majalis the Zoroastrian priests are replaced by Hindus and the conversation is reported in the Hindawi."

"After finally settling at Ajmer, Khwaja Mu‘inu’d-Din, who until then had been celibate, took two wives. According to tradition he decided to marry in order to imitate all the Prophet’s practices. The Sururu’s- ‘Sudur states he was then ninety, but this would appear to be incorrect. A few years after his arrival at Ajmer, he married the daughter of Sai Wajihu’d-Din, a brother of Saiyid Husain Mashhadi. Ghausi Shattari’s statement that the Khwaja and his wife lived together for twenty-seven years* would seem to be reinforced by circumstantial evidence. The wedding seems to have taken place in 606/1209-10. The Khwaja’s second wife was a daughter of a local Hindu chieftain who had been seized in war. Both are said to have borne the Khwaja children."

"From there the Khwaja went to Ajmer. ... Reaching there he decided to sit under a tree, but the camel keepers ordered him away as the area belonged to the Ra'i. The Khwaja and his followers moved to a place near the Anasagar Lake. His servants killed a cow and cooked kebabs for him. Some members of the Khwaja’s party went to Anasagar and the others to Pansela Lake for ablutions. There were one thousand temples on the two lakes. The Brahmans stopped the ablutions and the party complained to the Khwaja. He sent his servant to bring water for his ewer. As soon as the ewer touched the Pansela Lake, all the lakes, tanks and wells around became dry. The Khwaja went to the Anasagar Lake temple and asked the name of the idol. He was told it was called Sawi Deva. The Khwaja asked whether the idol had talked to them. On receiving a negative reply he made the idol recite kalima and converted it into a human being, naming it Sa‘di. This caused a sensation in the town. Prithviraj ordered his prime minister Jaipal who was also a magician, to avert the evil influence of the Khwaja. Jaipal proceeded to fight the Khwaja with 700 magical dragons, 1,500 magical discs and 700 disciples. The Khwaja drew a circle bringing his party within it under his protection, and succeeded in killing all the dragons and disciples. Pithaura and Jaipal begged the Khwaja’s forgiveness. The Khwaja’s prayers restored water to the lakes, tanks and wells. A large number of people accepted Islam. Jaipal decided to compete with the Khwaja in the performance of miracles. Sitting on his deer skin he flew to the heavens. ‘The Khwaja ordered his slippers to bring Jaipal back to earth, which they did. On Jaipal’s request to show him some miracles, the Khwaja’s spirit flew to the highest heaven, where Jaipal also joined him. Getting nearer to the divine presence, on the Khwaja’s orders Jaipal accepted Islam in order to gain the full benefit of that spiritual bliss. When they returned the Khwaja and his party stayed in the town. Pithaura refused to accept Islam and the Khwaja prophesied he would be handed over to the Islamic army.“ (from the Jawahir-i Faridi written in 1623) p.117"

"To settle in Ajmer, before dealing with the local secular ruler, Mu‘in al-din had to overcome the local deity, Shadi Dev, and Jogi Ajaipal, ‘who had no equal in the whole of Hindustan.” Mu‘in al-din’s encounter with Shadi Dev is not without interest. Having settled his opposition and converted him to Islam, Mu‘in al-din, at Shadi Dev’s suggestion, moves into his former temple. The take-over of ‘pagan’ sites is a recurrent feature of the history of the expansion of Islam. The most obvious precedent is to be found in the Muslim annexation of the Hajar al-aswad at Mecca. Jamali tells how Usman Harwani converts a group of fire-worshippers and moves into their temple for two and a half years after which he leaves them in the hands of the original priests who are now Sufi shaykhs. Sir Thomas Arnold remarks that ‘in many instances there is no doubt that the shrine of a Muslim saint marks the site of some local cult which was practised on the spot long before the introduction of Islam.’ “There is evidence, more reliable than the tradition recorded in the Siyar al-Aqtãb, to suggest that this was the case in Ajmer. Sculpted stones, apparently from a Hindu temple, are incorporated in the Buland Darwãza of Mu‘în al-dîn’s shrine. Moreover, his tomb is built over a series of cellars which may have formed part of an earlier temple… Tradition says that inside the cellar is an image of Mahadeva in a temple on which sandal used to be placed every day by a Brahman.“ The shrine still employs a Hindu family to prepare the sandal which is now presented on the grave of Mu‘in al-din. A tradition, first recorded in the ‘Anis al-Arwãh, suggests that the Sandal Khãna is built on the site of Shãdî Dev’s temple.” These relics of Hindu buildings and practice imply that there is some substance behind the Styar al-Aqtab’s story of Mu‘in al-din moving into Shadi Dev’s tomb. At the least it serves as a useful explanation to his followers of why Mu‘in al-din, else-where portrayed as a powerful evangelist, is-buried on ground sacred to the Hindus."

