Poems

Yunus Emre's classic Anatolian ilahi. Sharia, tariqa, haqiqa, marifa: nested registers of one road, ending in the silence where speech runs out.

Yunus Emre's Anatolian ilahi of ghurbat. Echoes 'Islam began as a stranger,' the rights of the dead stranger, and the heart's first home.

Yunus Emre's plain Turkish ilahi on heart-breaking. The prayer that breaks a heart is not a prayer; the seventy-two nations cannot wash that hand.

An exploration of the prophetic tradition 'Die before you die' as elaborated by Rumi. The voluntary death of the ego that leads to true life.

Yunus Emre's celebrated poem on the total transformation wrought by divine love. The poet has been made into a road, a stranger to himself.

Rumi's teaching on silence: khamush at the close of his ghazals, the heart's hearing, fana, and the limit where speech ends and presence begins.

Rumi's verses on the Water of Life (Âb-ı Hayât), the treasure hidden in darkness, and the Sufi teaching that transformation is found in the places the ego.

Hallaj's declaration 'I am the Truth' led to his execution in 922 CE. What did he mean, and why do Sufis still debate it today?

Rumi's most quoted poem in its original context: not abandoning commitment, but a call to return after failure, rooted in tawba.

Rumi's celebrated poem on the soul's ascent through mineral, plant, animal, and human forms. An analysis of spiritual evolution in Sufi philosophy.

Yunus Emre's poem on acquired knowledge versus self-knowledge. A foundational text of Sufi epistemology in Turkish.

Yunus Emre's iconic poem on fana and divine love, analyzed through the lens of Sufi psychology: how love dissolves the ego and reveals what lies beneath.

Ibn Arabi's poem from the Tarjuman al-Ashwaq on the heart's capacity to receive all divine self-disclosures, with its true meaning.

Rumi's most misquoted poem from the Divan-i Kebir. What does it actually say in its original Persian and theological context?

The opening of Rumi's Masnavi: the most celebrated passage in Sufi literature on separation, longing, and the soul's return to its origin.

The Sufi allegory of the moth and flame from Attar's Mantiq ut-Tayr: only the moth that burns knows fire. A teaching on fana and ego.

Wine, tavern, cupbearer: the most provocative vocabulary in Sufi poetry is also its most precise. A guide to divine intoxication.