Monday, August 31, 2009

O God, we are incapable of praising You;
You are as You have praised Yourself.
All praise belongs to You alone.
" Woe to us! Who has woken us from our sleep. This is just as the Most Merciful has promised, and the messengers have spoken the truth" ( 36:52 ), say the sleepers of this world when they are finally and forcibly removed from the poppy field of pleasure and forgetfulness. The newly awoken come to the realization that they were in fact accountable for every God-given breath, but they have squandered their entire lives foolishly or, worse still, spent them in malevolent deeds.

Breath is a Divine gift, and the tongue is the plane upon which the breezes of the breath blow. To speak , we need a tongue, lips, and breath. To remember God, we need a heart. We have been given all four and reminded by God in every Book of revelation that the reason we are created is to worship Him. In fact, everything in existence is initially created in a state of worship. However, because of their free will, humans can forget the reason for their existence. "And if you forget, remember," says the Qur'an.

- Hamza Yusuf

Sunday, August 30, 2009




Shams al Tabriz ...

"I Know the Way You Can Get

I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:

Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.

Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.

Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one's self.

O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:

You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.

You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.

You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.

I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love's
Hands.

That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so Playful
And Wanting,
Just Wanting to help.

That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me.
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!

All a Sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love!"


- Hafiz

Tuesday, August 25, 2009




Ibn Ata'llah said:

“People praise you for what they suppose is in you,
but you must blame your soul for what you know is in you.”


- Hikam number 142
Between God and His servant are just two veils;
all other veils become manifest from these two: health and wealth.
He who is healthy says, "Where is God? I don't know and I don't see."
As soon as he begins to suffer, he says, "Oh God! Oh God!", and he begins sharing his secrets with Him and talking to Him. So you see that health was his veil, and God was hidden under his pain. So long as man has riches, he gathers together all the means of achieving his desires.
Night and day he busies himself with them. But as soon as he loses his wealth, his ego weakens and he turns round about God.



- Discourses of Rumi (Fihi ma fihi) 233/240
.•°*”˜˜”*°•.****** رمضان مبارك ******.•°*”˜ ˜”*°•.
"My dear heart never think you are better than others.
Listen to their sorrows with compassion.
If you want peace, do not harbor bad thoughts do not gossip
& do not teach what you do not know."

- Rumi

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A sign of compliance with passion (hawa’) is haste in supererogatory good deeds (nawafil) and sluggishness is fulfilling obligations (wajibat).

A sign of the heart’s death is the absence of sadness over acts of obedience that you have neglected and the abandonment of regret over mistakes that you have made.

Among the signs of success at the end is turning to God at the beginning.


- Sidi Ibn Ata’illah (ra)
"The friends of Allah do not die
They move from one place to another"

Monday, August 17, 2009


“The real existence on earth
is of the one who benefits humanity”

Qur'an 13:17
"Nay, but you love instant results"
(Quran 75:20)
"Let them chat and play
until they meet their Day which they are promised."
(Quran 70:42)
To find yourself
Think for yourself
~ Socrates ~
Who taught you to hate yourself?
Who taught you to hate the color of your skin?
Who taught you how to hate the texture of your hair?
Who taught you how to hate the shape of your nose?
Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet?
Who taught you to hate your own kind?
Who taught you to hate the race to which you belong ...?


- Malcom X

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

"With Him are the keys of the unseen,
the treasures that none knoweth but He"
Qur'an 6:59

Monday, August 10, 2009

Hafiz ...

“One regret dear world,
that I am determined not to have
when I am lying on my deathbed
is that I did not kiss you enough”

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time. "

-Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 3
Tomorrow's battle is won during today's practice


- Samurai maxim
"The cowards never started.
And the weak died along the way."