others. That is to say, instruments producing Qur’anic sorrow or revelational eagerness are not harmful.
But if it produces the woebegone grief of the orphan or carnal thrills, the instrument is prohibited. It changes from person to person, not everyone is the same.
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Branches Offer Fruits in the Name of Mercy
Branches Offer Fruits in the Name of Mercy
On every side the branches of the tree of creation apparently extend the fruits of bounties to the hands of beings with spirits.
But in reality it is a hand of mercy, a hand of power, which holds out to us those branches and fruits.
You should kiss that hand of mercy in gratitude; you should proclaim the holiness of that hand of power thankfully.
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An Explanation of the Three Ways Indicated at the End of Sura al-Fatiha
An Explanation of the Three Ways
Indicated at the End of Sura al-Fatiha
O brother full of hope! Take your imagination and come with me. See, we are in a land, we look around. There is no one to see us.
A layer of black cloud has settled on the high mountains, like tent posts. The cloud has covered too the whole face of the earth.
It forms a solid ceiling, but its six sides are open, so the sun is visible. We are under the cloud, the darkness oppresses us.
The distress is suffocating, the airlessness is killing us. Now three ways are open to us. One is a luminous world, I beheld it once, that metaphorical land.
Yes, I came here once before, I have passed down these three ways. The first way is this: most people take it; it is the way of the world, it invites us to travel it.
See, we are on our way, we are going on foot. See how the sea-sands of the desert scorch us with their anger, threatening us!
See the mountainous waves; they are threatening us too. Now thanks be to God we have emerged on the other side, we can see the face of the sun.
But only we know the difficulties we have suffered. Oh! we have returned to the wasteland, the ceiling of cloud with its lowering darkness. What we need is the eye of the heart to illumine things.