Als Sayings And Quotes

Here is a relationship booster that is guaranteed to work: Every time your spouse or lover says something stupid make your eyes light up as if you just heard something brilliant.

They say there is a doorway from heart to heart, but what is the use of a door when there are no walls?

I have no use for divine patience - My lips are now burning and everywhere. I am running from every corner of this earth and sky Wanting to kiss you.

…a man should say to his soul every morning, "God has given thee twenty-four treasures; take heed lest thou lose anyone of them, for thou wilt not be able to endure the regret that will follow such loss.

they say that nothing is wasted: either that or it al is

Hear this if you can: If you want to reach him You have to go beyond yourself And when you finally arrive at the land of absence Be silent Don’t say a thing Ecstasy, not words, is the language spoken there

Whoever says that all music is prohibited, let him also claim that the songs of birds are prohibited.

Burn you, Nerim, that's a leg not a bloody side of beef!" "As my lord says," Nerim murmured. "My lord's leg is not a side of beef. Thank you, my lord, for instructing me.

You're water. We're the millstone. You're wind. We're dust blown up into shapes. You're spirit. We're the opening and closing of our hands. You're the clarity. We're the language that tries to say it. You're joy. We're all the different kinds of laughing.

In many parts of this world water is Scarce and precious. People sometimes have to walk A great distance Then carry heavy jugs upon their Heads. Because of our wisdom, we will travel Far for love. All movement is a sign of Thirst. Most speaking really says "I am hungry to know you." Every desire of your body is holy; Every desire of your body is Holy. Dear one, Why wait until you are dying To discover that divine Truth?

Seek knowledge from the Cradle to the Grave

O Allah, You know me better than I know myself, and I know myself better than these people who praise me. Make me better than what they think of me, and forgive those sins of mine of which they have no knowledge, and do not hold me responsible for what they say.

Today I meet with Dr. Syamsuddin Arif. He said Prof. al-Attas says, "I don't read much but I think a lot

For the greatest crime of the poor in the eyes of the wealthy has always been to strike back. To fail to suffer in silence and instead disrupt their lives and their fantasies of a compassionate society that coincidentally set them on top. To say no.

Like This If anyone asks you how the perfect satisfaction of all our sexual wanting will look, lift your face and say, Like this. When someone mentions the gracefulness of the nightsky, climb up on the roof and dance and say, Like this. If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is, or what "God’s fragrance" means, lean your head toward him or her. Keep your face there close. Like this. When someone quotes the old poetic image about clouds gradually uncovering the moon, slowly loosen knot by knot the strings of your robe. Like this. If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead, don’t try to explain the miracle. Kiss me on the lips. Like this. Like this. When someone asks what it means to "die for love," point here. If someone asks how tall I am, frown and measure with your fingers the space between the creases on your forehead. This tall. The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns. When someone doesn’t believe that, walk back into my house. Like this. When lovers moan, they’re telling our story. Like this. I am a sky where spirits live. Stare into this deepening blue, while the breeze says a secret. Like this. When someone asks what there is to do, light the candle in his hand. Like this. How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob? Huuuuu. How did Jacob’s sight return? Huuuu. A little wind cleans the eyes. Like this. When Shams comes back from Tabriz, he’ll put just his head around the edge of the door to surprise us Like this.

In the simple moral maxim the Marine Corps teaches — do the right thing, for the right reason — no exception exists that says: unless there's criticism or risk. Damn the consequences.

Which is why we have spouses and children and parents and colleagues and friends, because someone has to know us better than we know ourselves. We need them to tell us. We need them to say, "I know you, Al. You are not the kind of man who.

All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, And I intend to end up there. This drunkenness began in some other tavern. When I get back around to that place, I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile, I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary. The day is coming when I fly off, But who is it now in my ear who hears my voice? Who says words with my mouth? Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks. I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home. This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say. I don't plan it. When I'm outside the saying of it, I get very quiet and rarely speak at all. We have a huge barrel of wine, but no cups. That's fine with us. Every morning We glow and in the evening we glow again.

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a covenant between equals. Al Sharpton always says, "We're all created equal, but we don't all end up equal.

I was a thorn rushing to be with a rose, vinegar blending with honey… Then I found some dirt to make an ointment that would honor my soul… Love says, “You are right, but don’t claim these changes. Remember, I am wind. You are an ember I ignite.

What the sayer of praise is really praising is himself, by saying implicitly, My eyes are clear." Likewise, someone who criticizes is criticizing himself, saying implicitly, "I can't see very well with my eyes so inflamed.

The seeker after truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them," the first scientist wrote, "but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration and not the sayings of human beings whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of of its content, attack it from every side. he should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.

Women! What can you say? Who made 'em? God must have been a fuckin' genius. The hair... They say the hair is everything, you know. Have you ever buried your nose in a mountain of curls... just wanted to go to sleep forever? Or lips... and when they touched, yours were like... that first swallow of wine... after you just crossed the desert.

He stares at me, and then leans back in his chair. "He's ill, Jacob." I say nothing. "He's a paragon schnitzophonic." "He's what?!" "Paragon schnitzophonic," repeats Uncle Al. "You mean paranoid schizophrenic?" "Sure. Whatever. But the bottom line is he's mad as a hatter...

Speaking unspoken words, music is a good way to say.

Be helpless, dumbfounded, Unable to say yes or no. Then a stretcher will come from grace to gather us up. We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty. If we say we can, we’re lying. If we say No, we don’t see it, That No will behead us And shut tight our window onto spirit. So let us rather not be sure of anything, Beside ourselves, and only that, so Miraculous beings come running to help. Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute, We shall be saying finally, With tremendous eloquence, Lead us. When we have totally surrendered to that beauty, We shall be a mighty kindness.

And will you love me for a day? A year? A lifetime?" She knew the answer but wanted to hear him say it in that beautiful, shattered voice. "Beyond that," he whispered, eyes shining with the tempest of emotion he'd held in check until now. "Beyond the reign of false gods and meddlesome priests. Beyond al Zafira when her bright stars fade.

In war, you say a prayer for your dead and ride on, because there is always another fight over the next horizon." —al'Lan Mandragoran

There's an old saying in the Two Rivers" Rand said dryly. "'The louder a man tells you he's honest, the harder you must hold on to your purse.'" Another said, "The fox often offers to give the duck its pond.

Do they have to be so public?” I say. "She just kissed him." Al frowns at me. When he frowns, his thick eyebrows touch his eyelashes. "It’s not like they’re stripping naked." "A kiss is not something you do in public." Al, Will, and Christina all give me the same knowing smile. “What?” I say. “Your Abnegation is showing,” says Christina. “The rest of us are all right with a little affection in public.” “Oh.” I shrug. “Well...I guess I’ll have to get over it, then.” “Or you can stay frigid,” says Will, his green eyes glinting with mischief. “You know. If you want.

Dad, Please accept this money to fix the broken window. I’m sure it’s already fixed, considering Lydia’s house pride and her phobia about unconditioned air, but Dear Al, I can’t begin to explain my actions at Lydia’s – I mean yours and Lydia’s house. When I get to Charleston, I never imagined that you would have Dear Dad and Lydia, I apologize to both of you for my irrational behavior. I know it’s all my fault, but if you would have listened to ONE THING I had to say, I might not have Dear Dad’s new family, I hope you’ll all be very happy being blond together. May people speak only in inside voices for the rest of your lives. P.S. Lydia, you wedding dress makes your arms look fat.

