Arham

“The paper is finished, the pen is finished, and we are finished,
But, the fable of desire, is still not finished.”
― Zulfiqar Ahmad, The Conqueror of Hearts

“Alas for a love whose fire is extinct,
A love that was born in the Holy Place and died in the house of idols!”
― Muhammad Iqbal, The Secrets of the Self: A Philosophical Poem 1944

“Maulana Rumi was reading under the shade of a tree by a river, a pile of books besides him—according to one variation he was teaching a group of his students with a pile of hand-written notes next to him— when Shams Tabriz (rah) came by.

He asked Maulana what was going on and he replied ‘This is qaal (words), something you cannot understand’.

Shams Tabriz then took Maulana’s precious books and threw them in the water. Maulana was aghast. Shams Tabriz then recited Bismillah and pulled the books out of the water and dusted the water off them as if he was dusting sand; the pages thus dried and Maulana saw that the ink on them had not run despite having been soaked in water. Maulana was amazed and asked incredulously, what is this.

‘This is haal (spiritual state) something you cannot understand’ replied Shams Tabriz (rah).”
― Zulfiqar Ahmad, The Conqueror of Hearts

“Islam's prohibitions against pictoral representation of the human being have prevented the ubiquitous spread of the use of the female body for corporate purposes. Advertisements do not feature superfluous female body there to titillate potential buyer. In advertisements...image is not advanced as an ideal to which other women should aspire. Hence the use of images of women (and men) does not promote the phenomenon of self-correcting and self-policing, as is the case with the use of images in the mainstream Western culture.”
― Katherine Bullock, Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical & Modern Stereotypes