Written transcript of the lecture
The Meshkat-e Noor teachings series🌼🔆🌼Diving into the Ocean of Love for Husayn🌼🔆🌼Title
🌹🔅☘️ بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحيمِ ☘️🔅🌹
🔅🌹 “The Mysteries of Love and Loving”; “The Manners and Literature of Husayni Arbaeen”; “The Miracles of Husayni Arbaeen”; “Husayn: A Miracle Ever-Flowing and Everlasting”; “The Mysteries of the Arbaeen Walk,” and more: an abstract with an addendum
1403.06.08 Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat) 110.141(903) 🌹🔅
🔅🌼A map and broad outline of the discussion: the lover’s dive into the beloved🌼🔅
🌼 Imam Husayn, peace be upon him, is the everlasting miracle of the Almighty. This miracle will endure and remain ever-present.
🌼 Imam Husayn, peace be upon him, is the supreme sign of love and martyrdom.
🌼 Imam Husayn called people toward God. When his prayer alone could not bring them to salvation, he sacrificed his very life and gave his pure blood. Even after his martyrdom, he continues to rescue people from ignorance, heedlessness, doubt and uncertainty.
🌼 Through Husayn, God extends His merciful, compassionate and generous grace to all humanity—and, beyond this, grants hidden blessings as well. Who can attain God’s compassionate grace?
🌼 Who receives God’s hidden blessings, who receives blessings granted on loan, and who receives blessings by way of inference?
🌼 Through Husayn’s life, God breathes new life into souls. For Husayn’s sake, God looks upon all humanity.
🌼 Everything about Husayn is a miracle: his soil, his mourning rites, his Arbaeen, and every trace he leaves.
🌼 From grief for him, joy stirs within the human being.
🌼 One of the miracles of Husayn, peace be upon him, is the Arbaeen pilgrimage on foot.
🌼 I should have made this journey with the intention of growing spiritually. If I did not set out with that intention, and now it is too late for me to retrace my steps, I should remember that God’s hand is never too short. I should turn to God, who makes good what is lacking, and say: بسم الله على اوله و بسم الله على آخره.
🌼 The shrines of the Imams, peace be upon them, are appointed meeting places with God.
🌼 The Arbaeen of Husayn, peace be upon him, is an answer to the call of love for God. Did you set out with the intention of attaining God’s love?
🌼 The Arbaeen walk was a practice in loving God. Paradise is veiled by hardships; lovers know neither heat nor cold: they set out and reach their destination. The path to Paradise runs through Hell.
🌼 How can I open up the greater world within me so that it may reach the highest vantage point? I must plunge into the depths of hardship. Unless I enter the sea’s fiercest waves, this power will not be released.
🌼 Had I set out with artistry, had I begun my journey with the spirit of noble character, that great tempest of servitude to God would have been released from within me. Here is the question: will this power in me be released like coal, or like nuclear energy?
🌼 To be set free, one must plunge into the heart of hardship.
🌼 Patience takes three forms: patience in affliction, patience in obedience, and patience in affliction.
🌼 To set the greater world within us in motion, we need power and fuel. Is there any fuel more blessed than that of Husayn?
🌼 The lover dives in search of the beloved.
🌼 If I merely gazed at the sea, I would have lost. I must dive for its jewels. If I reached Husayn’s vessel but did not set sail with it, I would have lost. The destination is only the beginning here: I should have journeyed aboard Husayn’s vessel.
🌼 When I reached the beacon of guidance, did I benefit from its light? When I reached the station of the tranquil soul, what did I gain from it?
🌼 I conquered Husayn’s summit, but came back with my eyes closed. I should have returned with Husayn; instead, I came back without him.
🌼 Was this not a journey to practice loving God? Was it not a kind of trial and migration—a breaking away from the whole world and its pleasures, and setting out toward God?
🌼 Arbaeen shows that the lover has so filled the beloved’s heart that the lover knows only one course: to move toward him.
🌼 Trial always brings hardship; a lover knows nothing sweeter than hardship.
🌼 Every movement is a beat of love; without movement, devotion has no meaning. Movement without love is futile.
Knowledge and love are the two wings of complete movement.
🌼 Every beautiful melody bespeaks movement guided by knowledge and wisdom. Every beauty and every pleasure bespeaks wise, enlightened movement.
🌼 Had we made our way along the Arbaeen route with knowledge, the Imam of Our Time would have appeared and led the caravan himself.
🌼 The attraction of Husayn is not an end, but a beginning. God has bestowed this treasure upon us—not through anything we have done—so that we may set it flowing.
🌼 When we set out toward the Imam, we must truly resolve to turn away from sin. If only our feet did not outpace our hearts, and our hearts led the way.
🌼 Husayn is like a book still being written, advancing toward the highest perfection. He is the interpreter of «هوالجمیل», «هو کل یوم فی شان» and «هو البدیع». Yet I imagined that this year’s Husayn was the same as last year’s. We must understand that he has gone far ahead.
🔅🌼 A miracle ever flowing 🌼🔅
🌹Imam Husayn, peace be upon him, is the center of divine grace and attention; God turns toward us for his sake.
