Sophia's War Quotes

What are the dead, anyway, but waves and energy? Light shining from a dead star? That, by the way, is a phrase of Julian's. I remember it from a lecture of his on the Iliad, when Patroklos appears to Achilles in a dream. There is a very moving passage where Achilles overjoyed at the sight of the apparition – tries to throw his arms around the ghost of his old friend, and it vanishes. The dead appear to us in dreams, said Julian, because that's the only way they can make us see them; what we see is only a projection, beamed from a great distance, light shining at us from a dead star… Which reminds me, by the way, of a dream I had a couple of weeks ago. I found myself in a strange deserted city – an old city, like London – underpopulated by war or disease. It was night; the streets were dark, bombed-out, abandoned. For a long time, I wandered aimlessly – past ruined parks, blasted statuary, vacant lots overgrown with weeds and collapsed apartment houses with rusted girders poking out of their sides like ribs. But here and there, interspersed among the desolate shells of the heavy old public buildings, I began to see new buildings, too, which were connected by futuristic walkways lit from beneath. Long, cool perspectives of modern architecture, rising phosphorescent and eerie from the rubble. I went inside one of these new buildings. It was like a laboratory, maybe, or a museum. My footsteps echoed on the tile floors.There was a cluster of men, all smoking pipes, gathered around an exhibit in a glass case that gleamed in the dim light and lit their faces ghoulishly from below. I drew nearer. In the case was a machine revolving slowly on a turntable, a machine with metal parts that slid in and out and collapsed in upon themselves to form new images. An Inca temple… click click click… the Pyramids… the Parthenon. History passing beneath my very eyes, changing every moment. 'I thought I'd find you here,' said a voice at my elbow. It was Henry. His gaze was steady and impassive in the dim light. Above his ear, beneath the wire stem of his spectacles, I could just make out the powder burn and the dark hole in his right temple. I was glad to see him, though not exactly surprised. 'You know,' I said to him, 'everybody is saying that you're dead.' He stared down at the machine. The Colosseum… click click click… the Pantheon. 'I'm not dead,' he said. 'I'm only having a bit of trouble with my passport.' 'What?' He cleared his throat. 'My movements are restricted,' he said. 'I no longer have the ability to travel as freely as I would like.' Hagia Sophia. St. Mark's, in Venice. 'What is this place?' I asked him. 'That information is classified, I'm afraid.' 1 looked around curiously. It seemed that I was the only visitor. 'Is it open to the public?' I said. 'Not generally, no.' I looked at him. There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I wanted to say; but somehow I knew there wasn't time and even if there was, that it was all, somehow, beside the point. 'Are you happy here?' I said at last. He considered this for a moment. 'Not particularly,' he said. 'But you're not very happy where you are, either.' St. Basil's, in Moscow. Chartres. Salisbury and Amiens. He glanced at his watch. 'I hope you'll excuse me,' he said, 'but I'm late for an appointment.' He turned from me and walked away. I watched his back receding down the long, gleaming hall.

Captain Sophia Coloma looked every inch of what she was, which was the sort of person who was not here to put up with your shit.

Yes, it is hard to discover a truth. But it is much harder to be unable to do anything about it. It's as if you know for certain a building will collapse and not one soul―not even those within―will listen to your warning. Hearing truth makes many deaf.

Sophia was silent a while, thinking it through. Then, “Go with it.” She said the unfamiliar words carefully, and, grinning, tried them again. “Go with it. You talk about decent people living decent lives as if that doesn’t mean anything, like it’s not a big deal. But you listen–this ‘decent’, it is the only thing that matters. I don’t care if you theorise, Mr Scientist, a machine that makes all men kind and all women beautiful if, while making your machine, you don’t stop to help the old mother cross the street, you know? I don’t care if you cure ageing, or stop starvation or end nuclear wars, if you forget this–” she rapped her knuckles against my forehead “–or this–” pressed her palm against my chest “–because even then if you save everyone else, you’ll be dead inside. Men must be decent first and brilliant later, otherwise you’re not helping people, just servicing the machine.

The fact that someone had decided I’d be safer on Mars, where you could still only SORT OF breathe the air and SORT OF not get sunburned to death, was a sign that the war with the aliens was not going fantastically well.

Like Indian corn in August, the "what ifs" in my life were growing fast. Too fast.

