Status Updates From Samarcanda

‘I had a brother, ten years older than I. He died when he was as old as you. He had been banished to Balkh for having written a poem which displeased the ruler of the time.

‘Before you can express everything you think, your children’s grandchildren will be old. We live in the age of the secret and of fear. You must have two faces. Show one to the crowd, and keep the other for yourself and your Creator. If you want to keep your eyes, your ears and your tongue, forget that you have them.’

‘Listen, my young friend. The Almighty has granted you the most valuable things that a son of Adam can have – intelligence, eloquence, health, beauty, the desire for knowledge and a lust for life, the admiration of men and, I suspect, the sighs of women. I hope that He has not deprived you of the wisdom of silence, without which all of the foregoing can neither be appreciated nor preserved.’

‘I am not one of those for whom faith is simply fear of judgement. How do I pray? I study a rose, I count the stars, I marvel at the beauty of creation and how perfectly ordered it is, at man, the most beautiful work of the Creator, his brain thirsting for knowledge, his heart for love, and his senses, all his senses alert or gratified.’

‘Omar, you are not unknown in Samarkand. In spite of your tender years, your knowledge has already become legendary, and your talents are talked about in the schools. Is it not true that in Isfahan you read seven times a weighty work by Ibn Sina, and that upon your return to Nishapur you reproduced it verbatim from memory?’