If the Devil says you cannot pray when you are angry, tell him it is none of his business, and pray until that species of insanity is dispelled and serenity is restored to the mind. (p. 175)

Do not be a people without a will of your own saying: If others treat well you will also treat well and if they do wrong we will do wrong; but accustom yourselves to do good if people do good and do not do wrong if they do evil.

The global environment crisis is, as we say in Tennessee, real as rain, and I cannot stand the thought of leaving my children with a degraded earth and a diminished future.

Today you will say things you can predict and other things you could never imagine this minute. Don't reject them, let them come through when they're ready, don't think you can plan it al out. This day will never, no matter how long you live, happen again. It is exquisitely singular. It will never again be exactly repeated.

The difference between my beliefs and having a religious faith is that I am prepared to change my views in light of new evidence, but someone of a religious faith will just stick their fingers in the ears and say: 'I'm not listening, there's nothing you can say that will make me change my mind.

I know love," Says the littlest one. "Love is like a flower." "Why is love a flower? Little one tell me." "Love is a flower For the sweetness it gives Before it dies away.

Ibn al-Arabi gave this advice: Do not attach yourself to any particular creed exclusively, so that you may disbelieve all the rest; otherwise you will lose much good, nay, you will fail to recognize the real truth of the matter. God, the omnipresent and omnipotent, is not limited by any one creed, for he says, 'Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah' (Koran 2:109). Everyone praises what he believes; his god is his own creature, and in praising it he praises himself. Consequently, he blames the disbelief of others, which he would not do if he were just, but his dislike is based on ignorance.

Man is like an island set in isolation in a fathomless sea enveloped by darkness, saying that the loneliness his self knows is so utterly absolute because even he knows not his self completely.

I thought, perhaps you might have had something to say, but I see we are nothing to each other. If you're quite convinced that any foolish passion on my part is entirely over, I will wish you good afternoon.' 'What can he mean?' thought Margaret -- 'what could he mean by speaking so, as if I were always thinking that he cared for me, when I know he does not; he cannot. ... But I won't care for him. I surely am mistress enough of myself to control this wild, strange, miserable feeling, which tempted me even to betray my own dear Frederick, so that I might but regain his good opinion -- the good opinion of a man who takes such pains to tell me that I am nothing to him. Come! poor little heart! be cheery and brave. We'll be a great deal to one another, if we are thrown off and left desolate.

Oh you, unceasing sun, to me Your particles communicate The luminous essence of God, Are you our God? I do not know. Intoxicated, I say nought, Bewitched by the magic potion. I cannot differentiate Between my drunk and sober state.

Some Hindus have an elephant to show. No one here has ever seen an elephant. They bring it at night to a dark room. One by one, we go in the dark and come out saying how we experience the animal. One of us happens to touch the trunk. A water-pipe kind of creature. Another, the ear. A strong, always moving back and forth, fan-animal. Another, the leg. I find it still, like a column on a temple. Another touches the curve back. A leathery throne. Another, the cleverest, feels the tusk. A rounded sword made of porcelain. He is proud of his description. Each of us touches one place and understands the whole in that way. The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark are how the senses explore the reality of the elephant. If each of us held a candle there, and if we went in together, we could see it.

How do we observe patience?” “In the same manner that we fast; completely certain that the adhān of Maghrib will eventually be called.

I want you to stop being subhuman and become 'yourself'. 'Yourself,' I say. Not the newspaper you read, not your vicious neighbor's opinion, but 'yourself.' I know, and you don't, what you really are deep down. Deep down, you are what a deer, your God, your poet, or your philosopher is. But you think you're a member of the VFW, your bowling club, or the Ku Klux Klan, and because you think so, you behave as you do. This too was told you long ago, by Heinrich Mann in Germany, by Upton Sinclair and John Dos Passos in the United States. But you recognized neither Mann nor Sinclair. You recognize only the heavyweight champion and Al Capone. If given your choice between a library and a fight, you'll undoubtedly go to the fight.

For so long, I’d wanted to hear those words fall from her lips. I’d just had no idea that in those words there would be so much sadness, that they would be tainted by years of her sorrow, and that my own thrill in finally hearing her say them aloud would be tarnished by the immense amount of resentment over what she had done.

If you flinch," Four says, slowly, carefully. "Al takes your place. Understand?" I nod. Four's eyes are still on mine when he lifts his hand, pulls his elbow back, and throws the knife. It is just a flash in the air, and then I hear a thud. The knife is buried in the board, half a foot away from the my cheek. I close my eyes. Thank God. "You about done Stiff?" asks Four. I remember Al's wide eyes and his quiet sobs at night and shake my head. "No." "Eyes open, then." He taps the spot between his eyebrows... "Come on, Stiff," he says. "Let someone else stand there and take it." Why is he trying to goad me into giving up? Does he want me to fail? "Shut up, Four!" ..... My body goes rigid. This time, when it hits the board, my ear stings, and blood tickles my skin. I touch my ear. He nicked it. And judging by the look he gives me, he did it on purpose.

O God as Thou hast made my form beautiful so make my character beautiful.

You claim that the evidentiary miracle is present and available, namely, the Koran. You say: 'Whoever denies it, let him produce a similar one.' Indeed, we shall produce a thousand similar, from the works of rhetoricians, eloquent speakers and valiant poets, which are more appropriately phrased and state the issues more succinctly. They convey the meaning better and their rhymed prose is in better meter. … By God what you say astonishes us! You are talking about a work which recounts ancient myths, and which at the same time is full of contradictions and does not contain any useful information or explanation. Then you say: 'Produce something like it'‽

Sam chuckled. “She probably won’t be too mad. Go. Get it over with.” Easy for Sam to say. She knew exactly where she stood in her relationship with Amir. She was happily engaged and never had to worry about secret kisses under blankets because she was a good Muslim girl and would never do such a thing. I, alas, was not a good Muslim girl.

Actually, Louis, there was a time I thought al rules were made to be broken. And then, society's rules broke me." I press my thumb and forefinger on the bridge of my nose to relieve the pressure. "I have no idea what you are trying to say." I take a deep breath. "Rules are important, and we must understand them to get along in this world, but if we never think beyond the rules, we will miss a lot of opportunities.

Al walks in, and I don't even have to ask him to help me, he just walks over and strips bedding with me. i will have to scrub the frame later. Al carries the stack of sheets to the trash and together we walk toward the training room. "Ignore him," Al says. "He's an idiot, and if you don't get angry, he'll stop eventually.

It doesn't sound logical to say that a man is an atheist just because he's probably someone who knows his own God...personally.

For them, 'mektub al mellah', as the Fremen say." "The thing was written with salt," Irulan translated.

My eyes darted to her, dreading to see the pain I knew I would find. Please, Melanie, you have to know I only wanted this with you. I couldn't say the words out loud, but I prayed she would understand, that she could see it in my eyes.

White women will heap praise on my words calling for the destruction of the patriarchy, and then turn around and ask why I have to ‘be so divisive’ or say dismissively that I ‘sound like Al Sharpton’ when I dare bring up race.

I don’t want to turn into one of those pathetic creatures who are always homesick, always saying I wish I were still in Beirut. I don’t want to become like you, split between here and there. I know I’m not happy here, but why should I be unhappy in two countries?

Tris," a low voice says behind me. I don't know why it doesn't startle me. Maybe because I am becoming Dauntless, and mental readiness is something I'm supposed to develop. Maybe because his voice is low and smooth and almost soothing. Whatever the reason over my shoulder. Four stands behind me with his gun slung across his back, just like mine. "Yes?" I say. "I came to find out what you think you're doing." "I'm seeking higher ground," I say. "I don't think I'm doing anything." I see his smile in the dark. "All right. I'm coming." I pause a second. He doesn't look at me the way Will, Christina, and Al sometimes do- like I am too small and too weak to be any use, and they pity me for it. But if he insists on coming with me, it is probably because he doubts me.