"There has so far been little scholarly success in de-mystifying the Mu’in al Din legend.’ Unfortunately, there are no reliable histories which refer to Mu‘in al-din. The three contemporary historians do not mention him..... All the raw materials from which the later hagiographers constructed their pictures of Mu‘in al-din have been assembled above. They borrow from each other and elaborate on each other, but their basic resources are to be found in the four texts, Siyar al-Awliya’, Syar al-‘Arifin, the apocryphal malfizat, and the Siyar al-Aqtab."

"In the later hagiographies, where the picture of Mu‘in al-din’s tolerance is replaced by a portrait of him as a warrior for Islam, his miraculous powers are used to enhance his success as an evangelist. He brings the seven fire-worshippers to Islam because they see that fire has no power to burn him, and it is through his miraculous powers that Shadi Dev and Jogi Ajaipal are converted."

"The khuddam are the servants of the shrine... Some khuddam claim that they are descended from Mu‘in al-din deliberate misrepresentation... There is an alternative tradition, that the khuddam are descended from converts originally belonging to the Bhil tribe. It is said that there were five brothers called Laikha, Taikha, Shaikha, Jhoda and Bhirda. Jhoda and Bhirda never accepted Islam and settled in Pushkar. The other three brothers became converts through Mu‘in al-din himself. They dedicated their lives to his service and, after his death, looked after his grave as have their descendants ever since."

"Mu‘in al-din is believed to have been Allah’s appointed evangelist in Hindustan, to have been instrumental in the victory of the Muslim armies in their final invasion of India, to have had authority over Mughal emperors, to have performed countless miracles, embodied the values of Islam, to communicate readily with God and man, and to watch constantly over the welfare of his devotees. However, this faith in Mu‘in al-din rests on assumptions about his life and about the origins of the cult which subsequently developed that have only very limited historical justification."

"If human beings were not to live below the human level, but realized the full possibility of being human, they would grasp intuitively the truth of the assertion of the primacy of consciousness. Their own consciousness would be raised to a level where they would know through direct intellection that the alpha and omega of cosmic reality cannot but be the Supreme Consciousness which is also Pure Being and that all beings in the universe possess a degree of consciousness in accord with their existential state. They would realize that as human beings we are given the intelligence to know the One Who is the Origin and End of all things, who is Sat (Being), Chit (Consciousness), and 􀄃nanda (Bliss), and to realize that this knowledge itself is the ultimate goal of human life, the crown of human existence, and what ultimately makes us human beings who can discourse with the trees and the birds as well as with the angels and who are on the highest level the interlocutors of that Supreme Reality who has allowed us to say “I” but who is ultimately the I of all I’s."

"Many are aware that the Quran is concerned with religious life as well as matters related to both individual salvation and the social order, but fewer realize that the Quran is also a guide for the inner spiritual life. Paying attention to the inner meaning of the Quran results in the realization that not only does it contain teachings about creating a just social order and leading a virtuous life that results in a return to God after death in a felicitous state; it also provides the means of returning to God here and now while still in this world. The Quran is therefore also a sapiential and spiritual guide for the attainment of the truth, a guide for the attainment of beatitude even in this world."

"Man, in the traditional sense of the term corresponding to insan in Arabic or homo in Greek and not solely the male, is seen in Islam not as a sinful being to whom the message of Heaven is sent to heal the wound of the original sin, but as a being who still carries his primordial nature (al-fitrah) within himself, although he has forgotten that nature now buried deep under layers of negligence. As the Quran states: “[God] created man in the best of stature (ahsan altaqwim)” (95:4) with an intelligence capable of knowing the One. The message of Islam is addressed to that primordial nature. It is a call for recollection, for the remembrance of a knowledge kneaded into the very substance of our being even before our coming into this world. In a famous verse that defines the relationship between human beings and God, the Quran, in referring to the precosmic existence of man, states, “‘Am I not your Lord?’ They said: ‘Yes, we bear witness’” (7:172). The “they” refers to all the children of Adam, male and female, and the “yes” confirms the affirmation of God’s Oneness by us in our pre-eternal ontological reality. Men and women still bear the echo of this “yes” deep down within their souls, and the call of Islam is precisely to this primordial nature, which uttered the “yes” even before the creation of the heavens and the earth. The call of Islam therefore concerns, above all, the remembrance of a knowledge deeply embedded in our being, the confirmation of a knowledge that saves, hence the soteriological function of knowledge in Islam."

