The Nest 

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Upon the summit of love timeless [1]
When ‘Ishq loves resistless

Beyond the reach of any perfection [2]
Where ‘Ishq reigns searchless

‘I’ am no longer and yet a green petrel [3]
Wafting above the sea of Oneness 

Words are no longer and yet the suffering
The gales gliding the wings soundless

Build! My Beloved a lofty nest for I
Now and forever living nameless

Harbored no longer in any hearts
Now and forever dying loveless

A nest made from Your eternal love
Subsisting upon Love moveless

A nest made from the thorns of loss
Ever-living upon Loving boundless



Apercu 

Know my dearest love—May Allah provide you and bless you with the perfection of ‘Ishq (Unrestrained Love)—for That Beloved Deity, The Subhāna-Hu (Glorious Hu) The Sublime, ITs Qadim (Time Immemorial) Dhāt (Innate Essence), Azal-an (Beginning-less Sempiternal) and Abad-an (Endless Eternal), has been characterized by a Qadim (Infinitely Ancient) Sifat (Divine Attribute), from amongst the ensemble of many attributes, namely the attribute of ‘Ishq.

ITs Divine Selfsame in love with ITs own Divine Selfsame. Therefore:

The Love, the Lover and the Beloved are all One and all the same Divine Selfsame.

The cosmos painted by a Singleton Dye i.e. that of the Sifat (Divine Attribute) of ‘Ishq (Unrestrained Love) and Hu (IT) is sanctified free and away from Hadath (Transience of Temporal-ness). (Ishq not subject to nascence or transience of the space-time of this world and not subject to the laws of manifest universe.)

‘Ishq is the Kamāl (Perfection) of Mahab-bat (Divine Love) and yet Mahab-bat is the Sifat (Divine Attribute) of the Haqq (The Absolute & True Reality, Allah).

Do not be confused by the nomenclature, that indeed Ishq and Mahab-bat are one and the same.

Sifat (Divine Attribute) is from Hu (IT) and again subsisting upon the Dhāt (Divine Essence) is for Hu. (Mahab-bat is a Sifat (Attribute) while ‘Ishq is complete loss of all things and entirely subsisting/loving upon/for Allah)

There is no variance for Hu: Not that IT is in love with ITself but that IT is Āsheq (Infinitely in love) with ITself. (Once something has the amplitude of infinity is no longer subject to the increase or decrease of bound numbers.)

For Hu (IT) there are no temporal and transient variations. (If you feel a love that has limits then you do not have ‘Ishq from Hu)

Come to know the Mahab-bat (Divine Love) of Hu that for certain this Divine Knowledge is that of Hu: Ceases not to love ITs own Self by ITself, same as IT ceases not knowing about ITself and (ceases not) beholding ITself by ITs own Self. (Prophetic Narration)

Know that ITs Divine Oneness is indivisible… (Therefore the Love, the Lover and the Beloved are indivisible all one and the same selfsame…)

Excerpt from The Lovers’ Daffodil by Sheikh Roozbehān Baqli Shirazi chapter 28

And my love! Keep in mind:

Surely every beloved ought to have a lover save
                                                   That Beloved
And when I said, “I love you” I loved other than
                                                   That Beloved
Soon none remains save the love of the Beloved for
                                                   That Beloved



[1] According to Junaid Baghdadi the Arabic word ‘Ishq means the summit or the highest point of a place i.e. a love may start from this world but may be raised aloft the summit of the mountain of love and that unrestrained sublime love is called ‘Ishq.

[2] Ishq is a form of love that has gone beyond the realm of finiteness into the real where the amplitude of loving is constant i.e. infinite and invariant. And at that it has already reached the perfection and has traversed through any limiting boundaries of perfection vs. imperfection.

[3] ‘Green petrel’ is a Sufi code word based upon the Prophetic Narration: The souls of martyrs are within the bosoms of the green birds (of Paradise) i.e. those who had love in form of ‘Ishq within, lost their heads by willfully throwing their self upon the blades of loving and thus sacrificed their lives to prove the infinite depth of the love that drowned their otherwise loveless living and otherwise worthless being.


Background: Haitian Street Children making a living by cleaning windshields of cars in Port-Au-Prince and if the driver ignores them they hang from the door and drag through the traffic until they are given some money.


© 2005-2002,  Dara O. Shayda