🌹Imam Husayn, peace be upon him, is the source of miracles. His miracles flow on, from the pure earth to the throne of his beauty: in mourning, Karbala, Ashura, Arbaeen, the pilgrims and their Arbaeen procession, the sheltering of pilgrims, and the fervor of his devotees.
🌹God’s universal grace through Imam Husayn encompasses everyone: His all-embracing mercy is for all, while His special mercy is intended for the elect. The cups of Husayni wine, pure and purifying, are poured by God Most High for all and for each in particular. Everyone is intoxicated by this pure Husayni wine; the elect, more deeply so.
🌷🔆 فَأَعْذَرَ فِي الدُّعَاءِ وَ بَذَلَ مُهْجَتَهُ فِيكَ لِيَسْتَنْقِذَ عِبَادَكَ مِنَ الضَّلَالَةِ وَ الْجَهَالَةِ وَ الْعَمَى وَ الشَّكِّ وَ الِارْتِيَابِ إِلَى بَابِ الْهُدَى مِنَ الرَّدَى وَ أَنْتَ تَرَى وَ لَا تُرَى وَ أَنْتَ بِالْمَنْظَرِ الْأَعْلَى[1]
🔆 Thus, in his call, (Imam Husayn, peace be upon him) left no argument unanswered. He counselled you wholeheartedly and gave his life for your sake, to deliver Your servants from misguidance, ignorance, blindness, doubt and uncertainty, and guide them to the Gate of Guidance.
🌹After giving his very life, the testimony of the Master of Martyrs, peace be upon him, dispels misguidance, ignorance, blindness, doubt and uncertainty from hearts.
🌹Husayn is sovereign over hearts, and his reign is never interrupted, not even for a moment. The memory of Husayn stirs the fervor of devotion.
🌹Imam Husayn, peace be upon him, is the supreme sign of love and martyrdom, a living, tangible miracle, and the special path to God’s good pleasure.
🌹One of God’s miracles through Imam Husayn is the Arbaeen procession. The immense effects of this merciful miracle become evident when the rules of this noble tradition are observed. If a person undertakes the procession with the finest intention—«تقرب الی الله»—and adorns the soul with noble virtues, they will witness effects beyond all wonder, for in this procession they will set the greater and mightier world in motion.
| دَوَاؤُكَ فِيكَ وَ مَا تَشْعُرُ | وَ دَاؤُكَ مِنْكَ وَ مَا تَنْظُرُ | |
| وَ تَحْسَبُ أَنَّكَ جِرْمٌ صَغِيرٌ | وَ فِيكَ انْطَوَى الْعَالَمُ الْأَكْبَرُ | |
| وَ أَنْتَ الْكِتَابُ الْمُبِينُ الَّذِي | بِأَحْرُفِهِ يَظْهَرُ الْمُضْمَر[2] |
🔅🌼 The forgotten crown 🌼🔅
🌹The finest intention on the Arbaeen procession is the greatest encounter with God, for we are going to meet God! That is, to intend «لقاء الله الاعظم» at the finest Husayni meeting-place is to journey to Mount Qaf, to Mount Husayn—in truth, to journey to a meeting with God.
🌹If only I had recited the Supplication for Noble Character on this blessed journey and given my travels the touch of gold.
🌹 Satan is a thief who steals intentions, especially the finest of them. More precisely, he is a thief who steals a person’s attention, so that they cannot fulfil their noblest intentions.
🌹 The sacred sites of Mount Sinai and the Cave of Hira are places where every lover may commune with, call upon, and meet the Eternal Beloved, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Compassionate.
🌹If the intention of drawing nearer to God is forgotten, an action will be lifeless,
🌹When carrying out your deeds, and during the Arbaeen pilgrimage, did you set an intention? At every step and with every breath, did you set an intention concerning the point of departure, the destination, and the journey between them?
🌹Forgetting one’s intention, or holding a wrong intention, diminishes the worth of a person’s deeds, wastes their suffering, and leaves them with nothing but fatigue.
🌹But the hidden point in this great mystery is that He restores what is lacking. He makes amends and reunites the forgotten intention with its proper place. So set your intention now!
For example:
🌷🔆 عَنْ دَاوُدَ بْنِ فَرْقَدٍ قَالَ: قُلْتُ لِأَبِي عَبْدِ اللَّهِ ع كَيْفَ أُسَمِّي عَلَى الطَّعَامِ قَالَ فَقَالَ إِذَا اخْتَلَفَتِ الْآنِيَةُ فَسَمِّ عَلَى كُلِّ إِنَاءٍ قُلْتُ فَإِنْ نَسِيتُ أَنْ أُسَمِّيَ قَالَ تَقُولُ بِسْمِ اللَّهِ عَلَى أَوَّلِهِ وَ آخِرِهِ.[3]
🔆I said to Imam al-Sadiq (peace be upon him), “How should I invoke God’s name while eating?” He replied, “Whenever you change the dish or the type of food changes, say bismillah for each of them.” I asked, “What should I do if I forget?” He replied, “Whenever you remember, say: بسم الله علی اوله و آخره (In the name of God, at the beginning and end of the meal).”
🌹We must set out along every path with a “sincere intention and a sound heart.”