"Islamic science came into being from a wedding between the spirit that issued from the Qur'anic revelation and the existing sciences of various civilizations which Islam inherited and which it transmuted through its spiritual power into a new substance, at once different from and continuous with what had existed before it."

"For Muslims the Quran is the Word of God; it is sacred scripture, not a work of "literature," a manual of law, or a text of theology, philosophy or history although it is of incomparable literary quality, contains many injunctions about a Sacred Law, is replete with verses of metaphysical, theological, and philosophical significance, and contains many accounts of sacred history. The unique structure of the Quran and the flow of its content constitute a particular challenge to most modern readers. For traditional Muslims the Quran is not a typical "read" or manual to be studied. For most of them, the most fruitful way of interacting with the Quran is not to sit down and read the Sacred Tex from cover to cover (although there are exceptions, such as completing the whole text during Ramadan). it is, rather, to recite a section with full awareness of it as the Word of God and to meditate upon it as one whose soul is being directly addressed, as the Prophet's soul was addressed during its revelation. ... In this context it must be remembered that the Quran itself speaks constantly of the Origin and the Return, of all things coming from God and returning to Him, who himself has no origin or end. As the Word of god, the Quran also seems to have no beginning and no end. Certain turns of phrase and teachings about the Divine Reality, the human condition, the life of this world, and the Hereafter are often repeated, but they are not mere repetitions. Rather each iteration of a particular word, phrase, or verse opens the door of a hidden passage to other parts of the Quran. Each coda is always a prelude to an as yet undiscovered truth."

"For Muslims the Islamic Shari'ah, or Divine Law, is the concrete embodiment of the Divine Will as elaborated in the Quran for the followers of Islam; and from the Islamic point of view the scriptures of all divinely revealed religions, each of which possesses its own Shari'ah, have the same function in those religions. For Muslims, who accept the Quran as the Word of God, therefore, following the Divine Law is basic and foundational for the practice of their religion."

"If you ask today what art is, what its function is, what the meaning of art is and why one should create art, the answer given oftentimes by Western philosophers of art and those who specialize in modern aesthetics is ‘‘art for art’s sake.’’ The modern response is that you just create art for the sake of art; but this was never the answer of traditional civilizations where one created art for both the sake of attainment of inner perfection and for human need in the deepest sense—because the needs of man are not only physical, they are also spiritual. We are as much in need of beauty as of the air that we breathe."

"To meditate on the theme of the Face of God is to realize that man cannot destroy the divine image without destroying himself. The poetical cry of Nietzsche in the nineteenth century that “God is dead,” a cry which has now been turned into a theological proposition in certain quarters and is advertised far beyond its purport and significance by those who seek after the sensational and who seem to have little reverence for the belief of those living and dead for whom God is eternally present and alive, cannot but have its echo in the assertion that man is dead, man as a spiritual and free being. Man cannot destroy the face that God has turned towards him without destroying the face that man has turned towards God, and therefore also all that is eternal and imperishable in man and is the source of human dignity, the only reality that gives meaning to human life."

"The total religion called Islam may be said to consist of the levels of islam, iman, and ihsan, or surrender, faith, and spiritual beauty. The Quran refers often to the muslim, the possessor of surrender, the mu’min, the possessor of faith, and the muhsin, the possessor of virtue. Although the Quran emphasizes that all Muslims stand equally before God, it also insists that human beings are distinguished in rank according to their knowledge of the truth and virtue, as in the verses, “Are those who know equal with those who know not?” (39:9), to which the Quran gives the resounding answer of no, and, “Verily, those of you most close to God are those who are the best in conduct” (59:13)."