[...] War es nicht das, was ich in den letzten achtundvierzig Stunden gelernt hatte? Dass es nicht um die Summe der Tage ging, sondern um die Fülle der Gefühle?

By controlling the mass media – television, newspapers, radio, and print – the secret organization with the code name, Rothfellers, convinced people on earth to rebuild their weapons systems as a means of providing money and jobs for everyone. Computer games such as Tron, Space Commander, Defender, and PacMan, replaced Monopoly and other home games during the last of the twentieth century. The games were a scheme of the Rothfellers, with the aid of President Sam Emen, to secretly prepare young boys and girls for nuclear wars by programming their minds to handle computertized warfare. Such preparation would be useful, once the draft was brought into full force.

It's said truth is stranger than fiction, but fiction makes truth a friend, not a stranger.

Und wenn glückliche Momente selten sind, erinnert man sich umso stärker an sie, dachte ich auf der Straße zwischen Sophia und dem Tod. Ich fragte mich, ob das nicht sogar besser war als ewiges Glück.

What about our human rights,' demanded Carl, who'd gathered a small deputation of kids within minutes. 'There is a WAR ON,' said Crewman Devlin, shortly. I wondered if this meant grown-ups actually listen to you when there wasn't a war on, because somehow I was sceptical.

As time passed there was no more buying food, no money, no supplies. On some days, we wouldn’t even have a crumb to eat. There’s a vivid scene in Nanni Loy’s The Four Days of Naples, a movie made after the war about the uprising of the Neapolitans against the occupying Germans, in which one of the young characters sinks his teeth into a loaf of bread so voraciously, so desperately, I can still identify with him. In those four famous days in late September, when Naples rose up against the Germans—even before the Allies arrived, it was the climax of a terrible period of deprivation and marked the beginning of the end of the war in Italy.

It was the beauty of the liturgy in St. Sophia that converted Russia to Orthodoxy after a fact-finding mission from Kiev in the tenth century experienced the service and reported back: “we knew not whether we were in Heaven or earth. For on earth there is no such splendour and beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We only know that there God dwells among men.

He looked at Abby. “Do I get a kiss?” “From the monkey?” Abby shrugged. “You can ask him.” “I’d prefer a kiss from an Italian goddess.” “Yeah? I’ll take you to meet Zia Sophia. If she likes you, then maybe we’ll talk.” “Talk? Doesn’t a knight-errant deserve a reward?” “See, that’s what we’re going to talk about. I don’t give any parts of this package”—she motioned the length of her body—“out as rewards. I’m not saying there won’t be any rewarding. I’m just saying it will be mutual if there is.” “Mu-tu-al.” Jing pressed his hand to his heart. “I swear to give as good as I get.

Yousef gave up his kingdom to be with her, and Madeleine, well her father disowned her, too," Sophia continued. "But they didn't care. They went to America together and lived happily ever after. Until Hitler invaded Poland and started World War Two. Madeleine lost her husband and both of her sons in the war." She sighed dramatically. "I used to wonder, what if, when she stood in this room, at the very moment that she fell in love with Prince Yousef, what if she had the power to know what was to come? All that heartache and loss . . . would she have taken that same path anyway?

Aber was war das überhaupt, das Gedächtnis? Salman überlegte, schrieb auf, strich vieles wieder durch und fand, dass es zu simpel wäre, das Gedächtnis nur als Archiv zu betrachten. Es war viel mehr. Tage brauchte er, bis er das passende Bild fand: Das Gedächtnis ist eine unsichtbare Stadt. Die hat mehrere Vergnügungsviertel, Geheimverstecke, Reparaturwerkstätten aller Art, einen Friedhof, eine Leichenhalle, ein Krematorium, mehrere Tempel für Heilige, dunkle Gebiete, die man fürchtet und meidet, ein Museum, Verliese für Verhasste, Kühlräume, einen Heizkessel zum Aufwärmen alter Erlebnisse und Gärten, die gegossen, gepflegt oder vernachlässigt werden. Auch Supermärkte für glitzernden Schrott, Lügen und Legenden, die er in der Familie, Schule und Kirche für wahr gehalten und gespeichert hatte und die sein Denken beeinflussten.