What is patriotism? Let us begin with what patriotism is not. It is not patriotic to dodge the draft and to mock war heroes and their families. It is not patriotic to discriminate against active-duty members of the armed forces in one’s companies, or to campaign to keep disabled veterans away from one’s property. It is not patriotic to compare one’s search for sexual partners in New York with the military service in Vietnam that one has dodged. It is not patriotic to avoid paying taxes, especially when American working families do pay. It is not patriotic to ask those working, taxpaying American families to finance one’s own presidential campaign, and then to spend their contributions in one’s own companies. It is not patriotic to admire foreign dictators. It is not patriotic to cultivate a relationship with Muammar Gaddafi; or to say that Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin are superior leaders. It is not patriotic to call upon Russia to intervene in an American presidential election. It is not patriotic to cite Russian propaganda at rallies. It is not patriotic to share an adviser with Russian oligarchs. It is not patriotic to solicit foreign policy advice from someone who owns shares in a Russian energy company. It is not patriotic to read a foreign policy speech written by someone on the payroll of a Russian energy company. It is not patriotic to appoint a national security adviser who has taken money from a Russian propaganda organ. It is not patriotic to appoint as secretary of state an oilman with Russian financial interests who is the director of a Russian-American energy company and has received the “Order of Friendship” from Putin. The point is not that Russia and America must be enemies. The point is that patriotism involves serving your own country. The

I think,' said Ammar ibn Khairan of Aljais, very slowly, 'that I should know you in a pitch black room. I think I would know you anywhere near me in the world.' He paused. 'Is that answer enough, Jehane? Or too much of one? Will you say?

You look different." His words, normally crisp,are now sluggish. "So do you," I say.And he does-he looks more relaxed,younger. "What are you doing?" "Flirting with death," he replies with a laugh. "Drinking near the chasm. Probably not a good idea." "No,it isn't" I'm not sure I like Four this way.There's something unsettling about it. "Didn't know you had a tattoo," he says, looking at my collarbone. He sips the bottle. His breath smells thick and sharp.Like the factionless man's breath. "Right.The crows," he says. He glances over his shoulder at his friends, who are carrying on without him, unlike mine. He adds, "I'd ask you hang out with us, but you're not supposed to see me this way." I am tempted to ask him why he wants to hang out with him,but I suspect the answer has something to do with the bottle in his hand. "What way?" I ask. "Drunk? "Yeah...well,no." His voice softens. "Real,I guess." "I'll pretend I didn't." "Nice of you." He puts his lips next to my ear and says, "You look good, Tris." His words surprise me,and my heart leaps. I wish it didn't,because judging by the way his eyes slide over mine, he has no idea what he's saying. I laugh. "Do me a favor and stay away from the chasm,okay?" "Of course." He winks at me. I can't help it.I smile.Will clears his throat,but I don't want to turn away from Four,even when he walks back to his friends. Then Al rushes at me like a rolling boulder and throws me over his shoulder. I shriek,my face hot. "Come on,little girl," he says, "I'm taking you to dinner." I rest my elbows on Al's back and wave at Four as he carries me away.

Tris!” Four calls out. Will and I exchange a look, half surprise and half apprehension. Four pulls away from the railing and walks up to me. Ahead of us, Al and Christina stop running, and Christina slides to the ground. I don’t blame them for staring. There are four of us, and Four is only talking to me. “You look different.” His words, normally crisp, are now sluggish. “So do you,” I say. And he does—he looks more relaxed, younger. “What are you doing?” “Flirting with death,” he replies with a laugh. “Drinking near the chasm. Probably not a good idea.” “No, it isn’t.” I’m not sure I like Four this way. There’s something unsettling about it. “Didn’t know you had a tattoo,” he says, looking at my collarbone. He sips the bottle. His breath smells thick and sharp. Like the factionless man’s breath. “Right. The crows,” he says. He glances over his shoulder at his friends, who are carrying on without him, unlike mine. He adds, “I’d ask you to hang out with us, but you’re not supposed to see me this way.” I am tempted to ask him why he wants me to hang out with him, but I suspect the answer has something to do with the bottle in his hand. “What way?” I ask. “Drunk?” “Yeah...well, no.” His voice softens. “Real, I guess.” “I’ll pretend I didn’t.” “Nice of you.” He puts his lips next to my ear and says, “You look good, Tris.” His words surprise me, and my heart leaps. I wish it didn’t, because judging by the way his eyes slide over mine, he has no idea what he’s saying. I laugh. “Do me a favor and stay away from the chasm, okay?” “Of course.” He winks at me.

Al walks toward the railing. "No," Eric says. "She has to do it on her own." "No, she doesn't," Al growls. "She did what you said. She's not a coward. She did what you said." Eric doesn't respond. Al reaches over the railing, and he's so tall that he can reach Christina's wrist. She grabs his forearm. Al pulls her up, his face red with frustration, and I run forward to help. I'm too short to do much good as I suspected, but I grip Christina under the shoulder once she's high enough, and Al and I haul her over the barrier. She drops to the ground her face still blood smeared from the fight, her back soaking wet, her body quivering. I kneel next to her. Her eyes lift to mine, then shift to Al, and we all catch our breath together.

And don't pay attention to Christina. Your face doesn't look that bad." He smiles a little. "I mean, it looks good. It always looks good. i mean--you look brave. Dauntless." His eyes skirt mine, and he scratches the back of his head. The silence grows between us. It was a nice thing to say, but he acts like it means more than just words. I hope I am wrong. I could not be attracted to Al-- I could not be attracted to anyone that fragile. I smile as much as my bruised cheek will allow, hoping that will diffuse the tension.

We are busy with the luxury of things. Their number and multiple faces bring To us confusion we call knowledge. Say: God created the world, pinned night to day, Made mountains to weigh it down, seas To wash its face, living creatures with pleas (The ancestors of prayers) seeking a place In this mystery that floats in endless space. God set the earth on the back of a bull, The bull on a fish dancing on a spool Of silver light so fine it is like air; That in turn rests on nothing there But nothing that nothing can share. All things are but masks at God's beck and call, They are symbols that instruct us that God is all.

...I love her. I think I want to be with her." "Be careful, Captain al-khoury. Those words mean different things to different people. Make sure they man the right things to you." "Don't be an ass. I mean them." "When did you mean them?" "I mean them now. Isn't that what matters?" A muscle worked in Khalid's jaw. "Now is easy. It's easy to say what you want in a passing moment. That's why a harem waits outside your door and the mother of your child won't have you." He strode back toward the palace. "Then what is the right answer, say yidi? What should I have said?" Jalal called out to the sky in exasperation. "Always.

You make me love books and the words inside them, because they talk about you. I know they do, they tell me that I love you, not as cliché as I write it, but in the warmest, deepest, calmest words I could ever read. I love you, like the books say it. And I'll find a better way to say it one day.

But I really think that if we don’t start caring about whether people tell the truth or not, it’s going to be literally impossible to restore anything approaching a reasonable political discourse. Politicians have always shaded the truth. But if you can say something that is provably false, and no one cares, then you can’t have a real debate about anything. I

I think they know we're talking about them," I say. "So? They already know I hate them." "They do? How?" Christina fakes a smile at them and waves. I look down, my cheeks warm. I shouldn't be gossiping anyway. Gossiping is self-indulgent. Will hooks a foot around one of Al's legs and yanks back,knocking Al to the ground. Al scrambles to his feet. "Because I've told them," she says, through the gritted teeth of her smile. Her teeth are straight on top and crooked on the bottom.She looks at me. "We try to be pretty honest about our feelings in Candor. Plenty of people have told me that they don't like me.And plenty of people haven't. Who cares?" "We just...weren't supposed to hurt people," I say. "I like to think I'm helping them by hating them," she says. "I'm reminding them that they aren't God's gift to humankind.

