Saqi Books

The ultimate goal of the Sufi is to become one with the invisible, that is, the absolute

would have been easier than for them to come to an agreement to bring

influence of immigrants who had come in large numbers from the Muslim areas of the empire. The second half of the 16th century was a period of rapid expansion

I amuse myself by dodging my shadow and thinking cheerfully about where a rainbow ends, and this distracts me suddenly from my shadow, which has become entangled in a thorn bush and is injured but not bleeding.

When I descend the steep hill into the valley, making my own way, unaided, I remember I have left my shadow hanging on a thorn bush. I don’t know if I am sad or not, as a literary loss such as this is not worth recording.

I say: ‘Tomorrow I will climb a higher hill to see the sea beyond the settlements. But I will strap my shadow to me so I don’t lose it again.’

We, narrators of the documents, official and poetic, required to be produced spontaneously, know that the sky will never abandon its many works to give evidence.

A confined land with no area big enough for a proper battle with an external enemy, and no hall large enough for people to meet in to construct an extensive preamble to a spurious peace.

In spite of this, or because of it, people say that a discontented god chose it as a cave to retreat to, a place to hide from the uninvited guests, who immediately stole our rams’ horns and used them as weapons to keep us away from the door of the holy cave.

But images of memories descend from afar and land in the bowl of water, neutral memories, neither painful nor joyful, such as a walk in a pine forest, or waiting for a bus in the rain, and I wash them as intently as if I had a literary crystal vase in my hands.