Saturday, March 29, 2008

'Ishq: powerfully passionate supreme divine love

Let's place the rose of God's Beauty between us and contemplate His Love.


Abu Husayn an-Nuri said that "passionate love ('ishq) is not greater than surene love (mahabba) except that the passionate lover ('ashiq) is kept away while the serene lover (muhibb) enjoys his love."

quoted from Ahmed Karamustafa, Sufism: The Formative Period 2007
also in Carl Ernst, Words of Ecstacy, p. 98