One notorious apikoros named Hiwa al-Balkhi, writing in ninth-century Persia, offered two hundred awkward questions to the faithful. He drew upon himself the usual thunderous curses—'may his name be forgotten, may his bones be worn to nothing'—along with detailed refutations and denunciations by Abraham ibn Ezra and others. These exciting anathemas, of course, ensured that his worrying 'questions' would remain current for as long as the Orthodox commentaries would be read. In this way, rather as when Maimonides says that the Messiah will come but that 'he may tarry,' Jewishness contrives irony at its own expense. If there is one characteristic of Jews that I admire, it is that irony is seldom if ever wasted on them.

In the Islamic tradition a distinction is made between two holy wars, the "greater holy war" (el-jihadul-akbar) and the "lesser holy war" (el-jihadul-ashgar). This distinction originated from a saying (hadith) of the Prophet, who on the way back from a military expedition said: "You have returned from a lesser holy war to a great holy war." The greater holy war is of an inner and spiritual nature; the other is the material war waged externally against an enemy population with the particular intent of bringing "infidel" populations under the rule of "God's Law" (al-Islam). The relationship between the "greater" and "lesser holy war", however, mirrors the relationship between the soul and the body; in order to understand the heroic asceticism or "path of action", it is necessary to understand the situation in which the two paths merge, the "lesser holy war" becoming the means through which a "greater holy war" is carried out, and vice versa: the "little holy war", or the external one, becomes almost a ritual action that expresses and gives witness to the reality of the first. Originally, orthodox Islam conceived of a unitary form of asceticism: that which is connected to the jihad or "holy war".

Several days later, Cassidento called Woodward back. “Hey, Al needs some money. . . . Everyone is offering him money for his story. Just want to let you know in case you want to enter the bidding.” It was rumored that a major magazine had offered $5000 for Baldwin’s first-person account. Woodward explained that the Post never paid for news. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry you don’t care about the story,” said Cassidento. “We have other offers.” Woodward started to say that the Post cared very much about the story, but Cassidento had hung up. Woodward and Bernstein told the editors about the invitation to bid on Baldwin’s story. “I bid this . . .” Bradlee said, and raised the middle finger of his right hand.

I have only one memory of getting here, and even that is just a single image: black ink curling around the side of a neck, the corner of a tattoo, and the gentle sway that could only mean he was carrying me. He turns off the bathroom light and gets an ice pack from the refrigerator in the corner of the room. As he walks toward me, I consider closing my eyes and pretending to be asleep,but then our eyes meet and it's too late. "Your hands," I croak. "My hands are none of your concern," he replies. He rests his knee on the mattress and leans over me,slipping the ice pack under my head. Before he pulls away,I reach out to touch the cut on the side of his lip but stop when I realize what I am about to do, my hand hovering. What do you have to lose? I ask myself. I touch my fingertips lightly to his mouth. "Tris," he says, speaking against my fingers. "I'm all right." "Why were you there?" I ask, letting my hand drop. "I was coming back from the control room. I heard a scream." "What did you do to them?" I say. "I deposited Drew at the infirmary a half hour ago," he says. "Peter and Al ran. Drew claimed they were just trying to scare you.At least,I think that's what he was trying to say." "He's in bad shape?" "He'll live," he replies. He adds bitterly, "In what condition, I can't say." It isn't right to wish pain on other people just because they hurt me first. But white-hot triumph races through me at the thought of Drew at the infirmary, and I squeeze Four's arm. "Good," I say.My voice sounds tight and fierce.Anger builds inside me, replacing my blood with bitter water and filling me, consuming me.I wantt o break something,or hit something, but I am afraid to move,so I start crying instead. Four crouches by the side of the bed, and watches me. I see no sympathy in his eyes.I would have been disappointed if I had. He pulls his wrist free and, to my surprise, rests his hand on the side of my face, his thumb skimming my cheekbone.His fingers are careful. "I could report this," he says. "No," I reply. "I don't want them to think I'm scared." He nods.He moves his thumb absently over my cheekbone, back and forth. "I figured you would say that." "You think it would be a bad idea if I sat up?" "I'll help you." Four grips my shoulder with one hand and holds my head steady with the other as I push myself up.Pain rushes through my body in sharp bursts,but I try to ignore it,stifling a groan. He hands me the ice pack. "You can let yourself be in pain," he says. "It's just me here.

A third group of people see the highest felicity in the abundance of property and the extension of ease. After all, property is an instrument to achieve the object of appetite. Through it, the human being attains the ability to achieve wishes. Hence, these people aspire to gather property; to increase estates, land, valuable horses, cattle, and farmland, and to hoard dinars in the earth. Hence, you will see one of them striving throughout life --- embarking on great dangers in the deserts, on journeys, and in the oceans to gather possessions with which he is niggardly toward himself, to say nothing of others. These are the ones meant by the words of The Prophet: "The slave of the dirham is miserable: the slave of the dinar is miserable." What darkness is greater than that which deceives the human being? Gold and silver are two stones that are not desired in themselves. When wishes are not achieved through them and they are not spent, then they are just like pebbles, and pebbles are just like them.

A person of good character is he who is modest, says little, causes little trouble, speaks the truth, seeks the good, worships much, has few faults, meddles little, desires the good for all, and does good works for all. He is compassionate, dignified, measured, patient, content, grateful, sympathetic, friendly, abstinent, and not greedy. He does not use foul language, nor does he exhibit haste, nor does he harbor hatred in his heart. He is not envious. He is candid, well-spoken, and his friendship and enmity, his anger and his pleasure are for the sake of God Most High and nothing more.

I will run every mile, i will save every line, i will say i reached the top and i will fall back down standing. I will write down every thing, the good and the bad,I will wake up one day and go back to the start. I will notice that the good ones were nothing but my beautiful lines, were everything painted by my mind. I will notice that the bad ones were nothing but pieces of my pain that should have been crumbled and thrown away the first time i started to rain. I will leave home and i won't mind, i will miss some beating pieces but i will survive.the sky will stay in place, mountains won't shake and my mind will go nowhere.the stars will  take my side not yours, and the new air in your chest will feel forever cold. I will donate a piece of my heart to hurt you forever and a lifelong lasting question about what you have lost.My hands won't ever fit in yours and my faith says that crown on your head will hurt you the most. One day i won't overlook anything anymore. One day i won't remember anything anymore.I will stop pretending i'm ice cold and i will learn how to be strong.one day I will grow out of this, i will grow out of us.

I wil never fight you,” she replies in a stern tone, like I have said somethin’ completely ridiculous. “Why not? You thought I was gonna hurt ya, why not fight back?” I retort, rememberin’ how she cringed like I was gonna hit her and the shame of what I just did is back ful force. “You’re my best friend,” she says, like that is an explanation. “Yes, but ya thought I was gonna hurt ya so I’d say, at that point, al bets should be off,” I state clearly. point, al bets should be off,” I state clearly. “No. I won’t fight you for real. Ever. We can practice together, but I can’t look at you like you’re my enemy. It’s impossible for me,” she says firmly. “So y’al would let me hurt you, rather than defend yerself?” I ask, like she has lost her mind. “Yes,” she says. “Why?” I ask again, ‘cuz I have to understand her reasons before I tel her how stupid I think she is for havin’ them. “Because you’re my soul mate and I love you,” she says like I’m dense.