🌷🔆وَ انْتَهِ بِنِيَّتِي إِلَى أَحْسَنِ النِّيَّات
🌷🔆اللَّهُمَّ وَفِّرْ بِلُطْفِكَ نِيَّتِى، وَ صَحِّحْ بِمَا عِنْدَكَ يَقِينِى، وَ اسْتَصْلِحْ بِقُدْرَتِكَ مَا فَسَدَ مِنِّى.
🌷🔆وَ مَتِّعْنِي بِهُدًى صَالِحٍ لَا أَسْتَبْدِلُ بِهِ، وَ طَرِيقَةِ حَقٍّ لَا أَزِيغُ عَنْهَا، وَ نِيَّةِ رُشْدٍ لَا أَشُكُّ فِيهَا
🌹If a person is wealthy but does not make use of their wealth, they are not only no different from the poor; their forgetfulness will also incur punishment.
🔅🌼 Training in Patience and Enduring Hardship 🌼🔅
🌹The hardship of the Arbaeen pilgrimage is among the most blessed of hardships: an exhilarating, sweet, and delightful hardship.
🌹Why is Paradise surrounded by hardship? Why is God’s Kaaba located in a harsh place with an inhospitable climate? How is a lover’s heart put to the test?
🌹Divine pleasure is reached by a difficult and rugged road!
🌹Welcoming hardship on the path to the Eternal Beloved is proof of love when one claims to be a lover.
🌹Husayn is the true paradise of pure hearts and the most beautiful signature affirming eternal love.
🌷🔆 عَنْ أَبِي جَعْفَرٍ ع قَالَ: الْجَنَّةُ مَحْفُوفَةٌ بِالْمَكَارِهِ وَ الصَّبْرِ فَمَنْ صَبَرَ عَلَى الْمَكَارِهِ فِي الدُّنْيَا دَخَلَ الْجَنَّةَ وَ جَهَنَّمُ مَحْفُوفَةٌ بِاللَّذَّاتِ وَ الشَّهَوَاتِ فَمَنْ أَعْطَى نَفْسَهُ لَذَّتَهَا وَ شَهْوَتَهَا دَخَلَ النَّارَ.[4]
🔆Imam al-Baqir, peace be upon him, said: Paradise is mingled with hardships and patience. Whoever endures adversity and hardship in this world will enter Paradise. And Hell is mingled with pleasures and desires. Whoever indulges their soul in its pleasures and desires will enter the fire of Hell.
🌻🔆Maryam: 71 وَ إِنْ مِنْكُمْ إِلاَّ وارِدُها كانَ عَلى رَبِّكَ حَتْماً مَقْضِيًّا
🔆And every one of you will enter Hell; this is a decree irrevocably ordained by your Lord!
🌹Does the road to Paradise pass through the heart of Hell? If the heart trembles, will one fall from the Bridge of Sirat into the depths of Hell?
🔅🌼 Unleashing the Human Being’s Limitless Power 🌼🔅
🌹The human being is a source of power, but only potentially; this power must be actualised!
🌹Fasting—especially on long, hot days filled with work, activity and worship—prayer with prolonged bowing and prostration, accompanied by lengthy, loving supplications, embracing demanding acts of virtue, and visiting holy places and worshipping with a sound heart: all these, as do pilgrimages such as the Arbaeen walk, unleash a mighty force, fueled by love joined to knowledge.
🌹A person and their personal capacities must come to full expression, and their greater world must be set in motion—within the reactor of the Two Weighty Things, of course!
🌹All divine laws, commandments and programs are means of releasing the immense power hidden within the human soul. When a person is placed in the reactor of the Two Weighty Things, that immense power is released. The Arbaeen walk is an outstanding example of such a means. A person formed by the Two Weighty Things is surely bound to undergo a nuclear explosion; when joined with noble virtues, a storm of power will emerge from them.
🌹Provided one observes the etiquette, principles, rulings and art of the noble Arbaeen-walking tradition, a person becomes a source of wonders.
🌹Two kinds of energy output may be imagined: coal-fired or nuclear. If it is mystical and grounded in truth, the output is nuclear.
🌷🔆 قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ص الصَّبْرُ ثَلَاثَةٌ صَبْرٌ عِنْدَ الْمُصِيبَةِ وَ صَبْرٌ عَلَى الطَّاعَةِ وَ صَبْرٌ عَنِ الْمَعْصِيَةِ فَمَنْ صَبَرَ عَلَى الْمُصِيبَةِ حَتَّى يَرُدَّهَا بِحُسْنِ عَزَائِهَا كَتَبَ اللَّهُ لَهُ ثَلَاثَمِائَةِ دَرَجَةٍ مَا بَيْنَ الدَّرَجَةِ إِلَى الدَّرَجَةِ كَمَا بَيْنَ السَّمَاءِ إِلَى الْأَرْضِ وَ مَنْ صَبَرَ عَلَى الطَّاعَةِ كَتَبَ اللَّهُ لَهُ سِتَّمِائَةِ دَرَجَةٍ مَا بَيْنَ الدَّرَجَةِ إِلَى الدَّرَجَةِ كَمَا بَيْنَ تُخُومِ الْأَرْضِ إِلَى الْعَرْشِ وَ مَنْ صَبَرَ عَنِ الْمَعْصِيَةِ كَتَبَ اللَّهُ لَهُ تِسْعَمِائَةِ دَرَجَةٍ مَا بَيْنَ الدَّرَجَةِ إِلَى الدَّرَجَةِ كَمَا بَيْنَ تُخُومِ الْأَرْضِ إِلَى مُنْتَهَى الْعَرْشِ.[5]
🔆The noble Messenger (PBUH) said: “Patience is of three kinds. Whoever bears a calamity with patience until they pass through it with the solace of beauty, God appoints for them three hundred degrees, the distance between each degree like the distance between earth and sky. Whoever patiently obeys God, He grants six hundred degrees, the distance between each degree like the distance from the earth’s depths to the Throne. And whoever patiently resists sin, God grants them nine hundred degrees, the distance between each degree like the distance from the earth’s deepest depths to the farthest reaches of the Throne.”