"The heart is first of all the center of our being on all the different levels of our existence, not only the corporeal and emotive, but also the intellectual and spiritual. It is what connects the individual to the supra-individual realms of being. In fact, if in modern society heart-knowledge is rejected, it is because modernism refuses to see man beyond his individual level of existence. The heart is not a center of our being; it is the supreme center, its uniqueness resulting from the metaphysical principle that for any specific realm of manifestation there must exist a principle of unity. The heart is the barzakh or isthmus between this world and the next, between the visible and invisible worlds, between the human realm and the realm of the Spirit, between the horizontal and vertical dimensions of existence. In the same way that the vertical and horizontal lines of the cross, itself the symbol not only of Christ in Christianity but also of the Universal Man (al-insan al-kamil) in Islam, meet at only one point, there can be only one heart for each human being, although this single reality partakes of gradations and levels of being. The heart, then, is our unique center, the place where the supreme axis penetrates our microcosmic existence, the place where the All-Merciful resides, and also the locus for the Breath of God. Hence the profound relation that exists between invocatory prayer carried out with the breath and the heart."

"The Quran, like other sacred scriptures, associates knowledge and understanding with the heart, and the blindness of the heart with loss of understanding, as for example when God, after complaining of man’s not learning the appropriate lessons from earlier sacred history, asserts, “For indeed it is not the eyes that grow blind, but it is the hearts, which are within the bosoms, that grow blind” (22:46). This blindness of the heart so characteristic of fallen man is also described by the Quran as a hardening of the heart. “But their hearts were hardened, and the devil made all that they used to do seem fair unto them!” (6:43). Also, ““Woe unto those whose hearts are hardened against remembrance of Allah. Such are in plain error” (39:22). Furthermore, the Quran identifies this hardening of the heart with a veil that God has cast over the heart of those who have turned away from the truth. “We have placed upon their hearts veils, lest they should understand, and in their ears a deafness” (6:25); also, “And We place upon their hearts veils lest they should understand it, and in their ears a deafness” (17:46)."

"The fullest meaning of the intellect and its universal function is to be found in the ma‘rifah or gnosis, which lies at the heart of the Islamic revelation and which is crystallized in the esoteric dimension of Islam identified for the most part with Sufism. There are verses of the Quran and hadiths of the Prophet that allude to the heart as the seat of intelligence and knowledge. The heart is the instrument of true knowledge, as its affliction is the cause of ignorance and forgetfulness. That is why the message of the revelation addresses the heart more than the mind as the following verses of the Quran reveal: O men, now there has come to you an admonition from your Lord and a healing for what is in the breasts (namely the heart) and a guidance, and a mercy to the believers. Surah (10:57) (Arberry translation)"

"The noble Quran mentions concerning the Spirit that it is “from the command of my Lord” (qul al-rūh min amri rabbī) (XVII.85). No contact with the Spirit is possible save through the dimension of transcendence, which stands always before man and which connects him with the Ultimate Reality whether It be called the Lord or Brahman or śūnyata. To forget the Spirit and settle for its earthly reflections alone is to be doomed to the world of multiplicity, to separation, division and finally aggression and war. No amount of extolling the human spirit can fill the vacuum created by the forgetting of the Spirit which kindles the human soul but is not itself human. It is necessary to realize the unity of the Spirit behind the multiplicity of religious forms in order to reach the peace that human beings seek. The human spirit as understood in the humanist sense is not sufficient unto itself to serve as basis for the unity of humanity and human understanding across cultural and religious frontiers."

"Yet, man cannot fully forget his inner being, his theomorphic nature, for however hard he tries to float on the surface of his being and run away from the Centre, he carries the Centre within him and sooner or later the Centre manifests itself in one way or another in the periphery and the surface. For to be made in the image of God in the sense of being the theophany of His Names and Qualities is a reality that lies in the human state itself. Islam affirms the primordial character of man's theomorphic nature and his special situation in the cosmos and vis-à-vis God by referring to a covenant made between God and man even before the creation of the world. For as the Quran states: "And (remember) when thy Lord brought forth from the Children of Adam, from their reins, their seed, and made them testify of themselves, (saying): Am I not your Lord? They said: Yea, verily." (VII; 172). In this yea is to be found the secret of human destiny because by iterating it man accepted the burden of trust (amanah) which none in creation but he dared accept. "Lo! We offered the trust unto the heavens and the earth and the hills, but they shrank from hearing it and were afraid of it. And man assumed it." (XXXIII; 72)."

