No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam

196 No god but God no shame. When he heard of Layla’s arranged marriage to a man of untold wealth named Ibn Salam, Majnun lost a ...

Stain Your Prayer Rug with Wine 197 “The blame is all mine,” Layla cried, flinging curses on herself. “I am the one who has set ...

198 No god but God turned and ran from the grove back into the desert, vanishing like a shadow into the night. Years passed. The ...

Stain Your Prayer Rug with Wine 199 meaning “elected,” or suffa, meaning “purity,” though both of these must be rejected on etym ...

200 No god but God collected from a variety of sources over a long period of time. Of course, as the Sufi master Shaykh Fadhlall ...

Stain Your Prayer Rug with Wine 201 you “start by purifying your inner self, you end up being concerned with the outer and with ...

202 No god but God Just as all journeys must have a beginning, so the Sufi path only originates with the “outer shell” of Islam. ...

Stain Your Prayer Rug with Wine 203 est of all Sufi poets, Jalal ad-Din Rumi (d. 1273) and recounted by Idris Shah, the Grand Sh ...

�� 204 No god but God What is Sufism? It is the love of Majnun for Layla. It is “numberless waves, lapping and momentarily refle ...

Stain Your Prayer Rug with Wine 205 outrageous statements. Called “the Nourisher” by his disciples, al- Hallaj first gained noto ...

206 No god but God Al-Hallaj’s offense was not the sacrilege of his startling declara- tion, but its imprudent disclosure to tho ...

Stain Your Prayer Rug with Wine 207 they can begin the journey, however, the birds must first declare their absolute obedience t ...

208 No god but God Of the thousands of birds who began the journey with the hoopoe, only thirty make it to the end. With “hopele ...

Stain Your Prayer Rug with Wine 209 hardt. In more familiar terms, the qalb is equivalent to the traditional Western notion of t ...

210 No god but God As those who have completed the Way, Sufi Pirs are venerated as saints. The anniversaries of their deaths are ...

Stain Your Prayer Rug with Wine 211 ity was created in the image of the Divine. Humanity, then, is God made manifest; it is God ...

212 No god but God wilderness, Rabia achieved fana, becoming the first, though not the only, female Sufi master: a woman in whos ...

Stain Your Prayer Rug with Wine 213 I am He whom I love, and He whom I love is I. We are two spirits dwelling in one body, If th ...

214 No god but God In traditional Western philosophy this concept of radical unity is often called monism: the notion that all t ...

Stain Your Prayer Rug with Wine 215 attributes of God. He does not become God, as fana is so often misun- derstood by Sunni and ...