🔅🌼 The lover dives deep into the beloved 🌼🔅
🌹Whoever sets out for the sea must know how to swim, so that upon reaching it they can dive well. Do not be one who merely gazes at the sea and turns back!
🌹Do not be one who merely looks and turns back! When you reach the Kaaba, you must enter the House of God!
🌹With a gemologist’s eye, we must seek the jewels in the seas of the highest heavenly realm.
🌹The supreme destination is a place for taking flight, not turning back.
🌹When you reach the vessel, you must travel aboard it and become its fellow voyager!
🌹When you reach the heavens, you must journey through them and, on your return, bring the heavens back as a gift!
🌹With the Lamp of Guidance, you must become a lamp of guidance; you must attain absolute vision!
🌹Is the Imam not God’s path? You must take the path of God toward God.
🌹Is the Imam not God’s light? When you reach the light, you must reach the Illuminator of all light through that light.
🌻🔆Al-Qiyāmah: 22 وُجُوهٌ يَوْمَئِذٍ ناضِرَةٌ
🌻🔆Al-Qiyāmah: 23 إِلى رَبِّها ناظِرَةٌ
🌹When you reach the pure souls and become the companion of a pure soul, your own soul must be touched by purity.
🌻🔆Al-Fajr: 27 يا أَيَّتُهَا النَّفْسُ الْمُطْمَئِنَّةُ
🌹Have you returned to your Lord?
🔅🌼 The place of the revolution and transformation of servitude 🌼🔅
🌹Something should have happened during the Arbaeen walk for Imam Husayn—what was your event?
🔅🌼 A journey to the summit of one’s potential 🌼🔅
🌹God’s proof is a human being endowed with the fullest capacities of human nature. Through their Imam, people must experience the perfection of their humanity and their servitude to God.
🌻🔆Al-Ma’idah: 35 يا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ وَ ابْتَغُوا إِلَيْهِ الْوَسيلَةَ وَ جاهِدُوا في سَبيلِهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ
🔆O you who believe! Be mindful of God, seek a means of drawing near to Him, and strive in His way, so that you may prosper!
🔅🌼 The bond of the Prophet’s family 🌼🔅
🌹The bond of the Prophet’s family means scaling the lofty summit of Husayn, so that we may raise the stature of our servitude. From that height, in the company of God’s friends, His majesty and exaltedness become clearer and more striking.
🌹From that height, God’s names, attributes, words, likenesses, traces, signs, wonders and marvels are there to be seen, for it lies close to the heart of interpretation.
🔅🌼 Love’s discipline 🌼🔅
🌹The Arba‘een journey is a discipline in love and a proof of it—a kind of trial of servitude.
🌹Pilgrimages such as the Arba‘een walk train us to let go of ourselves, leave comfort behind, and set our hearts on the Truth.
🌹The Arba‘een walk is an escape from the self towards the Truth: unless we free ourselves from the self, we cannot reach Him.
🌹The Arba‘een walk is to turn towards the qibla of love and martyrdom.
🌹To walk in Arba‘een is to find the qibla of the Beloved, set out towards it, and enter the field of love.
🌹The Arba‘een walk shows that a lover is someone whom the Beloved has summoned to Himself, piercing their heart with love’s arrow and setting them on their way.
🌹The Arba‘een walk proves that we cannot turn towards Him unless He wills it.
🔅🌼 Trial goes hand in hand with hardship 🌼🔅
🌹Comfort and trial do not go together. A trial usually entails either hardship or bidding farewell to pleasures and keeping one’s distance from them.
🌹For the Beloved’s pleasure, the lover embraces hardship and turns away from every pleasure that does not please the Beloved.
🌹The sweetness of hardship on the path of love and contentment is beyond description.
🌹The Beloved accompanies the lover on the way to Himself, and makes the lover’s hardship so sweet that it seems like pleasure—or even something greater.
🌹The Beloved is with you from the very start of the journey towards Him. Ah, what a wondrous secret!
🔅🌼 The beginning, middle and end of the trial 🌼🔅
🌹Usually, after the first stage of enduring hardship on the path to the Worshipped One, hardship changes its original nature and form. The Worshipped One breathes into the soul a spiritual delight beyond imagining.
