A Garden Among the Flames
by Ibn 'Arabi
O Marvel,
a garden among the flames!
My heart can take on
any form:
a meadow for gazelles,
a cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka'ba for the circling pilgrim,
the tables of the Torah,
the scrolls of the Qur'án.
I profess the religion of love;
wherever its caravan turns along the way,
that is the belief,
the faith I keep.
Ibn ʿArabī was an Arab Andalusian Sufi mystic and philosopher. From Poem 11 of the Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, translation by Michael A. Sells.
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