Category: The Jewelled Garden

Uwais al-Qarni (594-656 CE) was an Arab devotee and contemporary of the Prophet Mohammed, but because he did not want to leave his aged mother uncared for, was never able Continue Reading →

Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin, known as Khwaja Gharib Nawaz, the ‘comforter of the poor,’ said that it should be remembered that there is no better thing before Allah than prayer. Hazrat Continue Reading →

For more about the Persian mystic and poet Saadi, see this earlier post. In his Gulistan, while discussing the ‘Manner of Dervishes,’ Saadi of Shiraz told the following. A mureed Continue Reading →

For more about the 15th c. CE mystic and poet Kabir Das, see this post. O how may I ever express that secret word?O how can I say He is Continue Reading →

For more about the Hindu mystic and scholar Adi Shankara, see this post. Who is thy wife?Who is thy son?The ways of this world are strange indeed.Whose are thou?Whence art Continue Reading →

For more about this 13th c. CE Sufi of Alexandria, see this earlier post. How utterly amazing is someone who flees from something he cannot escape     to seek something that will Continue Reading →

For more about the tenth century Eastern Orthodox mystic and priest Symeon the New Theologian, see this earlier post. The fire rises in me,     and lights up my heart.Like the sun!Like Continue Reading →

In this short poem the 18th. C. CE Turkish Sufi Seyh Galib turns everything upside down, inverting container and contained, mixing opposites, to show something of the spiritual state. Were Continue Reading →

Chiao Jan was a Chinese Buddhist monk of the Tang era, and perhaps wrote this in his later years. ‘Eastmount’ would refer to the peak of the east, representing the Continue Reading →

Hui K’o, also known as Dazu Huike, (487–593 CE), was the second Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, and the 29th in succession after Gautama Buddha. Little is known about his personal Continue Reading →