🌹Take care at the first onset of hardship on the path to the Beloved; the beginning is the most crucial stage of the trial. Do not give up.
🌻🔆Al-Baqarah: 153 يا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ آمَنُوا اسْتَعينُوا بِالصَّبْرِ وَ الصَّلاةِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ مَعَ الصَّابِرينَ
🔆O you who believe! Seek help through patience and prayer. Surely God is with the patient.
🌹He is with you; He will increase your strength.
🔅🌼 Movement is love’s heartbeat 🌼🔅
🌹Servitude has no meaning without movement.
🌹Nor is movement worth anything without love.
🌹Knowledge and love are the two wings of every movement towards growth and perfection; they transform its colour, texture and beauty.
🌹Movement must be carried out with artistry; otherwise, it will have no pleasing rhythm.
🌹Beauty, fragrance, sweet rhythm, delight and more—these truly emerge when movement has meaning and purpose, and is shaped by wisdom, love and knowledge.
🌹The movement of leaves on one branch, in rhythm with the branches around it and with trees of every kind, reveals the order governing a system founded on knowledge and wisdom. No movement or sound disrupts another; each instead adds to the beauty and melody of the whole.
🔅🌼A wondrous attraction🌼🔅
🌹The Arbaeen journey, the pilgrimage to the shrine of Imam Hussein (peace be upon him), is a journey toward the greatest treasure of the Almighty Creator.
🌹It is an attraction that draws us in, with no explanation for our being drawn other than the attraction itself. Yet this attraction is not the end of the journey; it is only the beginning.
🌹This attraction is a grace bestowed by the Creator on one who sets out with nothing, without any means of their own, so that through it they may reach a goal beyond it: the highest communion and the experience of servanthood.
🔅🌼Always follow your heart🌼🔅
🌹Hussein’s resolve embraces every virtue, every attachment, aspiration and ideal of the way of Hussein.
🌹Let your feet never outpace your heart. Your feet must follow behind your heart; they must take their lead from it.
🔅🌼Do not let your heart falter🌼🔅
🌹When the heart falters, the feet lose their joy. The lover’s feet stay close to the heart. To walk with love is the art of pilgrimage.
🌹Every limb and faculty must follow a pure heart, so that the journey may be completed in purity.
🌹Otherwise, seeing and hearing and all the rest, even taking each step, will bring nothing beyond outward hardship and fatigue.
🌹How, then, can our feet become more Hussein-like than we are ourselves? Prayer and fasting are the same.
🔅🌼Hussein, ever unfolding🌼🔅
🌹Hussein is forever unfolding, ascending toward perfection, an ever-renewed interpretation of «هوالجمیل» «هو الاعلی» «هو کل یوم فی شأن» and «هو البدیع».
🌹We taste and savour Hussein in his beginnings and in his shadow, but we do not know his interpretation or deeper meaning. We take delight in him, yet fail to receive from him what is fitting to his stature.
🌹How astonishing are the wondrous new manifestations of Hussein! Hussein is a journey and a great mystery.
🌹We have been content with Hussein’s shadow and cut ourselves off from the greatness of his noble gifts.
🌹What would happen if Hussein were to unfold once more? O God, have You not unfolded him again and again?
🌷🔆 وَ فَتَقَ نُورَ الْحُسَيْنِ فَخَلَقَ مِنْهُ الْجِنَانَ وَ الْحُورَ الْعِينَ وَ الْحُسَيْنُ وَ اللَّهِ أَجَلُّ مِنَ الْجِنَانِ وَ الْحُورِ الْعِين[6]
🔅🌼The mystery of Hussein🌼🔅
🌹Each of the Imams is a master key; for humankind, they have opened the hidden chambers of their being, so that we may not deprive ourselves of knowing them.
🌹Hussein is ever renewed. In every moment and every year, what has the God of wondrous creation done with His Hussein? Will He show us?
🌹We remain at the very beginning of Hussein, at his mystery.
🌹God, the Author, is still writing His book of Hussein. He writes and writes, adding to its pages.
🌹The knower who adorns existence is at work upon Hussein’s countenance and character, and …
🌹The Lord has bestowed a new art upon Hussein’s soul, and Hussein has raised up a new art in servanthood. We delight in God’s artistry and in the beauty of Hussein’s melody.
🔅🌼Ignorance is blindness of the heart🌼🔅
🌹To appreciate a flower’s beauty requires knowledge.
🌹Knowledge of a flower makes it possible to perceive its beauty.
🌹Without such knowledge, its beauty cannot be perceived.
🌹A special relationship exists between a flower and the one who beholds it.
🌹A flower has a particular relationship to beauty: it truly bears beauty and carries its message. If the beholder can read the flower, they will perceive its beauty.
🌹The stronger your reading skills, the deeper your understanding.
🔅🌼 Reading the Rose 🌼🔅
🌹Why do so many animals, and some people, fail to appreciate the beauty of a flower? Because they cannot read the flower’s book.
🔅🌼 Reading the Prophet’s Household 🌼🔅
🌹Let us read the lives of the Ahl al-Bayt, peace be upon them, with insight, so that we may understand.