Rather, the issue is whether it is right to have a mosque and Islamic center in virtually the exact spot where so many Americans were killed in the name of Islamic holy war. I don’t think it is right, any more than I would support the idea of a neo-Nazi recruiting center at Auschwitz. My sympathies in this case are not with religiously deprived Muslims, but rather with Debra Burlingame, a spokesperson for a 9/11 victims group. “Barack Obama has abandoned America at the place where America’s heart was broken nine years ago,” she said.5 Some supporters of the mosque, such as New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, clearly missed the distinction being made here between the right to worship and how and where that right is exercised. Fareed Zakaria, writer and CNN host, recognizes the distinction; even so, he argues in favor of the mosque on the grounds that the folks building it are traditional Muslims who have condemned terrorism.6 Still, it’s not clear why these moderate Muslims disregarded the sentiments of the 9/11 victims’ families and decided on a site so close to Ground Zero. Undoubtedly radical Muslims around the world will view the mosque as a kind of triumphal monument. There is historical precedent for this. Muslims have a long tradition of building monuments to commemorate triumphs over adversaries, as when they built the Dome of the Rock on the site of Solomon’s Temple, or when Mehmet the Conqueror rode his horse into the Byzantine church Hagia Sophia and declared that it would be turned into a mosque. Many Americans may not know this history, but the radical Muslims do, and Obama does as well. The radical Muslims would like the Ground Zero mosque built so it can stand as an enduring symbol of resistance to American power, and President Obama evidently agrees with them.

Sophia counted six clangs of the bell before Mr. Grayson jolted fully awake. He looked up at her, startled and flushed. As though he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. She smiled. Rubbing his eyes, he rose to his feet. “Will I shock you, Miss Turner, if I remove my coat?” Sophia felt a twinge of disappointment. When would he stop treating her with this forced politesse, maintaining this distance between them? How many tales of passionate encounters must she spin before he finally understood that she was no less wicked than he, only less experienced? Perhaps it was time to take more aggressive measures. “By all means, remove your coat.” She tilted her eyes to cast him a saucy look. “Mr. Grayson, I’m not an innocent schoolgirl. You will have to try harder than that to shock me.” His lips curved in a subtle smile. “I’ll take that under advisement.” She watched as he shook the heavy topcoat from his shoulders and peeled it down his arms. He draped the coat over the back of a chair before sitting back down. The damp lawn of his shirt clung to his shoulders and arms. A pleasant shiver rippled down to Sophia’s toes. “It doesn’t suit you anyway,” she said, loading her brush with paint. He gave her a bemused look as he unknotted his cravat and pulled it loose. She inwardly rejoiced. Now, if only she could convince him to do away with his waistcoat…” “The coat,” she explained, when his eyebrows remained raised. “It doesn’t suit you.” “Why not? Is the color wrong?” The sudden seriousness in his tone surprised her. “No, the color is perfectly fine. It’s the cut that’s unflattering. That style is tailored to gentlemen of leisure, lean and slender. But as you are so fond of telling me, Mr. Grayson, you are no gentleman. Your shoulders are too broad for fashion.” “Is that so?” He chuckled as he undid his cuffs. Sophia stared as he turned up his sleeves, baring one tanned muscled forearm, then the other. “What style of garments would best suit me, then?” “Other than a toga?” He rewarded her jest with an easy smile. Sophia dabbed at her canvas, pleased to be making progress at last. “I think you need something less restrictive. Something like a sailor’s garb. Or perhaps a captain’s.” “Truly?” His gaze became thoughtful, then searching. “And even dressed in plain seaman’s clothes, would you still find me handsome enough? In my own way?” “No.” She allowed his brow to crease a moment before continuing. “I should find you surpassingly handsome. In every way.” She mixed paint slowly on her palette and gave him a coy look. “And what of my attire? If you had your way, how would you dress me?” “If I had my way…I wouldn’t.” A thrill raced through Sophia’s body. Her cheeks burned, and her eyes dropped to her lap. She forced her gave back up to meet his. Now was not the moment to lose courage. Nothing held sway over a man’s intentions like jealousy. “Gervais once kept me naked for an entire day so he could paint me.” He blinked. “He painted a nude study of you?” “No. He painted me. I took off my clothes and stretched out on the bed while he dressed me in pigment. Gervais called me his perfect, blank canvas. He painted lavender orchids here”-she traced a small circle just above her breast-“and little vines twining down…” She slid her hand down and noted with delight how his eyes followed its path. “I feigned the grippe and refused to bathe for a week.” Desire and jealous rage warred in his countenance, yet he remained as immobile as one of Lord Elgin’s marble sculptures. What would it take to spur the man into action?

