Category: The Jewelled Garden

Khwaja Abdullah Ansari (1006–1088 CE) was known as the Pir of Herat, and was a student of Shaikh Abbul Hassan Kharqani. O GodYou know why I am happy:     It is because Continue Reading →

This short verse by Ayn al-Quzat Hamadani might make readers think of the tale posted here. For more about the poet, see this earlier post. He Who splashed a thousand Continue Reading →

In these verses from his Book of Wisdom, the 13th c. CE Alexandrine Sufi and poet Ibn Ata’illah advises us that our spiritual progress is not necessarily in our hands. Continue Reading →

Kalidasa (4th – 5th c. CE) was a classical Sanskrit playwright and poet, considered one of India’s foremost dramatists. Very little is known about his life, save that he was Continue Reading →

The poet and mystic Rasakhan (ca. 1548 – 1628 CE) was born to a Muslim Pashtun family, perhaps in Kabul, but came to India, and subsequently became a follower of Continue Reading →

Here the 16th c. Punjabi poet and mystic Mira-bai speaks of her love for Giridhar, ‘the one who holds up the mountain’, one of the epithets of Krishna. For more Continue Reading →

These words of Shaikh Abul Hassan Kharqani illustrate very aptly the thoughts of Hazrat Inayat Khan on the purity of life. For more about Abul Hassan, see this post. There Continue Reading →

The great Sufi poet Umar Ibn Al Farid (1181 – 1234 CE) was born in Egypt of Syrian parents, and in his “Adorned Proem to the Diwan” described his journey to Continue Reading →

The following excerpt from a discourse by Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jilani on patience, taken from his work ‘The Purificaiton of the Mind,’ seems fitting for a moment when Christians – Continue Reading →