I can see how I could write a bold account of myself as a passionate man who rose from humble beginnings to cut a wide swath in the world, whose crimes along the way might be written off to extravagance and love and art, and could even almost believe some of it myself on certain days after the sun went down if I’d had a snort or two and was in Los Angeles and it was February and I was twenty-four, but I find a truer account in the Herald-Star, where it says: “Mr. Gary Keillor visited at the home of Al and Florence Crandall on Monday and after lunch returned to St. Paul, where he is currently employed in the radio show business… Lunch was fried chicken with gravy and creamed peas”.

Say to my friends, when they look upon me, dead, Weeping for me and mourning me in sorrow, ‘Do not believe that this corpse you see is myself, In the name of God, I tell you, it is not I, I am a spirit, and this is naught but flesh, It was my abode and my garment for a time. I am a treasure, by a talisman kept hid, Fashioned of dust, which served me as a shrine, I am a pearl, which has left it’s shell deserted, I am a bird, and this body was my cage, Whence I have now flown forth and it is left as a token, Praise to God, who hath now set me free, And prepared for me my place in the highest of the Heavens, Until today I was dead, though alive in your midst. Now I live in truth, with the grave – clothes discarded. Today I hold converse with the Saints above, With no veil between, I see God face to face. I look upon “Loh-i-Mahfuz” and there in I read, Whatever was and is, and all that is to be. Let my house fall in ruins, lay my cage in the ground, Cast away the talisman, it is a token no more, Lay aside my cloak, it was but my outer garment. Place them all in the grave, let them be forgotten, I have passed on my way and you are left behind, Your place of abode was no dwelling place for me. Think not that death is death, nay, it is life, A life that surpasses all we could dream of here, While in this world, here we are granted sleep, Death is but sleep, sleep that shall be prolonged Be not frightened when death draweth nigh, It is but the departure for this blessed home, Think of the mercy and love of your Lord, Give thanks for His Grace and come without fear. What I am now, even so shall you be, For I know that you are even as I am, The souls of all men come forth from God, The bodies of all are compounded alike, Good and evil, alike it was ours. I give you now a message of good cheer May God’s peace and joy forever more be yours.

Sometimes the only way I can determine whether I’m trying to control someone else or whether I’m simply expressing my feelings is by noticing how many times I say the same thing. If I mention something that is on my mind and then let it go no matter what response I get, I am speaking sincerely. If I repeatedly make similar suggestions or ask prodding questions again and again, I am probably trying to control. If I am satisfied only when the other person responds in a way I consider desirable—agrees with what I’ve said or takes my advice—then I know I’ve lost my focus.

The stubborn critic would say: 'What is the benefit of these sciences?' He does not know the virtue that distinguishes mankind from all the animals: it is knowledge, in general, which is pursued solely by man, and which is pursued for the sake of knowledge itself, because its acquisition is truly delightful, and is unlike the pleasures desirable from other pursuits. For the good cannot be brought forth, and evil cannot be avoided, except by knowledge. What benefit then is more vivid? What use is more abundant?

War crimes, you say? No matter how many policies you put on paper, in reality, there are no rights and wrongs in war. War itself is a crime. War cannot be justified. I believe, the only people, in this world, whose opinions matter, are the ones who go the extra mile to help other people expecting nothing in return. Soldiers who fight fiercely for their country, the doctors in Sri Lanka's public hospitals attending to hundreds of patients at a time for no extra pay , the nuns who voluntarily teach English and math to children of refugee camps in the north, the monks who collect food to feed entire villages during crises, they are the people worth listening to, their opinion matters. So find me one of them who will say: they wish the war didn't end in 2009, that they wish Sri Lanka was divided into two parts. Find me one of them who agrees with the international war crime allegations against Sri Lanka, and I will listen. But I will not listen to the opinions of those who are paid to find faults in a war they were never a part of, a war they never experienced themselves. I will not listen to the opinions of those who watched the war on tv or read about it on the internet or were moved by a documentary on Al Jazeera. The war is over. The damage is done. Let Sri Lanka move on. So our children will never have to see what we've seen.

In her last weeks, she had mo­ments of lu­cid­ity, and I cher­ished them when I was around to talk to her. One of these con­ver­sa­tions hap­pened when it was just me and her in the hos­pi­tal room. ‘I sus­pect you will never have a hus­band,’ she said, look­ing at me in­tently from her bed. ‘Would you be up­set if that hap­pened?’ I asked. ‘Your mother would be,’ she said, then low­ered her voice. ‘But I think you would be wise not to.’ This sur­prised me as I had al­ways thought that she and my grand­fa­ther had been very happy to­gether. ‘Why do you say that?’ I asked. Her hand, spot­ted in soft-brown splodges, the rails of her bones pro­trud­ing, flapped gen­tly at me to take it. I cupped it in both of mine. ‘You have a home that is yours,’ she said. ‘And your own money. Don’t you?’ ‘I have a bit of money, yes.’ ‘And you have your ed­u­ca­tion. And you have your ca­reer.’ I nod­ded. ‘Then you have ev­ery­thing,’ she said.

I love you more than words can say. I love you more than what you can imagine. I love you more than what your senses can perceive. I love you more than all the mortals’ feelings, emotions, love, and passion combined. You became part of my blood cells’ contents. You became my white blood cells that protect me from getting sick. You became my blood plasma that I will die without. You became my red blood cells that I can’t breathe without. You became my heart, that through it, I can survive. You became my lungs, that without them, I would die. You became my brain that is the only hope for life if my heart stops functioning. You became my eyes that see you and were created only to see you. You became my limbs that I can’t do anything without. You became my nose that smells your musk, even if you are amid millions of mortals. You became my lips that touch your flesh and paint their signature on every inch of your body. I am your love who cannot live without you.

In Islam, and especially among the Sufi Orders, siyahat or 'errance' - the action or rhythm of walking - was used as a technique for dissolving the attachments of the world and allowing men to lose themselves in God. The aim of a dervish was to become a 'dead man walking': one whose body stays alive on the earth yet whose soul is already in Heaven. A Sufi manual, the Kashf-al-Mahjub, says that, toward the end of his tourney, the dervish becomes the Way not the wayfarer, i.e. a place over which something is passing, not a traveller following his own free will...it was quite similar to an Aboriginal concept, 'Many men afterwards become country, in that place, Ancestors.' By spending his whole life walking and singing his Ancestor's Songline, a man eventually became the track, the Ancestor and the song. The Wayless Way, where the Sons of God lose themselves and, at the same time, find themselves.

It was sometimes feebly argued, as the political and military war against this enemy ran into difficulties, that it was 'a war without end.' I never saw the point of this plaintive objection. The war against superstition and the totalitarian mentality is an endless war. In protean forms, it is fought and refought in every country and every generation. In bin Ladenism we confront again the awful combination of the highly authoritarian personality with the chaotically nihilist and anarchic one. Temporary victories can be registered against this, but not permanent ones. As Bertold Brecht's character says over the corpse of the terrible Arturo Ui, the bitch that bore him is always in heat. But it is in this struggle that we develop the muscles and sinews that enable us to defend civilization, and the moral courage to name it as something worth fighting for.