why it shou'd create more surprise, to see [a lady] preside in a council of war, than in a council of state. Why may she not be as capable of heading an army as a parliament; or of commanding at sea as of reigning at land? What shou'd hinder her from holding the helm of a fleet with the same safety and steadiness as that of a nation? And why may she not exercise her soldiers, draw up her troops in battle array, and divide her forces into battalions at land, squadrons at sea, &c. with the same pleasure she wou'd have in seeing or ordering it to be done? The military art has no mystery in it beyond others, which Women cannot attain to. A Woman is as capable as a Man of making herself, by means of a map, acquainted with the good and bad ways, the dangerous and safe passes, or the proper situations for encampment. And what shou'd hinder her from making herself mistress of all the strategems of war, of charging, retreating, surprising, laying ambushes, counterfeiting marches, feigning flights, giving false attacks, supporting real ones, animating the soldiery, and adding example to eloquence by being the first to mount a breach. Persuasion, heat, and example are the soul of victory: And Women can shew as much eloquence, intrepidity, and warmth, where their honour is at stake, as is requisite to attack or defend a town.

But still. It has to end sometime. Wars always do. Everything has to end,' said Josephine, eating another ginger biscuit and getting unexpectedly philosophical. 'Yeah. Things like human civilisation,' I said.

My God!” Sophia sat back, her eyes wide with horror. “It’s a drug! He’s drugging her and she doesn’t even know it.” Here we go. “It’s common knowledge that we’re genetic traders—the fact that we have more than one means to attract a mate of an entirely different species should come as no surprise,” he pointed out. “You…you cold blooded bastard.” Sophia shook her head. “Poor Liv—she has no idea what he’s doing to her.” “It wouldn’t matter even if she did,” Sylvan explained patiently, ignoring her insults. “The mating scent is too strong to fight, even with advanced warning. Stronger species than yours have tried and they have all failed. With very few exceptions.” He closed his eyes briefly thinking of Feenah, of her pure white hair and pale crystal eyes. I’m sorry, Sylvan… “It’s not right. You’re not fighting fair.” Sophia’s words pushed back the painful memory and Sylvan opened his eyes again to see the look of despair and anger on her lovely face. She looked almost on the brink of tears. Wonderful—she was even more upset and irrational than he had thought she would be. He supposed he ought to feel irritated. Instead, the illogical urge to hold and comfort her came over him so strongly that he had to sit back and cross his arms over his chest to keep from reaching for her. “I believe you humans have a saying that covers this—‘All’s fair in love and war.’ Is that right?” he said softly. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean—” Sylvan leaned forward again and took her soft, small hands between his own larger ones. “You must understand, Sophia—Baird isn’t trying to trick your sister into anything. He’s simply using every power at his disposal to keep her. Because he needs her—he loves her. She is the only woman in the entire universe for him and the bond that will form between them will be one of undying love and devotion.” “Maybe for him.” She looked down as though mesmerized by the sight of her own small hands being engulfed in his much larger ones. “But not for Liv. He’s going to trick her into having bonding sex with him —whatever that is—and then she’ll spend the rest of her life hating him once she finds out how he did it.” She looked up at Sylvan. “You don’t know her like I do—she hates being lied to. Her last boyfriend cheated on her and then lied about it and she dumped him and never looked back. If she knew what Baird was doing to her…” “It’s not as though it’s a conscious choice on his part,” Sylvan tried to explain. “It’s the way our bodies react chemically to our chosen mates. We can’t turn it off, even if we try. Sometimes it comes even when it’s not wanted. We have a saying for it—‘The blood knows what the mind does not wish to see.’” Lifting a hand, he cupped her cheek and brushed away the single tear that had escaped her wide green eyes with his thumb. “It cannot be helped.” Sophia

By the end of my first year at the university (1938-39), the history of art professor organized a trip for his students to be sightseeing in Turkey, Greece and Egypt. We were supposed to study especially the Hadjia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul, the pyramids in Egypt and the many architectural sights in Greece. The trip was supposed to take place in September, 1939. I had registered for the student trip abroad, in the company of friendly colleagues. As a preparation for the boat crossings, I had a tailor make for me a rain jacket, with a woolen buttoned-in lining. We were supposed to travel by boat from Constan ta, a Black Sea port in Romania. That trip never materialized since World War II broke out on September 1, 1939. The only good that came of these preparations was the jacket, which did me great duty during the war years.

