Mohamed

“You must resist the common urge toward the comforting narrative of divine law, toward fairy tales that imply some irrepressible justice. The enslaved were not bricks in your road, and their lives were not chapters in your redemptive history. They were people turned to fuel for the American machine. Enslavement was not destined to end, and it is wrong to claim our present circumstance—no matter how improved—as the redemption for the lives of people who never asked for the posthumous, untouchable glory of dying for their children. Our triumphs can never compensate for this.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“The pursuit of knowing was freedom to me, the right to declare your own curiosities and follow them through all manner of books. I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free. Slowly, I was discovering myself.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates

“شوق بتحصيل الوصال يزول والاشتياق مع الوصال يكون *** إن التخيل للفراق يديمه عند اللقاء فربه مغبون *** من قال هون صعبة قلنا له ما كل صعب في الوجود يهون *** هو من صفات العشق لا من غيره والعشق داء في القلوب دفين”
― ابن عربي

“Desire

I desire you
more than food
and drink

My body
my senses
my mind
hunger for your taste

I can sense your presence
in my heart
although you belong
to all the world

I wait
with silent passion
for one gesture
one glance
from you”
― Rumi, The Love Poems of Rumi