"As a matter of fact one of the great services that Islam can render to the modern world, in which the dichotomy between reason and revelation or science and religion has reached such dangerous proportions, is to represent this possibility of the union between revelation and reason as found in the Quran. The source of revelation in Islam is the Archangel Gabriel or the Universal Intellect. Intellect (al-‘aql al-kulli in the language of hadith) and the word ‘aql itself signify etymologically both that which binds or limits the Absolute in the direction of creation and also that which binds man to the truth, to God himself. In the perspective of Islam it is precisely ‘aql which keeps man on the straight path (the sirat al-mustaqim) and prevents him from going astray. That is why so many verses of the Quran equate those who go astray with those who cannot use their intellect (as in the verses wa la ya‘qilun, ‘they do not understand’ or literally ‘use their intellect’—the verb ya‘qilun deriving from the root ‘aqala which is related to ‘aql; or the verse la yafqahun, ‘they understand not’, the verb yafqahun being related to the root faqiha which again means comprehension or knowledge.)"

"It is important in this context to remember that Islam is not based on original sin but that nevertheless it does accept the fall of man (alhubut) from the primordial and original state of perfection in which he was created. According to Islam, the great sin of man is in fact forgetfulness (al-ghaflah) and the purpose of the message of revelation is to enable man to remember. That is why one of the names of the Quran itself is "the Remembrance of Allah" (dhikr Allah) and why the ultimate end and purpose of all Islamic rites and of all Islamic conjunctions is the remembrance of Allah."

"There is something "God-like" in man as attested to by the Quranic statement, (Pickthall translation): "I have made him and have breathed into him my spirit" (Quran 15:29), and by the tradition, "God created Adam upon His own form." God created Adam, the prototype of man, upon "His own form," i.e., as a mirror reflecting in a central and conscious manner His Names and Qualities. There is, therefore, something of a "sacred nature" (malakut'i) in man; and it is in the light of this profound nature in man that Islam envisages him. This belief is not, however, in any way anthropomorphic, for the Divine Essence (al-Dhat) remains absolutely transcendent and no religion has emphasized the transcendent aspect of God more than Islam. The Islamic concept of man as a theomorphic being is not an anthropomorphism. It does not make God into man. Rather, the Islamic revelation conceives of man as this theomorphic being and addresses itself to that something in man which is in the "form of the Divine." That something is first of all an intelligence that can discern between the true and the false or the real and the illusory and is naturally led to Unity or tawhid."

"The testimony of the faith L¯a il¯aha illa’Ll¯ah (There is no divinity but the Divine) is a statement concerning knowledge, not sentiments or the will. It contains the quintessence of metaphysical knowledge concerning the Principle and its manifestation. The Prophet of Islam has said, “Say L¯a il¯aha illa’Ll¯ah and be delivered” referring directly to the sacramental quality of principial knowledge."

"The reduction of the Intellect to reason and the limitation of intelligence to cunning and cleverness in the modern world not only caused sacred knowledge to become inaccessible and to some even meaningless, but it also destroyed that natural theology which in the Christian context represented at least a reflection of knowledge of a sacred order, of the wisdom or sapientia which was the central means of spiritual perfection and deliverance."

"Consciousness is itself proof of the primacy of the Spirit or Divine Consciousness of which human consciousness is a reflection and echo."

"Through the downward flow of the river of time and the multiple refractions and reflections of Reality upon the myriad mirrors of both macrocosmic and microcosmic manifestation, knowledge has become separated from being and the bliss or ecstasy which characterizes the union of knowledge and being. Knowledge has become nearly completely externalized and desacralized, especially among those segments of the human race which have become transformed by the process of modernization, and that bliss which is the fruit of union with the One and an aspect of the perfume of the sacred has become well-nigh unattainable and beyond the grasp of the vast majority of those who walk upon the earth. But the root and essence of knowledge continues to be inseparable from the sacred for the very substance of knowledge is the knowledge of that reality which is the Supreme Substance, the Sacred as such, compared to which all levels of existence and all forms of the manifold are but accidents."

"The best critic of a translation is its second translation and nothing else. The person who translates a text should have something to say about that."

"The science fiction stories are not for the promotion of science and are not only science stories; but stories."

"The translator translates a book for the ones who are not familiar with its language of origin. If someone can read it in the language of origin, he will not need to read its translation. So, when you translate, you first suppose that you translate it for someone who does not know its language and could not explore that world and that thought."

"I was douted"

"from Ahmad Shamlou's letters to his wife Ayda, the book "like the blood in my veins""