Cat is magnificent. She hates public confrontations. She’d never defend herself like this, but for me, she’ll go to war. She’s not the woman I thought she was.

Vladimir Soloviev’s tale of the Antichrist from War, Progress, and the End of History.

Yaroslav died on February 28, 1054, and was buried in the Cathedral of St. Sophia, which he had built. His earthly remains were placed in a white marble sarcophagus decorated with carvings of the Christian cross and Mediterranean plants, including palms, which were by no means native to Kyivan Rus’. According to one theory, the sarcophagus—a stone embodiment of Byzantine cultural imperialism—had once been the final resting place of a Byzantine notable but was brought to Kyiv either by marauding Vikings or by enterprising Greeks. The sarcophagus is still preserved in the cathedral, but the remains of Yaroslav the Wise disappeared from Kyiv in 1943, during the German occupation of the city. By some accounts, they ended up in the hands of Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchs in the United States and were spotted in Manhattan after the war. Some suspect that they may now be in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Brooklyn. What could account for the transfer of Prince Yaroslav’s remains all the way to the Western Hemisphere? The answer has nothing to do with American cultural imperialism but is closely associated with the Ukrainian claim to the legacy of Kyivan Rus’. Ukrainian clergymen leaving their homeland removed the relics so as to prevent them from falling into the hands of the advancing Soviet army. Concern that if returned to Kyiv, they might end up in Russia explains enough the continuing refusal of the custodians of the Brooklyn church to discuss the issue of Yaroslav’s remains with representatives of the Ukrainian government. Both Ukrainians and Russians claim Yaroslav the Wise as one of their eminent medieval rulers, and his image appears on the banknotes of both countries. The Ukrainian bill depicts Yaroslav with a Ukrainian-style moustache in the tradition of Prince Sviatoslav and the Ukrainian Cossacks. On the Russian note, we see a monument to him as the legendary founder of the Russian city of Yaroslavl, first mentioned in a chronicle seventeen years after his death. The Russian bill shows Yaroslav with a beard in the tradition of Ivan the Terrible and the Muscovite tsars of his era.

He was buried in Constantinople at the Hagia Sophia—the only person ever to be laid to rest there. The ancient doge had ensured that his and Venice’s name would be forever remembered in the history of crusading and of the affairs of the great Christian empire of the East.

Unexpectedly, a voice rises from the street below, something shouted in German, a word he doesn't recognise. He thinks of Sophia hurling glasses at the floor; there was something impressive, almost mesmerising in the fury that roared out of her

Finally, in keeping with Islam’s perennial threat and primordial boast, they used Hagia Sophia and many other churches as “a stable for their horses,” which they fed from toppled altars turned into troughs. Indeed, lest the jihadi pedigree of the sack be missed, the invaders everywhere set to desecrating and mocking all vestiges of Christianity—a sort of “Islam was here.” Thus, “they paraded the [Hagia Sophia’s main] Crucifix in mocking procession through their camp, beating drums before it, crucifying the Christ again with spitting and blasphemies and curses. They placed a Turkish cap… upon His head, and jeeringly cried, ‘Behold the god of the Christians!’” They “gouged the eyes from the [embalmed] saints” and dumped their corpses “in the middle of the streets for swine and dogs to trample on… and the images of our Lord Jesus Christ and His Saints were burned or hacked to pieces.

Like other grand churches that came under Muslim control—such as John the Baptist’s basilica, now the Great Mosque of Damascus—Hagia Sophia’s lot was not destruction but transformation into a mosque.

Sophia breathed. Yes, she would have control, and say as little as she could. But what if she saw things going wrong, subtle things. Small things. Things that were real but would sound insignificant if she were to speak them out loud. Sophia breathed again. All she had to do was stay quiet.

The commerce seemed to be one-way; nothing was being produced in Ameristan that was desired outside of it. Zula, Sophia’s mother, had spoken once about the way that Midwestern farmers had slowly, over generations, beggared themselves by producing commodities. She and Jake had gone in together on a few business ventures intended to create distinct local brands that, like the various cheeses of France, might fetch higher prices in coastal grocery stores: producing pancetta instead of bacon, and so on. But chemistry was chemistry. Ethanol was ethanol, high-fructose corn syrup was high-fructose corn syrup, and so on. So economic competition here was a war of all against all, and the only winners were people in cities who wanted to buy that stuff for as little money as possible.