The doctor says there are such boys springing up amongst us—boys of a sort unknown in the last generation—the outcome of new views of life. They seem to see all its terrors before they are old enough to have staying power to resist them. He says it is the beginning of the coming universal wish not to live. Der Arzt sagte, solche Kinder kämen jetzt manchmal vor – Kinder, wie sie die vorige Generation nicht gekannt habe -, das Ergebnis neuer Anschauungen vom Leben. Es ist, als sähen diese Kinder alle seine Schrecknisse, ehe sie alt genug sind, die nötige Widerstandskraft dagegen aufzubringen. Er sagt, es wäre der Anfang des kommenden allgemeinen Wunsches, nicht zu leben.

As to the 'Left' I'll say briefly why this was the finish for me. Here is American society, attacked under open skies in broad daylight by the most reactionary and vicious force in the contemporary world, a force which treats Afghans and Algerians and Egyptians far worse than it has yet been able to treat us. The vaunted CIA and FBI are asleep, at best. The working-class heroes move, without orders and at risk to their lives, to fill the moral and political vacuum. The moral idiots, meanwhile, like Falwell and Robertson and Rabbi Lapin, announce that this clerical aggression is a punishment for our secularism. And the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, hitherto considered allies on our 'national security' calculus, prove to be the most friendly to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Here was a time for the Left to demand a top-to-bottom house-cleaning of the state and of our covert alliances, a full inquiry into the origins of the defeat, and a resolute declaration in favor of a fight to the end for secular and humanist values: a fight which would make friends of the democratic and secular forces in the Muslim world. And instead, the near-majority of 'Left' intellectuals started sounding like Falwell, and bleating that the main problem was Bush's legitimacy. So I don't even muster a hollow laugh when this pathetic faction says that I, and not they, are in bed with the forces of reaction.

So, whenever the subject of Iraq came up, as it did keep on doing through the Clinton years, I had no excuse for not knowing the following things: I knew that its one-party, one-leader state machine was modeled on the precedents of both National Socialism and Stalinism, to say nothing of Al Capone. I knew that its police force was searching for psychopathic killers and sadistic serial murderers, not in order to arrest them but to employ them. I knew that its vast patrimony of oil wealth, far from being 'nationalized,' had been privatized for the use of one family, and was being squandered on hideous ostentation at home and militarism abroad. (Post-Kuwait inspections by the United Nations had uncovered a huge nuclear-reactor site that had not even been known about by the international community.) I had seen with my own eyes the evidence of a serious breach of the Genocide Convention on Iraqi soil, and I had also seen with my own eyes the evidence that it had been carried out in part with the use of weapons of mass destruction. I was, if you like, the prisoner of this knowledge. I certainly did not have the option of un-knowing it.

According to Ibn ‘Abbās, may God be pleased with him and his father, the Prophet David, God bless him and give him peace, used to say in his intimate Prayers: ‘My God, who inhabits Your House? And from whom do you accept the Prayer?’ Then God told him by inspiration: ‘David, he who inhabits My House, and he whose Prayer I accept, is none but he who is humble before My Majesty, spends his days in remembrance of Me and keeps his passions in check for My sake, giving food to the hungry and shelter to the stranger and treating the afflicted with compassion. His light shines in the sky like the sun. If he invokes Me, I am at his service. If he asks of Me, I grant his request. In the midst of ignorance, I give him discernment; in heedlessness, remembrance, in darkness, light. He stands out among ordinary people as Paradise towers over earthly gardens, its rivers inexhaustible and its fruits not subject to decay.

No one has expressed what is needed better than Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of the London-based al-Arabiya news channel. One of the best-known and most respected Arab journalists working today, he wrote the following, in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (September 6, 2004), after a series of violent incidents involving Muslim extremist groups from Chechnya to Saudi Arabia to Iraq: "Self-cure starts with self-realization and confession. We should then run after our terrorist sons, in the full knowledge that they are the sour grapes of a deformed culture... The mosque used to be a haven, and the voice of religion used to be that of peace and reconciliation. Religious sermons were warm behests for a moral order and an ethical life. Then came the neo-Muslims. An innocent and benevolent religion, whose verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence of urgent necessity, that calls murder the most heinous of crimes, that says explicitly that if you kill one person you have killed humanity as a whole, has been turned into a global message of hate and a universal war cry... We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women. We cannot redeem our extremist youth, who commit all these heinous crimes, without confronting the Sheikhs who thought it ennobling to reinvent themselves as revolutionary ideologues, sending other people's sons and daughters to certain death, while sending their own children to European and American schools and colleges.

Remaining for a moment with the question of legality and illegality: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368, unanimously passed, explicitly recognized the right of the United States to self-defense and further called upon all member states 'to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of the terrorist attacks. It added that 'those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of those acts will be held accountable.' In a speech the following month, the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan publicly acknowledged the right of self-defense as a legitimate basis for military action. The SEAL unit dispatched by President Obama to Abbottabad was large enough to allow for the contingency of bin-Laden's capture and detention. The naïve statement that he was 'unarmed' when shot is only loosely compatible with the fact that he was housed in a military garrison town, had a loaded automatic weapon in the room with him, could well have been wearing a suicide vest, had stated repeatedly that he would never be taken alive, was the commander of one of the most violent organizations in history, and had declared himself at war with the United States. It perhaps says something that not even the most casuistic apologist for al-Qaeda has ever even attempted to justify any of its 'operations' in terms that could be covered by any known law, with the possible exception of some sanguinary verses of the Koran.

We all want love. From God, and from the creation. We are all running towards something. Ironically, the more we run after the creation, the more the creation runs away from us! As soon as we stop running after the creation, and reorient, as soon as we start running towards God, the creation runs after us. It’s a simple, simple formula: Run towards the creation, you lose God and the creation. Run towards God, you gain God *and* the creation. Allah is “Al Wadood” (The Source of Love). Therefore, love comes from God—not people. “To acquire love…fill yourself up with it until you become a magnet.” When you fill yourself with the Source of love (Al Wadood), you become a magnet for love. Allah teaches us this in the beautiful hadith Qudsi: “If Allah has loved a servant [of His], He calls Gabriel and says: “I love so-and-so, therefore love him.’” He (the Prophet pbuh) said: “So Gabriel then loves him. Then he (Gabriel) calls out in Heaven, saying: ‘Allah loves so-and-so, therefore love him.’ And the inhabitants of Heaven love him. Then acceptance is established for him on earth.” [Bukhari, Malik, & Tirmidhi] We’re all running. But so few of us are running in the right direction. We have the same goal. But to get there, we need to stop. And examine if we are running towards the Source–or just a reflection.

I, for example, quiet plainly and simply insist upon annihilation for myself. “No,” they say, “you must go on living, for without you there would be nothing. If everything on earth were reasonable, nothing would ever happen. Without you there would be no events, and it is necessary that there should be events.” Well, and so on I drudge with unwilling heart so that there be events, and bring about unreason by command. People think toute cette comedie is something serious, all there unquestionable intelligence notwithstanding. There lies there tragedy. Well, and they suffer, of course, but … al the same they live, they live in reality, not in fantasy; for suffering is also life. Without suffering what pleasure would there be in it? Everything would turn into one single, endless church service: much holy soaring, but rather boring. Well, and I? I suffer, but even so I do not live. I am the “x” in an indeterminate equation. I am one of life’s ghosts, who has lost all the ends and the beginnings, and even at last forgotten what to call myself. You are laughing . . . No, you are not laughing, you are angry again. You are eternally angry, you would like there to be nothing but intelligence, but I will tell you again that I would renounce all this empyrean existence, all these honours and ranks just in order to be able to take fleshy form in the person of a seven-pood merchant’s wife and set up candles to God in church. ‘So, you don’t believe in God either?’ Ivan said, smiling with hatred. ‘Well, how can I explain it to you, if you are serious, that is . . . ‘ ‘Does God exist or not?’ Ivan barked, again with ferocious insistence. ‘Ah, so you are serious? My dear little dove, I swear to God I do not know, pour vous dire le grand mot.

