The main problem is that most commentators are accustomed to thinking of spiritual schools as ‘systems’, which are more or less alike, and which depend upon dogma and ritual: and especially upon repetition and the...

Assume that you are part-hypocrite and part heedless, and you will not be far wrong.

Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious.

Not to be greedy is, paradoxically, the highest form of looking after one’s true interests.

Rust through washing never became white.

Sufism is experiential

If you don’t know how to take care of your own needs, when you try to give to others, you are giving from a bankrupt account.

Worry is itself an illness, since worry is an accusation against Divine Wisdom, a criticism of Divine Mercy.

What has he found who has lost God?And what has he lost who has found God?

Saying of the ProphetTasksWhoever makes all his tasks one task, God will help him in his other concerns.

Many people who are in reality dead are walking in the streets; many who are in their graves are in reality alive.

The Sufi is one who does what others do – when it is necessary. He is also one who does what others cannot do – when it is indicated.

It is no accident that Sufis find that they can connect most constructively with people who are well integrated into the world, as well as having higher aims, and that those who adopt a sensible...

Show me a person who really knows what ‘good’ is, and I will show you that he almost never uses the word.

DeathIf he is a good man, death will be a release;If he is a bad one, it will release others from him.

Great men are great until they know it. Saints are holy until they know it.

Abu-Yaqub al-Susi: the Sufi is ‘One who does not care when something is taken from him, but who does not cease to seek for what he has not.

gold”, so I am rich.

You have seen what Eblis the accursed has seen, when he said “I am of fire, while Adam is of clay.”Cover up the Eblis-like eye for just a moment; how long will you see just...

Patience is bitter, but bears a sweet fruit.

Saying of the ProphetEnvyEnvy devours good deeds, as a fire devours fuel.

Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaPatience: A support for the disappointed.

Sufis are those who have expunged from their minds the human tendencies of envy and enmity.

It has truly been said that ‘Humility is not so much a virtue as a necessity, in order to learn.

Inner Knowledge — You want to become wise in one lesson: First become a real human being.

They have fixed our nutrition and arranged our life-span. More than this, and ahead of this, efforts will not be productive.

When there is a true or useful thing, there is sure to be a counterfeit.

Feeling important is a vice, not a virtue, however concealed as participation in something noble.

Good. Show me a man who thinks that he knows what ‘good’ is, and I will probably be able to show you a horror of a person. Show me a person who really knows what...

Standing in Front of the Mirror of EternityDressed By True ExistenceLooking to Your Own RealityIn the Ocean of Oneness

One of the outstanding sources of resistance to imperial power in the Muslim world came from Sufi groups. While Sufi brotherhoods are generally known for a more quietist and mystic approach to Islam, they traditionally...

The sight of God in woman is the most perfect of all.” Ibn Arabi.

Saying of the ProphetMonkishnessNo monkery in Islam.

What you are seeking in your retreat, I see clearly in every road and alleyway.

Show a man too many camels’ bones, or show them to him too often, and he will not be able to recognize a camel when he comes across a live one. (Mirza Ahsan of Tabriz)

There is no wisdom where there is no common sense: it cannot under those conditions find any expression.

What you have to learn is how to find the unworldly in everything.

No practice exists in isolation.

Those who can’t, try: those who can, don’t have to.

He that is purified by love is pure; and he that is absorbed in the Beloved and hath abandoned all else is a Sufi.Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah.

Ultimately though, we are not responsible for another’s happiness. The unhappy person almost always suffers from self-inflicted pain.

He causes huge bodies like sun to proclaim His Majesty through His Names the All-Gracious, Great, reciting: ‘ O Glorious One, O Great One, O Mighty One’, while tiny animate creatures like flies and fish...

La raison qui m’a conduit à proférer de la poésie (shi‘r) est que j’ai vu en songe un ange qui m’apportait un morceau de lumière blanche ; on eût dit qu’il provenait du soleil. « Qu’est-ce que...

Saying of the Prophet.Lies, promises, trustHe is not of mine who lies, breaks a promise or fails in his trust.

The Sufis,’ runs the saying, ‘understand with their hearts what the most learned scholars cannot understand with their minds

orders” are in fact only of archaeological interest.

There is a succession of experiences which together constitute the educational and developmental ripening of the learner, according to the Sufis. People who think that each gain is the goal itself will freeze at any...

Knowledge is something which you can use. Belief is something which uses you.

With enough information, it is almost impossible “not” to predict people’s action.

The impatient man is his own enemy; he slams the door on his own progress.