The Turks, themselves defeated in the Great War, treated the Russians surprisingly well and smiled acceptingly when their uninvited guests would rest on the stairs of mosques. They would even allow the Russians to enter the Hagia Sophia, which before the Ottoman conquest of 1453 had been the major cathedral of Eastern Christianity. Greeks and Armenians, old foes of the Turks, were still banned from this enormous mosque.

Having taken possession of one of Christendom’s greatest and oldest basilicas—nearly a thousand years old at the time of its capture—the invaders “engaged in every kind of vileness within it, making of it a public brothel.”154 On “its holy altars” they enacted “perversions with our women, virgins, and children,”155 including “the Grand Duke’s daughter who was quite beautiful.” She was forced to “lie on the great altar of Hagia Sophia with a crucifix under her head and then raped.

Was jetzt war, war alles, und das Morgen eine Zeit, die so uninteressant schien, dass sie keine Wichtigkeit hatte.

We're all in the race of chasing something beautiful. We're all in the thirst of finding beauty not knowing it shines beneath the core of our soul. We're all barmecides believing in eviternity. We're invidious to ourselves, gorgonizing ourselves. We're all forgetting to dulcorate. We're crying kelds of optimism. We're deracinating ourselves from treasure boxes made of love. We're all in the race of being splendiferous. We're all warlords of the nation we have inside of our brain, always at war, always at love. We're iridescenting the future as if it will stop at some point. We're eager, eager for eucatastrophes, even when we see a wildly present flowing in front of us. We're the ones that treat each other like deadwoods and we're also the ones that feel beautiful with each other. Love seems mellifluous and we are all polyhistors, spreading the fact that love is sempiternal. We elucidate love and call it beautiful and we also call it the most painful thing ever. We all exist in cerulean skies and divagate the world as if we have no aim. We'll soon drown in this maelstrom and become lacunas in the world. We're pestiferous of love and we survive in a hamartia. We suffer from phobophobia. But then it will be us, the zealots, the ones who'll feel life is still beautiful, no matter if the people you love, leave you. Learn to move on, or learn to fall for the right person.

The assassination of Tsar Alexander II of Russia in March 1881 marked the beginning of an era of political assassinations that included the murders, in quick succession, of President Sadi Carnot of France in 1894; Spanish prime minister Canovas del Castillo in 1897; Empress Elizabeth of Austria and Queen of Hungary in 1898; King Humbert I of Italy in 1900; President William McKinley in 1901; and King Carlos I of Portugal and his heir apparent in 1908. And then, on June 28, 1914, at Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbian nationalists threw a bomb into the carriage of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nephew and heir of Austria-Hungary’s Emperor Franz Joseph II, killing him and his young wife, Sophia.11 The scene was set for a world war.

Die Frage nach dem Grund, nach dem Sinn für die Erschaffung der Welt taucht im Geist jedes aufmerksamen Menschen auf. Die Antwort ist, um die Monotonie zu durchbrechen. Nenne es Gott, nenne das Einzige Sein, nenne es Quelle und Ziel von allem; da das einzige Wesen allein war, wünschte es, dass es da etwas zu erkennen geben möge. Die Hindus bezeichnen die Schöpfung als Brahmas Traum. Man mag es Traum nennen, aber es ist die grundlegende Absicht. Die Sufis erklären es folgendermaßen: Gott, das Liebende wollte Seine eigene Natur erkennen; daher wurde durch die Schöpfung das Geliebte ins Leben gerufen, damit die Liebe sich offenbaren möge. Wenn wir es in diesem Lichte betrachten, dann ist alles was wir sehen, das Geliebte. Wie Rumi, der größte Schriftsteller Persiens sagt: „Der Geliebte ist alles in Allem, der Liebende aber verschleiert Ihn; der Geliebte ist alles was lebt, der Liebende ist ein totes Ding.“ Sufis nennen daher Gott den Geliebten. Sie erkennen das Geliebte in allen Wesen. Sie denken sich Gott nicht im Himmel, getrennt, von allen Wesen entfernt. In Allem, in allen Formen sehen sie die Schönheit Gottes. Mit dieser Erkenntnis wird der zentrale und grundlegende Sinn des Lebens erfüllt.