Rea­sons Why I Loved Be­ing With Jen I love what a good friend you are. You’re re­ally en­gaged with the lives of the peo­ple you love. You or­ga­nize lovely ex­pe­ri­ences for them. You make an ef­fort with them, you’re pa­tient with them, even when they’re side­tracked by their chil­dren and can’t pri­or­i­tize you in the way you pri­or­i­tize them. You’ve got a gen­er­ous heart and it ex­tends to peo­ple you’ve never even met, whereas I think that ev­ery­one is out to get me. I used to say you were naive, but re­ally I was jeal­ous that you al­ways thought the best of peo­ple. You are a bit too anx­ious about be­ing seen to be a good per­son and you def­i­nitely go a bit over­board with your left-wing pol­i­tics to prove a point to ev­ery­one. But I know you re­ally do care. I know you’d sign pe­ti­tions and help peo­ple in need and vol­un­teer at the home­less shel­ter at Christ­mas even if no one knew about it. And that’s more than can be said for a lot of us. I love how quickly you read books and how ab­sorbed you get in a good story. I love watch­ing you lie on the sofa read­ing one from cover-to-cover. It’s like I’m in the room with you but you’re in a whole other gal­axy. I love that you’re al­ways try­ing to im­prove your­self. Whether it’s running marathons or set­ting your­self chal­lenges on an app to learn French or the fact you go to ther­apy ev­ery week. You work hard to be­come a bet­ter ver­sion of your­self. I think I prob­a­bly didn’t make my ad­mi­ra­tion for this known and in­stead it came off as ir­ri­ta­tion, which I don’t re­ally feel at all. I love how ded­i­cated you are to your fam­ily, even when they’re an­noy­ing you. Your loy­alty to them wound me up some­times, but it’s only be­cause I wish I came from a big fam­ily. I love that you al­ways know what to say in con­ver­sa­tion. You ask the right ques­tions and you know ex­actly when to talk and when to lis­ten. Ev­ery­one loves talk­ing to you be­cause you make ev­ery­one feel im­por­tant. I love your style. I know you think I prob­a­bly never no­ticed what you were wear­ing or how you did your hair, but I loved see­ing how you get ready, sit­ting in front of the full-length mir­ror in our bed­room while you did your make-up, even though there was a mir­ror on the dress­ing ta­ble. I love that you’re mad enough to swim in the English sea in No­vem­ber and that you’d pick up spi­ders in the bath with your bare hands. You’re brave in a way that I’m not. I love how free you are. You’re a very free per­son, and I never gave you the sat­is­fac­tion of say­ing it, which I should have done. No one knows it about you be­cause of your bor­ing, high-pres­sure job and your stuffy up­bring­ing, but I know what an ad­ven­turer you are un­der­neath all that. I love that you got drunk at Jack­son’s chris­ten­ing and you al­ways wanted to have one more drink at the pub and you never com­plained about get­ting up early to go to work with a hang­over. Other than Avi, you are the per­son I’ve had the most fun with in my life. And even though I gave you a hard time for al­ways try­ing to for al­ways try­ing to im­press your dad, I ac­tu­ally found it very adorable be­cause it made me see the child in you and the teenager in you, and if I could time-travel to any­where in his­tory, I swear, Jen, the only place I’d want to go is to the house where you grew up and hug you and tell you how beau­ti­ful and clever and funny you are. That you are spec­tac­u­lar even with­out all your sports trophies and mu­sic cer­tifi­cates and in­cred­i­ble grades and Ox­ford ac­cep­tance. I’m sorry that I loved you so much more than I liked my­self, that must have been a lot to carry. I’m sorry I didn’t take care of you the way you took care of me. And I’m sorry I didn’t take care of my­self, ei­ther. I need to work on it. I’m pleased that our break-up taught me that. I’m sorry I went so mental. I love you. I always will. I'm glad we met.

If we want to We will become a people, if we want to, when we learn that we are not angels, and that evil is not the prerogative of others We will become a people when we stop reciting a prayer of thanksgiving to the sacred nation every time a poor man finds something to eat for his dinner We will become a people when we can sniff out the sultan’s gatekeeper and the sultan without a trial We will become a people when a poet writes an erotic description of a dancer’s belly We will become a people when we forget what the tribe tells us, when the individual recognizes the importance of small details We will become a people when a writer can look up at the stars without saying: ‘Our country is loftier and more beautiful!’ We will become a people when the morality police protect a prostitute from being beaten up in the streets We will become a people when the Palestinian only remembers his flag on the football pitch, at camel races, and on the day of the Nakba We will become a people, if we want to, when the singer is allowed to chant a verse of Surat al-Rahman at a mixed wedding reception We will become a people when we respect the right, and the wrong.

A Lion Overpowered Sheikh Abu Masood bin Abi Bakr Harimi (r.a) reports that there was a very great Saint by the name of Sheikh Ahmed Jaam (r.a) He used to travel on a lion wherever he went. In every city that he visited, it was his habit to ask the people of the city to send one cow for his lion’s meal. Once, he went to a certain city and requested from the Saint of that city a cow for his lion. The Saint sent the cow to him and said, “If you ever go to Baghdad, your lion will receive a welcome invitation.” Sheikh Ahmed Jaam (r.a) then journeyed to Baghdad Shareef. On arriving in Baghdad, he sent one of his disciples to al-Ghawth al-A’zam (r.a) and commanded that a cow be sent to him, as a meal for his lion. The great Ghawth was already aware of his coming. He had already arranged for a cow to be kept for the lion. On the command of Sheikh Ahmed Jaam (r.a) Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) sent one of his disciples with a cow to him. As the disciple took the cow with him, a weak and old stray dog which used to sit outside the home of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) followed the disciple. The disciple presented the cow to Sheikh Ahmed Jaam (r.a) who in turn signalled the lion to commence feeding. As the lion ran towards the cow, this stray dog pounced on the lion. It caught the lion by its throat and killed the lion by tearing open its stomach. The dog then dragged the lion and threw it before al-Ghawth al-A’zam (r.a) On seeing this, Sheikh Ahmed Jaam (r.a) was very embarrassed. He humbled himself before the great Ghawth and asked for forgiveness for his arrogant behaviour. This incident shows the strength of a dog that only sat outside the stoop of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) This was due to its Nisbat to the blessed stoop of the great Saint. It also proves that even animals recognise and are loyal to the the Awliya Allah. A’la Hazrat, Sheikh Imam Ahmed Raza al-Qaadiri (r.a) portrays the above-mentioned incident in one of his poetic stanzas. He says: “Kya Dab’be Jis Pe Himayat Ka Ho Panja Tera, Sher Ko Khatre me Laata, Nahi Kut’ta Tera