🌹Where are those who read and understand Husayn?
🌹How many words of Husayn have they read and understood?
🌹Where are those who read and understand the Qur’an? Where are those who read and understand the Prophet’s Household? Where are those who read and understand the verses?
🔅🌼 No Weariness in Devotion 🌼🔅
🌹From time to time, we must give ourselves a serious shake—a jolt of devotion—in our worship of God, so that we can break free from monotony and habit.
🌹From time to time, love needs to be stirred and renewed. Breaking free from monotony, weariness and laziness is essential to renewing our devotion.
🔅🌼 The Arbaeen Walk Is Training for the Awaited Advent 🌼🔅
🌹The Arbaeen march is a campaign in preparation for the advent.
🌹If the Imam of Our Time, peace be upon him, were suddenly to call, what would you do? Be ready at every moment.
🌻🔆Al-Mu’minun: 43 Ma تَسْبِقُ مِنْ أُمَّةٍ أَجَلَها وَ ما يَسْتَأْخِرُونَ
🔆No community can bring forward its appointed term, nor delay it.
🔅🌼 Knowledge Is the Rational Steed of Every Movement 🌼🔅
🌹Understanding comes before action. Action grounded in understanding has meaning; without understanding, it is meaningless—as different as music is from noise.
🌹Knowledge is the key to arrival.
🌹Between the knower and the known there is a special bond, hidden yet manifest.
🌹Knowing the Divine Essence is impossible, but knowing God’s names, attributes, signs and آثار is possible. Thus, a mysterious bond connects us to them, like the bond between the hand, the eye, the heart and so on, and the human soul.
🌹What is our relationship with the Qur’an, the Prophet’s Household and this world of existence? Are we all particles scattered from a single body, or are we all one body, unaware that we belong to it?
🔅🌼 The Movement of Devotion 🌼🔅
🌹The Husayni spiritual journey is an escape from stagnation in devotion. But we must not be content with a simple movement; it must become a mighty uprising in devotion to God, until it becomes a storm of devotion.
🌹Do not forget to breathe devotion.
🌹Devotion, too, can suffer a seizure, pain and illness. Emigration is an important part of the cure and helps bring our feelings into balance.
🌹Reviving the mind and heart, and renewing knowledge and wisdom, are duties incumbent on us at every moment.
🌹When the pulse begins beating, that is not the end; it is the beginning.
🔅🌼 Reading the Prophet’s Household 🌼🔅
🌹Reading one another means coming to know one another: seeing, hearing and understanding one another.
🌹A child and their parents read one another; love and feeling are the tools of this reading. Yet each can read only part of the other.
🌹The same is true of spouses, other family and kinship ties, and the relationships among all creatures.
🌹Those who eat and those who are eaten read one another, as do the observer and the scene observed, the ear and the melody or song, and so on.
🔅🌼 The Kaabas of Love 🌼🔅
🌹Imagine the Kaabas of love as gateways leading to the Beloved. Learn the Beloved’s tastes and secrets.
🌹Each Kaaba is a school, a place of preparation and a place of adornment, so that you may reach the Beloved in all goodness.
🌹The Ka‘bas of love are those who embody love: those who have tasted the love of the Beloved and given it its due. Through them, we draw near to love without hardship and connect ourselves to it.
🔅🌼 The Letters of Love 🌼🔅
🌹When we place the signs of the Beloved together, we reach the Greatest Sign. When we gather the letters of love, we arrive at the word “love.” They are the warmth of love—let yourself be warmed by them.
🌹O God, grant me the learning to read each of Your Imams and saints, so I may read all the inscriptions of their souls. Make me learned in each one of them.
🔅🌼 A Gift of Reward 🌼🔅
🌹O God, multiply my gifts, prayers, fasts, acts of worship and supplications by Your generosity, majesty, grace, sublimity, and all that is Yours.
🌹Be either a pure seed, or pure soil—or both—or…
🔅🌼 Root-Level Retribution 🌼🔅
🌹He is the Avenger, present at Karbala.
🌹The legacy of Yazidism—the genes and spirit of Yazidism—burns within the souls of some. Let us purge ourselves of this virus.
🌹Whose souls carry the virus of Yazidism?!
🌹The Imam of our time is the slayer of the virus of Yazidism. He is the true divine Avenger.
🔅🌼 I Float in the Soul of My Imam 🌼🔅
🌻🔆Ya-Sin: 12 إِنَّا نَحْنُ نُحْيِ الْمَوْتى وَ نَكْتُبُ ما قَدَّمُوا وَ آثارَهُمْ وَ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ أَحْصَيْناهُ في إِمامٍ مُبينٍ
🔆Indeed, We give life to the dead, and record what they have sent ahead and all the traces they have left behind; and We have encompassed all things in a manifest Imam!
🌹Are we held in the memory of the Imam of our time, with all the information about our being and our deeds?
🌹Am I within the being of my Imam of the time?! Whatever He wills affects us—but do we affect His Eminence?
🔅🌼 A Matchless Signature 🌼🔅
🌹I have received your signature—what a beautiful signature you have!
