Ibrahim al-Koni > Quotes

“إن المكان المناسب الوحيد للإنسان النزيه في عالمنا هو السجن”
― Ibrahim al-Koni

“Have you understood now that prophesying is not entertainment but hope?”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, The Seven Veils of Seth: A Modern Arabic Novel from Libya

“I don’t love those who love me. I love those whom I love. Do you know why?” He did not wait for a response but continued as if to himself: “Whoever loves me places fetters around my neck. Anyone I love gets shackles around his neck.” “Amazing! I’ve always thought we fell captive to those we love, not to those who love us.” “That’s the logic of the masses. That’s the language of weaklings, who don’t know why they love the ones they love. They have no strength or ability to stop loving those they loved when they realize the truth about them.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, The Seven Veils of Seth: A Modern Arabic Novel from Libya

“Are you a prophet?” His companion replied immediately, “All of us are prophets. Anyone with a will is a messenger.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, The Seven Veils of Seth: A Modern Arabic Novel from Libya

“Gnosis, as you know, is my veil. Gnosis is one of my most important names.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, The Seven Veils of Seth: A Modern Arabic Novel from Libya

“The desert was a merciless place. When the curse of shame sticks to a person there, he is stricken from memory.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, Gold Dust

“Vows are destined to be forgotten. We never remember our vows until after disasters strike.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, The Seven Veils of Seth: A Modern Arabic Novel from Libya

“He had never known what it meant until now—after tasting life in the oases, after wrapping himself in devilish chains like everybody else does in the world. He had traded his freedom for a noose and a doll and an illusion, and told himself the same story as everybody else, "This is what we found our forefathers doing.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni

“If they bragged about their fathers when he was present, he would tell them, “We should not call a father a ‘father,’ unless he’s absent.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, The Seven Veils of Seth: A Modern Arabic Novel from Libya

“Wisdom is the poetry of the wise, and poetry is the wisdom of the poets.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, Anubis: A Desert Novel

“الصحراوي يتغطَّى بالسماء المرشوشة بالنجوم، ويتوسد العراء المفتوح . ينتقل كالغزال ، ولا يرْكع لمكان . أنّه طليق مثل الطير وليس رَهينه تَنْتظر حلول موسم الحصاد في الكوخ.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, من أساطير الصحراء

“With pain equal to death, with death itself, they had bought their lives and were born anew. Today, how could he let family and famine betray this divine gift that had joined their fates? How had the woman so blinded him from seeing his foul deed for what it was? If not for her, he would not have forgotten to fulfill his pledge to Tanit. If not for her, the curse would not have fallen on him—the curse that blinded him from seeing what he was doing. If not for her, his son would never have come into this world to shackle his neck and hands and feet with chains stronger than iron. This son had not just shackled limbs, but had paralyzed his mind and cloaked his heart. Sons may be the security of fathers—but they are also their undoing. For those who love, life exists only in death. You cannot hold the heart of the beloved without having first lost your own. Jalal al-Din al-Rumi, from the Couplets”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, Gold Dust

“Jamais seremos livres, meu amo, se não entregarmos aquilo que desejamos mais do que se deve como oferenda ao Invisível!”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, الورم

“My god - why did the innocent always fall at the hands of the most malevolent creatures? Why do such people kill every messenger that is sent to them?”
― Ibrahim al-Koni

“I expected you to say this, because you’re a man. Man’s misfortune is that he cannot tell the difference between a woman and the shadow of a woman.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, The Seven Veils of Seth: A Modern Arabic Novel from Libya

“A sense of love or the desire to avenge spilt blood are merely the excuses they invent in order to lay their hands on the spoils.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni

“الصبر على البلاء هو الحجاب الوحيد الذي يحمي من الأشرار والوحوش”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, The Bleeding of the Stone

“Quem ama algo mais do que se deve tornar-se parte dele, queira ou não queira!”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, الورم

“Jamais existiu honraria perpétua. Nada jamais é perpétuo. Neste deserto, não passamos de crianças que se divertem com títeres!”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, الورم

“I grew up in the vast expanse of the desert, in this unlimited emptiness that extends into the infinite, reaching out to the horizon where it meets an eternally clear, equally bare sky. Together they form one body, and in fact I have always been looking for the secret of their union that resembles the fusion of two lovers in the intoxication of love. As a child I sought God in this fusion, and through it, with the understanding of a child, I understood the Unity of Being.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni

“I did not want to have a descendent to recite an elegy one day for me in the desert.” “What’s that?” “I wouldn’t have acquired a reputation for cunning tactics had I not refused to leave a trace behind me in the desert.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, The Seven Veils of Seth: A Modern Arabic Novel from Libya

“Nearby, a few paces from where he had fallen, a gray she-ass gazed at him with inquisitive eyes. He detected in her look a mysterious smile. In this mysterious smile he discerned a message of salvation.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, The Seven Veils of Seth: A Modern Arabic Novel from Libya

“الصحراء كنز. مكافأة لمن أراد النجاة من استعباد العبد وأذى العباد”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, The Bleeding of the Stone

“A escuridão do vazio é mil vezes mais fácil do que a escuridão do coração!”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, الورم

“A man's strength isn't in his body. It's in his heart.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, نزيف الحجر

“Os dias apresentam amiúde provas de que aquilo que enxergamos como castigo não tarda a se revelar redenção, bem como aquilo que enxergamos como redenção constantemente se revela castigo. Às vezes, os desígnios do Invisível devem ser lidos de revés, tais como as profecias dos sacerdotes.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, الورم

“Quem ama algo mais do que se deve tornar-se parte dele, queira ou não queira!" "Jamais seremos livres, meu amo, se não entregarmos aquilo que desejamos mais do que se deve como oferenda ao Invisível!”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, الورم

“May I give you another piece of advice?” When he nodded his bare head, she declared, “Be careful never to expose your head in a woman’s presence again.” He was quick to defend himself: “I thought it shameful for a man to remove his veil in the desert, but not in the water.” Temarit stepped back while Tamanokalt moved forward to elucidate the saying’s secret meaning: “If men realized how repulsive their faces are, they would never take their veils off.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, The Seven Veils of Seth: A Modern Arabic Novel from Libya

“An image! A sign! The language of the Law is metaphorical. This is another proof that I hit the mark when I called you offspring of the jinn, not the daughters of human beings.” “What is the Law save words of advice from the jinn to the desert’s inhabitants?” “Really?” “Have you forgotten that Mandam, the desert people’s forefather, wasn’t expelled from Waw until the day his mouth devoured a fruit from the orchard?” “Oh . . . Mandam. . . .” “The mouth is the weak spot that led to our expulsion from the orchard and turned our world into a desert. Do you know the status of the mouth in customary law?” “I’m not a diviner; how would I know?” “A man’s mouth is comparable in every respect to the secret a woman conceals between her legs.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, The Seven Veils of Seth: A Modern Arabic Novel from Libya

“No one loves his children as much as a nomad. A wanderer admittedly does not really choose to bring children into his world, but he loves his children when they arrive in this world much more than those idiots who pride themselves on their love of the earth.”
― Ibrahim al-Koni, The Seven Veils of Seth: A Modern Arabic Novel from Libya