Category: The Jewelled Garden

Mansur al-Hallaj (c. 858 – 26 March 922) was a Persian mystic, and is most well known as a Sufi martyr.  After a long trial and imprisonment, he was publicly executed, Continue Reading →

Kwajah Abdullah Ansari (1006-1089 CE) was a very important Sufi in the area of present day Afghanistan, and was known as the Pir of Herat.  These verses are taken from Continue Reading →

This poem by the mystic and weaver Kabir was translated by the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.  As a side-note, Hazrat Inayat Khan and Tagore were contemporaries, although Tagore was some twenty Continue Reading →

Ahmed ar-Rifai (1118–1182 CE) was a Sufi who lived in the Basra region of Iraq. From his life and work arose the Rifai Sufi order, well known in Turkey.  Ahmed Continue Reading →

Here are two short poems from the sixteenth century Punjabi poet and mystic Mira. The first poem, addressed to her sister-in-law, Uda Bai, mentions the belief in Indian folklore that the Continue Reading →

Very little is know of the life of the Persian mystic Mohammad Shirin Maghribi (1349-1406? CE). He was a native of the province of Tabriz, and died there, perhaps in Continue Reading →

The tenderness and surrender of this poem are remarkable; for more about this mystical Jewish poet from the era of Muslim Spain, see this earlier post. I’m clay cupped in Continue Reading →

This brief excerpt from the “Divine Flashes” of Fakhruddin Iraqi speaks of the totality of Unity, a totality which leaves no place at all for the seeker of unity.  For Continue Reading →

The sixteenth century Punjabi mystic and poet Mira was a devotee of a yogic path using sound and the vibrations of sacred names to attain liberation.  For more about her life, Continue Reading →

Trap Brother, why do you strut about, so full of yourself? How come you’ve forgotten those ten months when you were suspended upside down inside the womb? When the body’s Continue Reading →