🌹A signature bearing the name al-Hadi, another bearing the name al-Hasan al-Askari, and so on…
🔅🌼 The Twofold Network of Existence 🌼🔅
🌹There is only one source of wickedness, and every wicked being is connected to it. All beings belong either to the network of reason or to the network of ignorance: they are either rational or ignorant!
🌹Yazid is ignorance, and the Yazidis are ignorant. Ignorance will be avenged, and whoever is connected to it will be destroyed.
🔅🌼 Touching the Ahl al-Bayt 🌼🔅
🌹The shrine’s grille extends as far as the horizon of its visitors.
🌹There is no grille more delicate than the visitor who truly knows the one being visited.
🌹Touching the saints is an expression of love before God.
🔅🌼 The Arduous Journey of Spiritual Practice 🌼🔅
🌻🔆Al-Inshiqaq: 6 Ya أَيُّهَا الْإِنْسانُ إِنَّكَ كادِحٌ إِلى رَبِّكَ كَدْحاً فَمُلاقيهِ
🔆O human being! You toil and strive toward your Lord, and you will meet Him!
🌹The arduous journey is the most precious path of servitude.
🌹My God, indeed I strive toward You.
🔅🌼 The Etiquette of the Pilgrim 🌼🔅
🌹Every pilgrim can serve: through good character, consideration and selflessness, sharing food and rest, spreading what is good, and so on.
🌹Every pilgrim is a banner.
🌹A pilgrim without true understanding is like a heedless traveller, an unwelcome nuisance.
🌹Every pilgrim is either adornment or disgrace.
🌹A pilgrim without true understanding is present at a university for which they have no aptitude.
🌹O God, look not upon me, the pilgrim, but upon the sanctity of the one I have come to visit.
🌹Accept me, not as a pilgrim in my deficiency, but rather in the perfection of one who has visited.
🌹O Lord, set my heart and mind in order and tune them up.
🌹The sea whose jewels are never caught laments. Where is the fisherman who is a knower and a lover?!
🌹We have reached the ship of all the worlds, but we do not know where its key is so that we might press it; we are left waiting—بئر معطلة قصر مشيد.
🌹Husayn is not for intercession from sin, but for not sinning.⟦5🔅🌼 The Ship Beyond Time and Space 🌼🔅
🌹For this fast-moving and restless world, a super-speed ship is needed. To grasp all of time and space instantly, we need a ship beyond time and space; within time, one can encompass only that moment, and only a segment of space.
🌹Our Alawite ship brings us to the Husayni ship.⟦8🔅🌼 Movement, Living and Dead 🌼🔅
🌹Feet with breaths and …
🌹Why is the world in motion? Why?
🌹Movement is a sign of an important matter and a mark of invitation.
🌹The destination is clear; without a destination, movement is meaningless; what is going to happen? Something particular is taking place; one must reach the destination with an open heart; the universe is revolving aboard the ship of movement!
🌹Movement is a script written upon the body of existence.
🌹Let us not diminish the speed of the holy presences. Our slowness diminishes their speed, for we are bad companions and sluggish.
🌹Every sound is movement, but only beautiful movements are melodious.
🌹We have blind movement and awake, living movement.
🌹If you bring yourself to the light of Husayn and abide in it, then no speed will outstrip you, and you will outpace the speed of the soul. Mingle yourself with his light. Before your body reaches Husayn, deliver your light, your heart.
🌹Would that on every journey we reach the destination; on most travels and migrations we merely travel and move without reaching the destination, or at the destination we fail to grasp the destination itself, its aims and its wisdom.⟦19🔅🌼 The destination is the true beginning, not the end 🌼🔅
🌹Karbala and Ashura are the school of heavenly and divine jihad, after the jihad…
🌹Arba’in showed that Karbala and Ashura are in motion.
🌹The destination is a place of boiling, not of sleeping. Boiling is for breath and fervour.
🌹The Greater Ashura lies ahead!!!
🌹Microscopic and macroscopic war is continuously underway.
🌹Let us imagine a world without war, without impurity and ignorance and Satan—and what the quality of the test would be.
🌹War will take shape in dimensions and parallel worlds!!!
🌹Between reason and ignorance and their armies. One must attain pure purification and sifting. The conjecture is that in the beyond-time, on that other side of light and darkness, this event occurred. If we do not purify ourselves, we will be harmed.
🌹The greatest enemy of our Imam of the Time is ignorance; whoever harbours any of it in his heart has drawn a sword against his Imam of the Time, however little it may be.⟦29🔅🌼 Karbala, the Appointed Place of God 🌼🔅
🌹With a sound heart, at God’s appointed place, we must be present at the shrine of Husayn.
🌹In the heart of God, with a sound heart, may we attain the meeting with God.
🌹The Arba’in flood leads to the Husayni seas. This flood flows involuntarily toward its centre.
🌹Every movement has a moon; the journey alone has a meaning; the spirit of the journey is the life of the journey.
🌹We have dead movement and living movement.
🌹Beautiful movement flows in order and in orbit.⟦36🔅🌼 The Arsh-like Parable of Arba’in 🌼🔅
🌹There is no doubt that the Arbaeen walk, too, has celestial counterparts and non-earthly analogues.
