A Muslim Convert Once More

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ People come to us for a prayer, or for inspiration.   Perhaps a comforting word.   Sometimes, they only want to talk and need someone to listen and care enough to ask a few questions.   But what do we actually do?   We are merchants of hope.   We try to give their life meaning.   And tell them for every disappointment, the Generosity of Allah ( s.w.t. ) is so Immense that there is never any loss.   We speak to the broken-hearted because they know us as one of them.   And who is more broken-hearted than the friends of Allah ( s.w.t. )?   When Musa ( a.s. ) asked Allah ( s.w.t. ) where He was, Allah ( s.w.t. ) Replied, “I am with the broken-hearted.”   We know loss and pain and sorrow.   Just as our Prophet ( s.a.w. ) did.   We know what it is to wake up each day so hurt with hearts bleeding.   Yet we still pray and fast and ask from Him without ceasing.   That is hope.  ...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   Shaykh Muhyi ad-Din Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn ‘Arabi ( q.s. ) has dedicated a complete chapter of his Futuhat al-Makkiyah to love, which has been translated by Dr. Maurice Gloton as Traité de L’Amour .   He described three types of love: Divine Love, spiritual love and natural love.   “Know that Love is according to three degrees.   Firstly, there is natural love, which is the love of ordinary people, whose aim is unification in the animal spirit …   It ends in the act of physical union, in which the passion of love spreads through the whole body like water permeating wool, or rather, like the permeation of colour in the coloured.   Secondly, there is spiritual love of the soul, whose aim is becoming like the Beloved, accomplishing what is the Beloved’s due and knowing His decree.   Thirdly, there is Divine Love, which is the Love of God for the servant and the love of the servant for God, as i...