When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets,' Papa would say, 'she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized with longing. "Spread your lips, sweet Lil," they'd cluck, "and show us your choppers!"' This same Crystal Lil, our star-haired mama, sitting snug on the built-in sofa that was Arty's bed at night, would chuckle at the sewing in her lap and shake her head. 'Don't piffle to the children, Al. Those hens ran like whiteheads.' Nights on the road this would be, between shows and towns in some campground or pull-off, with the other vans and trucks and trailers of Binewski's Carnival Fabulon ranged up around us, safe in our portable village. After supper, sitting with full bellies in the lamp glow, we Binewskis were supposed to read and study. But if it rained the story mood would sneak up on Papa. The hiss and tick on the metal of our big living van distracted him from his papers. Rain on a show night was catastrophe. Rain on the road meant talk, which, for Papa, was pure pleasure. 'It's a shame and a pity, Lil,' he'd say, 'that these offspring of yours should only know the slumming summer geeks from Yale.' 'Princeton, dear,' Mama would correct him mildly. 'Randall will be a sophomore this fall. I believe he's our first Princeton boy.' We children would sense our story slipping away to trivia. Arty would nudge me and I'd pipe up with, 'Tell about the time when Mama was the geek!' and Arty and Elly and Iphy and Chick would all slide into line with me on the floor between Papa's chair and Mama. Mama would pretend to be fascinated by her sewing and Papa would tweak his swooping mustache and vibrate his tangled eyebrows, pretending reluctance. 'WellIll . . .' he'd begin, 'it was a long time ago . . .' 'Before we were born!' 'Before . . .' he'd proclaim, waving an arm in his grandest ringmaster style, 'before I even dreamed you, my dreamlets!' 'I was still Lillian Hinchcliff in those days,' mused Mama. 'And when your father spoke to me, which was seldom and reluctantly, he called me "Miss." ' 'Miss!' we would giggle. Papa would whisper to us loudly, as though Mama couldn't hear, 'Terrified! I was so smitten I'd stutter when I tried to talk to her. "M-M-M-Miss . . ." I'd say.' We'd giggle helplessly at the idea of Papa, the GREAT TALKER, so flummoxed. 'I, of course, addressed your father as Mister Binewski.

What do you learn at school, then?" "We learn about the Prophet and his three hundred authenticated miracles,and about Abraham and Isaac and Jonah and Omar and Ali and Hind and Fatima and the saints, and sometimes the big battles of Saladin against the barbarians. And we recite the Holy Koran because we have to learn al-Fatihah by heart." "What's that?" "It's the beginning." "What's it like?" Karatavuk closed his eyes and recited:'Bismillah al-rahman al-rahim...' When he's finished he opened his eyes, and mopped his forehead. "It's difficult" he observed. "I didn't understand any of it" complained Mehmetcik. " It sounds nice though. was it language?" "Of course it was language, stupid. It's Arabic." "What's that then?" "It's what Arabs speak. And it's what God speaks, and that's why we have to learn to recite it. It's something about being merciful and the Day of Judgement and showing us the right path, and if anything is going wrong, or you're worried, or someone's sick, you just have to say al-Fatihah and everything will probably be all right." "I didn't know that God spoke language." observed Mehmetcik. Father Kristoforos speaks to him in Greek, but we don't understand that either." "What do you learn, then." "We learn more than you," answered Mehmetcik self-importantly. "We learn about Jesus Son of Mary and his miracles and St Nicholas and St Dmitri and St Menas and the saints and Abraham and Isaac and Jonah and Emperor Constantine and Alexander the Great and the Marble Emperor, and the great battles against barbarians, and the War of Independence, and we learn reading and writing and adding up and taking away and multiplication and division." "Don't you learn al-Fatihah,then?" "When things go wrong we say 'Kyrie elesion'. and we've got a proper prayer as well." "What's that like?" Mehmetcik screwed up his eyes in unconcious imitation of his friend, and recited: 'Pater imon, o en tois ouranis, agiasthito to onoma sou, eltheto i vasileia sou..' When Mehmetcik has finished, Karatavuk asked, "What's that about, then? is that some kind of language?" "It's Greek. It's what we speak to God.I don't know exactly what it means, it's something about our father who is in heaven and forgive us our daily bread, and led us not into temptation, but it doesn't matter if we don't understand it, because God does" "Maybe," pondered Karatavuk, " Greek and Arabic are actually the same language, and that's how God understands us, like sometimes I'm Abdul and sometimes I'm Karatavuk, and sometimes you're Nico and sometimes you're Mehmetcik, but it's two names and there's only one me and there's only one you, so it might be all one language that's called Greek sometimes and Arabic sometimes.

Praise be to Allah, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book: 'But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)'; and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said: I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but Allah is worshipped, Allah who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders. ...All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on Allah, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in 'Al- Mughni,' Imam al-Kisa'i in 'Al-Bada'i,' al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said: 'As for the fighting to repulse [an enemy], it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed [by the ulema]. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life.' On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims: The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah.' ...We -- with Allah's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson. ...Almighty Allah also says: 'O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things.' Almighty Allah also says: 'So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith.' [World Islamic Front Statement, 23 February 1998]

She was the first close friend who I felt like I’d re­ally cho­sen. We weren’t in each other’s lives be­cause of any obli­ga­tion to the past or con­ve­nience of the present. We had no shared his­tory and we had no rea­son to spend all our time to­ gether. But we did. Our friend­ship in­ten­si­fied as all our friends had chil­dren – she, like me, was un­con­vinced about hav­ing kids. And she, like me, found her­self in a re­la­tion­ship in her early thir­ties where they weren’t specif­i­cally work­ing to­wards start­ing a fam­ily. By the time I was thirty-four, Sarah was my only good friend who hadn’t had a baby. Ev­ery time there was an­other preg­nancy an­nounce­ment from a friend, I’d just text the words ‘And an­other one!’ and she’d know what I meant. She be­came the per­son I spent most of my free time with other than Andy, be­cause she was the only friend who had any free time. She could meet me for a drink with­out plan­ning it a month in ad­vance. Our friend­ship made me feel lib­er­ated as well as safe. I looked at her life choices with no sym­pa­thy or con­cern for her. If I could ad­mire her de­ci­sion to re­main child-free, I felt en­cour­aged to ad­mire my own. She made me feel nor­mal. As long as I had our friend­ship, I wasn’t alone and I had rea­son to be­lieve I was on the right track. We ar­ranged to meet for din­ner in Soho af­ter work on a Fri­day. The waiter took our drinks or­der and I asked for our usual – two Dirty Vodka Mar­ti­nis. ‘Er, not for me,’ she said. ‘A sparkling wa­ter, thank you.’ I was ready to make a joke about her un­char­ac­ter­is­tic ab­sti­nence, which she sensed, so as soon as the waiter left she said: ‘I’m preg­nant.’ I didn’t know what to say. I can’t imag­ine the ex­pres­sion on my face was par­tic­u­larly en­thu­si­as­tic, but I couldn’t help it – I was shocked and felt an un­war­ranted but in­tense sense of be­trayal. In a de­layed re­ac­tion, I stood up and went to her side of the ta­ble to hug her, un­able to find words of con­grat­u­la­tions. I asked what had made her change her mind and she spoke in va­garies about it ‘just be­ing the right time’ and wouldn’t elab­o­rate any fur­ther and give me an an­swer. And I needed an an­swer. I needed an an­swer more than any­thing that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a re­al­iza­tion that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it. When I woke up the next day, I re­al­ized the feel­ing I was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing was not anger or jeal­ousy or bit­ter­ness – it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t re­ally gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had dis­ap­peared and there was noth­ing they could do to change that. Un­less I joined them in their spa­ces, on their sched­ules, with their fam­i­lies, I would barely see them. And I started dream­ing of an­other life, one com­pletely re­moved from all of it. No more chil­dren’s birth­day par­ties, no more chris­ten­ings, no more bar­be­cues in the sub­urbs. A life I hadn’t ever se­ri­ously con­tem­plated be­fore. I started dream­ing of what it would be like to start all over again. Be­cause as long as I was here in the only Lon­don I knew – mid­dle-class Lon­don, cor­po­rate Lon­don, mid-thir­ties Lon­don, mar­ried Lon­don – I was in their world. And I knew there was a whole other world out there.