🌹Karbala itself, and the master of Karbala, likewise have many counterparts.
🌹An earthly journey affects the celestial realm, and the celestial affects the earthly; each horizon influences the others.
🌹Every journey leaves its mark across the different realms.
🌹The flower of Husayn’s beauty
🌹Dust upon the path through the heavens
🌹A wretch in the sphere of the Light of all spheres
🌹Do not withhold your meeting
🔅🌼 A Celestial Step 🌼🔅
🌹How many celestial and spiritual steps are contained in each earthly step?! How many light-years, celestial and spiritual, does it span?!
🌹I believe the hands of the Yazidis and Shimr never reached Husayn. How could the lowly gain access to the Most High?!
🔅🌼 The Hem Is Long, the Hand Is Short 🌼🔅
🌹Husayn is the one slain for God; his martyrdom was witnessed by the Divine Witness, and he himself is a martyr.
🌹His blessed body may be accessible to those of this world, but only the dwellers of the spiritual realm can reach his lofty station. His singularity is beyond even that.
🔅🌼 Capacity and Endurance 🌼🔅
🌹The hardship endured on the Arbaeen walk proves that the pilgrim is capable of carrying out all of God’s commands. Most divine commands are far easier than bearing the rigours of a journey such as Arbaeen. Love, however, makes every hardship bearable and inspires us to welcome difficulties for the sake of the Beloved. Yet unless knowledge is joined to this striving love, all that remains is aching feet.
🌹Simply add knowledge to love, and it will work miracles.
🔅🌼 Love, Sweet and Fierce 🌼🔅
🌹I saw Husayn and Abbas, peace be upon them, taken captive—but at the hands of some of their own companions, those who call themselves lovers of the Ahl al-Bayt. How bitter it is to endure captivity after martyrdom!!! Ignorant love is more painful and more dangerous than Shimr’s sword.
🌹Love sets us in motion, strengthens our patience and overcomes hardships. But without knowledge and understanding to guide it, the journey may lead not to a flower, but to a thorn.
🌹Even now, you can help Husayn.
🔅🌼 Journeying Through the Greater World 🌼🔅
🌹As we walk to make the pilgrimage, let us journey through the heart, the intellect and the spirit; let our souls strive through the spiritual realm to reach the inner pilgrimage.
🌹Though I have no learning in Husayn, I am madly in love with him. What would we do if we truly knew him?! What tumult there would be, what miracles!!!
🌹We find Husayn in our hearts, yet do not understand his interpretation. Still, we catch a glimpse of him and taste something of his reality. What would it be like if we truly knew him?
🔅🌼 Kinds of Love 🌼🔅
🌹Love with a little savour
🌹Honeyed love
🌹Rational love
🌹Ignorant love
🌹Guided love
🌹Love grounded in knowledge and understanding, and joined to the unseen
🔅🌼 Journeying Through Husayn 🌼🔅
🌹The march has ended, but the journey of the soul remains. The journey through Husayn remains. How proudly the path carries itself—why should it not? How many kisses it has received! Is it not the carpet beneath Husayn’s feet?
🌹A simple act, when joined by a gathering such as this, keeps the furnace of martyrdom burning. If it is infused with a hundredfold of understanding, it will make this world and the Hereafter a stage for its miracles.
🌹If only Najaf were a town of Ali!
🌹If only Karbala were a town of Husayn!
🌹If only we loved the Prophet’s Family as they themselves would wish to be loved, rather than in the way we choose to love them.
🌹Let us love them as they wish, not merely imitate love for them on our own terms.
🔅🌼Husayn آباد🌼🔅
🌹Until the heart is made a home for God, it cannot become a home for Ali, for Husayn, for the Prophet’s Family, or for the Qur’an. Otherwise, all that remains is the toil of ruin. An ignorant pilgrim is a burden to the one he visits. How can a pilgrim bring mercy to the one he visits—or become a burden to him?!
🌹A pilgrim should be a showcase for the virtues of the one he visits.
🌼Ali Sa‘i (Abdullah Mishkat) 110.141 (903)🌼
[1] Kāmil al-Ziyārāt; text; p. 228Ibn Qulawayh, al-Dār al-Murtadawiyya, Najaf Ashraf, first edition, 1356 Shamsi.
[2] Dīwān of the Commander of the Faithful, peace be upon him; p. 175Maybudi, Husayn ibn Mu‘in al-Din / Zamani, Dar Nida al-Islam Publishing, Qom, first edition, 1411 AH.
[3] Al-Kāfī (Islamic edition), vol. 6, p. 295Kulaynī, Islamic Publications Office, Tehran, fourth edition, 1407 AH.
[4] Al-Kāfī (Islamic edition), vol. 2, p. 89Kulaynī, Islamic Publications Office, Tehran, fourth edition, 1407 AH.
[5] Al-Kāfī (Islamic edition), vol. 2, p. 91Kulaynī, Islamic Publications Office, Tehran, fourth edition, 1407 AH.
ل[6] Al-Faḍāʾil (by Ibn Shādhān al-Qummī); p. 129Ibn Shādhān al-Qummī, Riḍā, Qom, second edition, 1363 Shamsi.
